Before you start

A passport valid well beyond the intended stay
A job offer, and for many employer-specific permits a Labour Market Impact Assessment obtained by the employer
Language test results and an Educational Credential Assessment, for permanent residence
Proof of funds for most economic immigration routes

Step-by-step

1
Read the conditions printed on your permit
An employer-specific permit names one employer and one role; working for anyone else, including freelancing, is unauthorised and can affect a later permanent residence application. Open permits — the Post-Graduation Work Permit and most spousal permits — genuinely are open. Do not rely on what a recruiter told you.
OnlineWho: You
2
Apply for a Social Insurance Number in your first week
Free at a Service Canada centre with your passport and permit, usually issued on the spot in person and slower online. No employer can put you on payroll without it, so leaving it until after your start date delays your own first paycheque.
In personWho: YouWeek 1
3
Check the Alberta Advantage Immigration Program streams against your occupation
The province runs streams for workers already in Alberta, for accelerated tech occupations, for rural employers, for healthcare and for entrepreneurs. A provincial nomination adds a decisive block of points to an Express Entry profile. For a great many people it is the actual route rather than a fallback.
OnlineWho: You
4
Get professional credentials assessed early if you are in a regulated field
Edmonton's job market leans heavily on healthcare, education, engineering and the trades, and all of those are regulated in Alberta by bodies separate from immigration. Nursing, medicine, teaching and engineering all require registration with an Alberta regulator, and a Red Seal trade requires its own assessment. Start these in parallel with the immigration file — they routinely take longer.
OnlineWho: You
5
Enter the Express Entry pool while you work
Canadian work experience is one of the few factors you can actively improve, and it feeds both the federal score and the Canadian Experience Class. Permit years are the application rather than a pause before it. Keep pay stubs, reference letters and T4 slips as you go.
OnlineWho: You
6
Log every entry to and exit from Canada from day one
The permanent resident residency obligation and the citizenship physical-presence requirement are both counted in days across several years and assessed retrospectively. Passport stamps are incomplete and land crossings often unstamped. A spreadsheet updated after each trip takes minutes and saves an application that otherwise stalls.
OnlineWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Passport
Work permit or Confirmation of Permanent Residence
Job offer letter and LMIA, where applicable
Language test results and Educational Credential Assessment
Professional registration or trade certification documents, for regulated occupations
A record of every entry to and exit from Canada

Things most newcomers don’t know

In Edmonton, the professional regulator is often a longer pole than immigration.

The city's demand is concentrated in health, education, engineering and the trades — all regulated provincially by bodies with no connection to IRCC. A nurse or an engineer can hold a valid work permit and still be unable to practise while a registration file sits with the Alberta regulator. Start both processes at once, and ask a prospective employer specifically what registration route they support, because many of the larger public employers here have people whose job that is.

Source: Alberta professional regulators; community-reported

An employer-specific work permit means you cannot change jobs without a new permit.

This is the single most consequential thing to understand about Canadian work permits and it is regularly misread. If the permit names an employer, working for anyone else — including side freelancing — is unauthorised and can affect a later permanent residence application. Open permits genuinely are open. The document itself states the conditions; read it rather than relying on a recruiter's summary.

Source: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Alberta's nominee streams are built around what the province is short of, which is not the same as what Calgary is short of.

The Alberta Advantage Immigration Program targets occupations in demand across the province, with dedicated attention to healthcare, rural employers, accelerated tech and workers already in Alberta. Edmonton's own labour market — the university and hospital complex, the provincial public service and the Industrial Heartland's plant and trades work — maps onto those streams differently from Calgary's energy and corporate profile. Read the current criteria against your actual occupation before optimising a federal profile.

Source: Government of Alberta — Alberta Advantage Immigration Program

Keep a day-by-day travel log from the moment you land.

Both the PR residency obligation and the citizenship physical-presence requirement are counted in days across years and assessed retrospectively. Passport stamps are incomplete, land crossings often unstamped, and airlines do not retain records that long. Reconstructing four years of movements from memory and boarding passes is genuinely difficult, and it is the thing that most often stalls an otherwise clean citizenship application.

Source: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Common mistakes to avoid

Working for anyone other than the employer named on an employer-specific permit.
Starting a job before the Social Insurance Number is issued and delaying your own pay.
Leaving professional registration with an Alberta regulator until after arrival in a regulated occupation.
Optimising a federal Express Entry profile without checking whether an Alberta stream fits you better.
Failing to log physical presence and struggling to prove it at citizenship.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.