Stylist on a Working Holiday to Work Permit and PR!

Q. Please tell us about your career as a hairstylist.

In Japan, I worked for about 10 years as an instructor at a beauty vocational school in Tokyo. While teaching classes as an instructor, I also worked as a hairstylist in the salon the school had.

Q. What brought you to Canada?

I first came to Canada at the end of July 2015, on a working holiday. After working in Japan for 10 years, I wanted to do something different as a step up, and a working holiday was what I came up with. What I felt while in Japan was that, even in Japan, there would be more and more situations requiring English. That’s why I chose Canada as my study abroad destination.

Q. Why did you choose Vancouver?

I love snowboarding, so I also wanted to go to Whistler, but I wanted to work as a hairstylist in Canada even during my working holiday, so I decided on Vancouver, where there are many Japanese hair salons and I thought there would be more opportunities.

Q. How did you come to work at your current salon?

I was introduced by a senior colleague from my workplace in Japan. That person and the owner of my current salon were classmates at beauty school, and through that connection I was introduced to the salon. I started working full-time about 5 months into my working holiday.

Q. How was it when you actually started working as a hairstylist in Canada?

Almost all of the salon’s clients are non-Japanese, and I couldn’t speak English at all, but my roommates helped me so much. Whenever there was something I didn’t understand, I asked them and they taught me, and I also found ways to get my point across using only the words I knew. The Canadian clients were very kind to me despite all that.

Q. Please tell us about obtaining Canadian permanent residency.

Before coming to Canada, I hadn’t thought about applying for permanent residency at all, and I planned to return to Japan after one year on a working holiday. During my working holiday I met the owner of my current salon, and in the roughly half a year I worked there, I felt so many things – my shortcomings as a person and as a hairstylist, the difficulty of English, how fun Canada is, and more than I could ever count.

Then, after my working holiday, the owner offered to apply for a work permit for me. I felt my English and my skills as a hairstylist still had a long way to go, and I wanted to see much more of Canada, so I obtained a work permit and stayed another year.

As that year was coming to an end, I still felt it wasn’t enough and considered extending my work permit for another year. But I learned that, depending on my English test results, I could apply for permanent residency, and I decided to apply because if I could get it, I could take on all kinds of challenges with a longer-term view.

Q. Was there anything difficult about applying for Canadian permanent residency?

The hard parts were earning the points needed for the immigration application and the English test that required. I truly believe I got through it thanks to the help of so many people.

I chose IELTS for the test. On my first day in Canada, when my roommate asked me “How are you?”, I couldn’t answer at all. For someone at that level, scoring well on IELTS was no easy task, and I had never properly studied English in my life, so studying for the test was hard.

The five Canadian roommates I lived with at the time and the clients at the salon were my English teachers. Every day I studied after work until late at night, and on my days off I went to the library and studied from morning to night. I still remember that time vividly, and I kept thinking I never wanted to live like that again. But I believed it would definitely benefit me in the future and kept pushing myself.

Q. Are there differences between working as a hairstylist in Canada and in Japan?

The difference from Japan is that Canada has people of many more ethnic backgrounds, with truly diverse preferences and hair types, so every day feels fresh.

In recent years, more salons with Japanese owners have opened in the Vancouver area, and the technical skill and high quality of service of Japanese hairstylists have become known, so I think Japanese hairstylists tend to be well liked by people of every background.

When you offer the same service in Canada as in Japan, clients are really delighted. A careful shampoo or massage is standard service in Japan, but people here are surprised, and some even think it’s a service that costs extra.

Q. What would you like to tell people who want to become hairstylists in Canada?

The standard services you provide in Japan become special in Canada, so I think it’s good to thoroughly master Japanese-style service before coming. People who have built solid technical experience in Japan can come to Canada and succeed as full-fledged stylists, and I think that leads to opportunities if you later want to think beyond your working holiday or want a work permit.

That said, when you’re young you can take on any challenge, so it may be good to weigh things up and pick the right timing for your working holiday. I think it’s good to think not only about the immediate future but also about what you want to be doing 10 years from now.

Q. Are you enjoying life in Canada?

Yes. In my private time, I enjoy camping, hiking and fishing in summer, and snowboarding in winter. It’s a place rich in nature, and I really love being able to get to places like that so easily.

I was introduced by the owner of my current salon. The owner had been working with them for a long time, and I asked them to help because I thought they would understand my situation at the time and how a hairstylist feels.
They suggested various things I could do depending on my status, and whenever anything came up they responded quickly. I could never have handled the suddenly changing visa application rules or such a long process on my own.