Reminder: Permits/Required Online Job Posting
The Department of Workforce Development said they “would like to remind all employers that, with the implementation of Bermuda’s new Work Permit Policy on March 1st 2015, all employers are now required to advertise all available positions [prior to applying for a Short Term or Standard Work Permit] for a minimum of eight consecutive days on the Bermuda Job Board at bermudajobboard.bm.
A spokesperson said, “The Work Permit Policy [Section 3.7] also requires that in addition to advertising on the Bermuda Job Board, employers filling vacant posts for ‘Restricted Job Categories’ must check directly with the Department of Workforce Development for a suitable candidate before applying for a work permit application.
“Restricted Job Categories include: Bank Teller; General Bartender [customer facing]; Carpet Installer; Commercial Cleaner; Entertainer/Musician; Fisherman; Photographer; Technical Salesperson; Travel Agent/Consultant; General Carpenter; Administrative Assistant; Room Attendant; Kitchen Porter; Dish/Pot Washer/Kitchen Assistants or roles similar thereto; Landscape Gardener [Entry Level]; and General Mason.
“The Bermuda Job Board is an online platform available to Bermudians seeking employment or a change in career in a user‐friendly and interactive manner. Its main objective is to consolidate and centralize jobs available in the Bermuda market and allow job-seekers to explore hundreds of local jobs from the convenience of their laptop.
“There are many advantages of the Bermuda Job Board:
- It’s free;
- Online Recruitment is quick and easy;
- There is a broad spectrum of available jobs;
- It provides employers with access to the most suitable and trained job seekers;
- It allows for a better chance of success [as the ad runs as long as you desire];
- Online recruitment gives you a wider audience to choose from;
- It is easy and user friendly;
- You can tailor your resume for specific jobs.
“Once employers register and login to the Bermuda Job Board they will be able to create job opportunities, view candidate applications and search the database for suitable candidates,” explained the Director of the Department of Workforce Development George Outerbridge. “Candidates who have registered can search for jobs, create a profile and upload supporting documentation.
“I encourage all individuals looking for work to register on the Bermuda Job Board and at the department in order to increase your chances for finding available job opportunities.”
“It should be noted that applying on the Bermuda Job Board does not replace the requirement to actually register on the Department’s internal database – they are two separate processes,” a spokesperson added.
“The Department of Workforce Development will provide support to both employers and candidates as they become familiar with this new tool.
“For assistance with using the Bermuda Job Board please contact the Department of Workforce Development helpdesk directly at 297-7714 or by email to dwd@gov.bm.”
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ensuring that potential employers advertise for 8 consecutive days makes sense: just went online to bermudajobboard.bm – great site.
transparency where you need it…
Cheap labor flood gates are open
negative attitude with no solutions to provide.
Typical Mockingjay respone. Nothing positive to say, just negative trash talking with no alternative options, comparisons, thoughts, solutions or some explanation as to how this is not a better option than what we had before?
Don’t get bent out off shape, its a worldwide thing.
Cheap labor is an epidemic and diminishes healthy workers rights that have been established by our for fathers.
Your subliminal stereotypical name speaks for itself.
It”s also a great way for employers to increase the amount of junk mail hitting their email inbox.
Any employer using this so-called service will know that they can expect to get bombed by dozens of totally unsuitable candidates who have applied absolutely no thought or effort to their applications before submitting them.
The recruiter is, however, still required to waste their time vetting, filtering and disqualifying them before pursuing more appropriate recruitment channels to find the resources that they need.
Oh you poor thing, you will actually have to process some more applications before you disqualify them and hire a foreigner.
Actually RM’s reality & yours relies on a utopia of honest employers. If an employer is set on hiring or keeping a permit worker in a position they just highlight the emails and press delete. This is what can happen in an ill thought out immigration system.
The previous government approved the most permits ever despite it being a time when local unemployment reach it’s peak and many IBs were leaving our shores. The new government either doesn’t realize that this happened or doesn’t care & would let it keep happening.
