How do I secure a job offer from this company that I worked for two years during my master studies?

Question

I have been working as an R & D engineer in a company for the past 2.5 years during my study. I recently graduated from university and was hired by the same company as a temporary full-time employee. They promised to give me a permanent job offer after graduation.

They still do not give me an offer and they say they want to keep me as a temporary employee for another 1-2 years.(It actually turned out that they hold my offer letter as someone wants me to be temporary employee rather than a permanent employee)

Meanwhile, I noticed they hired another male student who just graduated and did not have his PGWP letter yet. They gave him a permanent offer with a promotion. We were 3 students working during studies 2 male and 1 female, all two males got a permanent job offer, except me. I am not saying they are discriminating based on gender, but I can see obvious discrimination here and It does bother me a lot. They actually asked me to provide a PGWP letter which took 3/4 months of processing time. However, they processed my colleague's hiring without any PGWP letter. Do I need to quit my job and start looking for a better job?

Answer 1

Do I need to quit my job and start looking for a better job?

You should start looking for a better job, then quit after signing a contract.

I'm not sure if you can actually prove that the discrimination is based on your gender (they can come up with other reasons, if challenged), but even if you obtain the permanent job by going that route, do you feel the path forward will be smooth? You have already invested lot of time by waiting for the result, now use your time and effort to find a better opportunity, where they'll value your knowledge, not based on your gender.

Disclaimer: IANAL, so if you want legal advice on how to handle this, better to talk to a professional.

Answer 2

How do I secure a job offer from this company that I worked for two years during my master studies? ... Do I need to quit my job and start looking for a better job?

1. Do not quit. (Yet.)
2. Stop worrying about securing this position.
3. Start job hunting.

The first bit of advice is to never quit rashly just because something feels unfair; spite them instead by continuing to take a paycheck whilst you carefully plan your exit.

Secondly, it sounds like they have passed you over for promotion and are planning on keeping you temporary (presumably at the same pay grade) for the foreseeable future... so stop worrying about securing this current job where you seem to be undervalued.

Thirdly, since you are undervalued at your current job... start looking for better prospects elsewhere. If conditions improve at your current job you can always stop the search; if not then you'll have a head start on finding better alternatives.

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After graduation when I asked about the job offer... they told me that I need to bring my PGWP letter when it is approved... [after 3 months waiting on that PGWP approval and another 2 months waiting on HR] ... they say they want to keep me as a temporary employee for another 1-2 years.(It actually turned out that they hold my offer letter as someone wants me to be temporary employee rather than a permanent employee)...

I am not a lawyer, nor am I in any way familiar with Canadian foreign-worker laws, but...

This sounds like a potential red flag. Sure, there are often hassles involved with navigating the bureaucratic paperwork involved with foreign-worker visas, but usually those hassles come in the form of delays on the government's side. That said, there might be two different kinds of scenarios where your employer would deliberately choose to delay your paperwork:

• Your employer is holding the paperwork hostage.
• Your employer is attempting to maximize your student-visa and worker-visa timeframe.

The first scenario would be a major red flag. In this case the employer is basically holding your PGWP paperwork so that they can use it as leverage. You don't like the pay in the job offer they hand you 2-years from now? Then good luck finding a different job to sign similar PGWP paperwork with just days to go before your current visa runs out.

The second scenario might actually be to your benefit (depending on the specifics of Canadian visas and immigration). Presumably, your employer knows how much longer you are allowed to live-and-work in Canada under whatever student-visa laws currently apply to you, furthermore they likely know how long you'll have to live-and-work in Canada once that PGWP paperwork is submitted and you get a new work-visa. By delaying things as long as possible they are effectively extending the time period that you are allowed to live-and-work in Canada under these two visas - and time-accrued living/working in Canada might just be useful when applying for permanent residence, etc.

That said, there's really no way of knowing which situation applies to you... though it does seem a bad sign that your employer isn't keeping you informed if they are simply attempting to help "extend" your visas.

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Meanwhile, I noticed they hired another male student who just graduated... They gave him a permanent offer with a promotion. We were 3 students working during studies 2 male and 1 female, all two males got a permanent job offer, except me... they processed my colleague's hiring without any PGWP letter[!]

While it appears clear that you are not being valued as much as your other colleagues... proving that it is due to gender-based discrimination would be quite difficult. If you believe that it must be discrimination, then talk to a lawyer about your odds of winning such a case, but from a practical standpoint it'd likely be easier to move on to a new job.

Furthermore, have you talked to these colleagues of yours? Maybe there are some important details that are going on that are too hard to see "from afar". Like maybe your colleague didn't have any PGWP hassles because he sent the paperwork in months ago? Or he's married to a Canadian woman and that paperwork cleared recently so he doesn't need to worry about the work-visa paperwork at all. Or maybe he had a competing job offer and your company game him the promotion as a counter-offer?

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All in all, my advice would be to start looking for jobs now to see what your options are; if things improve at your current job then you can always decided to stay... but getting some information can't hurt either way.

Answer 3

obvious discrimination here

Maybe they are discriminating based on what you are (a woman), but maybe not. Discrimination based on who you are is common, and pretty much required if you want to run a successful business. The burden would be on you to prove it is the former and not the latter, and suing your way to a job is probably not a winning strategy, even though it may be warranted (I wish this were not the case).

We don't know why they hired the other candidate as a direct rather than a temp. Maybe they are a better candidate than you. All we do know is how you have been treated. Only you can answer how that works for you. Personally, I would take their actions as an indicator that they did not think I was a good worker, and I would look for another job. But only you can decide if temp work is good, if you think that full-time-direct is likely, if the risks of being a temp are acceptable, etc.

I think you should keep their temp job but immediately start looking for another one. Don't expect them to start acting decently after they've acting so poorly.

Answer 4

Accept temporary position, and then look for another job

First of all, if their offer is not so bad (salary too low, some unacceptable NDA and similar ...) I think you should accept it. You will have employment, salary, food on the table and visa (at least for a time being).

This will give you some time to cool down and relax a bit. Then, after few weeks, when you are level-headed, start looking for better options in your field. You will have an advantage of not needing the job immediately, plus having another bullet point in your resume.

Meanwhile, in your current job, you could discretely ask around why they did not offer you permanent position, what is the deal with those two other guys etc ... Perhaps they dislike women (I doubt) , perhaps someone dislikes you personally, perhaps these two other guys are simply better than you ... And who knows, maybe they offer you permanent position and raise if you prove yourself further.

In any case, do not make rash decisions, act in your own interest, leave job only if you have better option.