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I heard it's got one of the best job markets in Canada. I live in Vancouver and am fresh out of school, looking for a job in I.T. Many of the job postings here ask for experience and I don't have any. Only the certificates (A+ and Network+)
I thought if I move to a more obscure location in Canada, the standards for hiring would be a bit lower(and the cost of living), I could gain my experience there and come back to Van in a year or two?
Funny, I'm in IT just starting out and a lot of the opportunities ended up existing out West in Calgary.
Kingston itself is a nice city. The old downtown has a lot of history and nice architecture, and the setting of the city is very inviting. A lot of the other parts of the city are rather old and dull from what I remember from several years ago when I visited regularly.
When it comes to your plan, I think you need to be mindful of the fact that a smaller and more obscure market doesn't necessarily mean less competition. The greatest thing that you can do as an IT professional is to be able to do some form of co-op program or internship during or immediately after school if possible so that you can point to however many months/years of relevant experience before hitting the market. If it's too late to do that then I can see how moving markets might help since Vancouver looked rather sparse, however make sure that you have opportunities lined up before taking the plunge to Kingston.
Kingston has a college with some computer programs which may also saturate the entry-level opportunities.
As someone who just spent the better part of a year keeping an eye on the job market for IT (networking and sysadmin), I'd either consider Calgary or Mississauga. Those two cities have a lot of work and constituted a lot of the opportunities that I saw, and for that matter places like Waterloo, Brampton, etc... also have quite a few tech companies. I had a few offers from companies in the GTA and Waterloo, and much of my class found jobs in London, Waterloo, and the GTA. Of course living in Calgary or the GTA means a higher cost of living, but if you can get in at one of the many large companies that operate out of these cities then your income will more than compensate.
The jobs are out there, any of those markets would probably be more fulfilling. If you can skip having to start out at a small joe-blow company out in Kingston you should try to. It might be easier to accept a lower entry-level job than to sit it out and wait for something better, but it's certainly much easier to move up the ladder after working at that harder-to-get job as opposed to trying with experience at an obscure company.
Kingston is a University / Prision / Military town.
These students, prisioners, and military probably make up 50% of the population. Real talk.
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