In countries where the system has more thought put into it they realize that there’s some jobs any high school graduate can learn and those where a proper degree is needed. They craft their immigration laws based on this knowledge and not what the “stakeholders” tell them because they know there’s no such thing as a utopia of honest employers.
It’s actually quite difficult to obtain a work permit, especially if many Bermudians have applied for the job. So it really is a waste of time to have to demonstrate why several applications are irrelevant because the applicants have no experience.
As for keeping a permit worker in a position, that just makes business sense. Why would you want to replace an employee if they are doing a good job? There is no Bermudian qualified to take my role, since there is no Bermudian with 5 years experience in my role in my company.
Well you and your boss continue to make sure there never will be.
The 11,330 permits issued contradicts your point especially in such a small area with a limited amount of businesses. If it was so difficult to obtain a permit the number would be far less.
Your statement, “ There is no Bermudian qualified to take my role, since there is no Bermudian with 5 years experience in my role in my company.” is a fallacy that would take more than your ego to be a fact. Makes me wonder who really are the ones who feel they’re entitled.
The simple answer to your question, “Why would you want to replace an employee if they are doing a good job?” is because it is the law and has been for quite some time now. Employers know this when they apply for a permit and if they wanted to be a law abiding citizen wouldn’t flaunt it. What you are doing is trying to condone this illegit action for your own selfishness while using prejudices against Bermudians to justify it.
Even I with many more years experience than 5 I still strive to gain knowledge of new technologies and modernized practices in my field because I know in this fast paced world a young Bermudian straight out of university would have more modernized methods to offer if I relied on my past experience alone. This is why I don’t hesitate to train young locals under me since I’m always steps ahead.
I wonder what you would do if an entry level position was given to a Bermudian under you. Would you help them out or throw them under the bus with any chance you got so your employer would let go your potential competition? Now my prejudice are getting the best of me as I feel you would chose the later.
RM is spot on. Every ad I have placed on the JobBoard has resulted in high numbers of applicants who don’t possess even remote qualifications for the position. Since Immigration has complete access to the Job Board applications you then have to respond, print them all out and sign Minister Fahey’s new form promising you have not lied. A recent application submitted to Immigration was in excess of 80 pages. I laughed out loud when the Finance Minister touted the Immigration process as streamlined and business friendly.
Here is a fun fact: Most businesses would immediately hire a qualified Bermudian rather than bringing someone new to the Island who might not like our view of paradise and then leave.
The only thing the new Immigration policies have really accomplished is to create job security for local HR professionals…since no one unfamiliar with the ‘rules’ of Immigration will have efficient access.
RM is exactly right in his/her comments. The JobBoard is hardly the great thing the OBA would have you believe it to be. Mostly we receive a huge amount of totally unsuitable applicants that then have to be documented. Honest employers have always acknowledged every applicant. Now they have to acknowledge the clueless as well. “oh lookee here, Rocket Scientest. I think I will apply for that role as I am Bermudian and can handle anything…”
Commercial Cleaner + General Bartender [customer facing]…..that’s a joke and two gray areas!!
Some employers use these grey areas to manipulate their way around the so called closed positions. If the past and present immigration ministers really meant to close positions they would clearly define them to leave no room for grey areas. Look at other country’s closed position and the definition goes on for a paragraph defining exactly what is meant by the position name.
On bermudajobboard.bm there is an employer who has three different position under three different names but those three positions have the exact same descriptions of job responsibilities an experience.
Some employers use these grey areas to manipulate their way around the so called closed positions. If the past and present immigration ministers really meant to close positions they would clearly define them to leave no room for grey areas. Look at other country’s closed position and the definition goes on for a paragraph defining exactly what is meant by the position name.
On bermudajobboard.bm there is an employer who has three different position under three different names but those three positions have the exact same descriptions of job responsibilities an experience.
Just wondering how this will be different to media or any other employment website in Bermuda? I guess the only benefit is being able to see all employment opportunities in Bermuda and being able to apply online. None of which will help you actually get a job.
