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Today I'll be talking about something that I’ve seen happening to many immigrants, especially the ones who come to Canada after having a successful career in their home country. Our EGO. Hello everyone, so the topic today is related to our ego. In simple words, without getting into psychology or other fields where I’m not an expert. The ego is simply put as an inflated feeling of pride that makes us stand out when we compare ourselves to others. So, having an ego is not a bad thing, it can help us realize our accomplishments, make us feel confident when taking on new challenges like a new job that we might have never performed but we believe we can do it. However, taking it to the extreme, it can be a bad thing. Have you ever heard that someone has a big ego? Like those people at work that even though they may have a lower title than you think they are better than you and everyone around them? I’m sure we all have at least one of those at our offices, I know I do. But, when you move to a new country, your ego plays a big role. I’ve seen people very frustrated after months or even years in Canada because they haven’t been able to get a job. When we talk about it, I always ask them what do they do? And most, if not every time, they tell me they are Directors or Vice Presidents of something. If I’ve learned anything after living in Toronto for almost 8 years is that it doesn’t matter what you did back in your home country, it doesn’t matter if you were the VP of Sales. You’ll be lucky if you get an entry-level position in your field. There are many skills that companies here look for, a lot of them are hard-skills. But some are soft-skills and, especially for middle and upper management positions, those are key. Let me give you an example. Before I moved to Toronto, I was a Senior Project Manager managing a huge project. The budget was over 6 million dollars and I had to coordinate with teams all over the world. I managed the budget, scope, timelines, resources, etc. Everything! When I came to Canada as a student and tried to find an internship at a company, no one cared if I had managed such a big project. I thought it looked great in my resume, for sure, I was really proud of it. It was the biggest project I’ve ever managed and I had metrics and everything to show that it had been successful. When the time came to start looking for internship opportunities, I was so confident that I would get anyone I wanted that I decided to be very picky about the positions. I was certain that any of the companies would fight to have an intern like me. But, that was not the case. My ego had led me to believe that I was better than I really was. My ego held me back from applying for all internships and only picking three of them. After almost a month of not receiving any response, I started to worry. I didn’t understand why a company wouldn’t want me if I was so good! So I sought council with one of my professors and he saw my resume and said, this is not what companies are looking for. They are looking for a recent grad with almost no experience. That’s why they’re not calling you. I have to say I was shocked. My ego had grown so much, that something so small as not finding an internship hurt me so deep that made me question my professional life. Fortunately, a couple of weeks before the deadline, I secured an internship with a not-so-good company, but at that point, I had no option. I had to say yes or I wouldn’t be able to move to the next term of the certificate. Had I been less cocky and left my ego on the side, maybe I would have landed a better internship. Somewhere where I could have learned something, instead of wasting months of my life copying and pasting data from excel to PowerPoint. But I wasn’t, and I learned my lesson. After I left that company, I searched for jobs and decided to be open to interviewing for Junior Project Manager or even Project Coordinator positions.