The barrier to employment in Bermuda is lack of education/experience/qualifications. Period. Point Blank. Bermudians already hit up the hotels, the restaurants, construction firms for jobs which happens to be 75% of the jobs listed on the website. The website is a great idea but will have little effect on actually getting people employed which is the most fundamental challenge we are experiencing in Bermuda. Until we can get people educated and qualified, will we see change.
Sorry to be Debbie Downer or Negative Nancy, but let’s be real.
The real vetting process is to get in there and see exactly what some of these jobs require rather than looking at a blown up, exaggerated job post designed to retain the current employee. You would be surprised at the findings, or would you?
Our company has been useing this for a while and it is a great way to find qualified Bermudians to fill positions.
I hope there is follow up to ensure the Bermudian who has applied after the 8 days of being advertised actually is interviewed for the position ,as all to often we apply for jobs which we are well qualified for yet don’t even get a response from said company to say they received your application let alone get an interview then next time u check there is expat in the job…….we have to really hold immigration to task ….what will happen with our young people who have done everything they should go school work hard come home to their home and can’t get a job ……..we got to do better
Why would immigration do that? What your suggesting requires too much work on their part. Maybe if one officer was to do the work while two stood and watched they might. I think we should privatize our immigration and contract it out to the texas border patrol.
Rock Watcher, thank you for saying this. I know a young, well qualified Bermudian with a good degree, a professional qualification and excellent work experience gained overseas, yet in job interviews the companies are simply focussing on how to prove he isn’t suitable for the job, so that they can keep their expat worker in the role. It is incredibly demoralising for him.
Why complain, a massively expensive Immigration Department is what local Bermudians want. You cannot complain about strict, expensive, labour intensive processes and practises if you want to protect knobs. Tis makes it expensive for the employer and business too. Everyone pays the price. So if you don’t want a free market, don’t complain. the website could be a good, cheap jobbers market, but it is an ineffective immigration control tool for all parties.
Truthfully I feel the bda job board is just another way to control the poor and unemployed. It works like this, the government advertises it to potential employers as a quick and easy way to hire locals so they no longer recruit other ways like posting I’m news papers and online and employers stop taking resumes on site.what they now do is say “were registered with the bda Jpn board so of you want to apply you have to do it through them”. Have you ever filled out a profile on that site? Its an hour long process were you put everything about yourself and your previous employmemt and I’m the end if an administrator decides that they don’t want you employed they can simply hold your profile and not present it to a potential employer. There is no way to tell that the job you are applying for has actually received your information. So if you are someone who speaks out against the government and is unemployed, they can easily make it so that you stay unemployed, kinda like when the UBP used to call in mortgage on its political opponents in the 60s 70s and 80s. Now its like, if you don’t comply well just take away your opportunity to work. The vast majority of the people who speak out against our current government are unemployed some four thousand people.
I would hope that employers do not use this site but find other ways to recruit locals like newspaper and other FREE websites the more employers on this site the less Bermudians will be employed its simple Problem Reaction Solutiom.
Anon…sorry to say, but you are well off the mark with your comment. First off, employers are still required to advertise in a local newspaper for immigration purposes.
Thank you for illustrating another issue, however, regarding how long it takes to complete a profile on the Bda Job Board. Complete and utter laziness. If someone is desperately looking for a job, or a job move, taking an hour to complete a clear and complete profile which may help give them an edge over other applicants should be no problem at all. But you’re right, I suppose it should be my responsibility as an HR Manager to screen 100’s of resumes to decipher who may be qualified, without any effort on the part of the individual seeking employment.
I don’t think you have an understanding of how the job board works. There is no “administrator” who is working for “the man” and withholding opportunities from Bermudians. If I see a role I am interested in as a candidate I can apply directly to the company, through the site…ugh..I don’t even have the energy to continue…
I still think that many work permits that are about to expire won’t show up on here, like all the jobs relating to STEM.