Crossing the Border: How to Start a Job in the Bay Area as a Canadian

Part 2 of 2

This is a continuation of a two-part series about how to figure out life as a Canadian moving to the SF Bay Area. This post will cover all the things that you should make sure to do after you land. For Part 1, which covers the necessary to-do list for before you even fly over, click here.

Part 2: After Landing

Social Security Number
There’s no more important piece of ID than your SSN. Without it, you can’t open a bank account, find housing, or enroll in any company benefits like health insurance. Make sure that this is first on your agenda after you land.

Getting it is actually pretty straightforward. Locate your closest Social Security Administration office, and schedule an appointment by calling 1–800–772–1213 between 7 am and 7 pm Monday — Friday. You can also show up without an appointment, but be prepared for long waits.

When you go to your appointment, make sure you have the following:

• Canadian passport with TN visa stamp
• Original TN Approval Notice
• Completed Social Security Application form

The first two documents will sufficiently cover the three documentation requirements for non-citizens: immigration status, work eligibility, and age.

The appointment should be fairly painless. They’ll just make you take an oath that the information you provide is wholly accurate, under penalty of perjury. Do try not to break the law right after showing up. At least wait a week.

It will take about a week to ten days to mail your SSN to you. Make sure you’ve figured out what address you want your mail sent to. There will be a lot of mail coming your way in the next little while, so it needs to be somewhere stable. I used my office address, which I would definitely recommend. Unless your office is moving locations soon, of course.

Bank Account and Credit Card
Surprisingly — well, perhaps not — the worst experience I’ve had so far with getting documentation / accounts.

I chose to go with Bank of America, just because they’ve got great presence nationwide, and I can envision myself at least travelling across the country pretty often. Getting a checking and savings account going was fairly straightforward. There are certain rules about minimum balances and direct deposits that impact the fees you pay, so make sure to fully understand those.

Getting a credit card — not nearly as easy.

My first application was actually denied, due to a very low credit score driven in part by the fact that I was still using my Canadian number at the time. One of the parameters for credit risk is distance between listed address and phone number area code, something I learned the hard way.

When I visited the bank again to inquire about what I could do to fix this, I was initially told to re-apply in three months. To which my eloquent response was, “f*#$ no.” After sitting down with the lady helping me, we discovered together (*eye roll*) that there was a separate flow for Canadians to apply for a credit card, where they take both your Canadian and US information, including SIN / SSN.

So, when you apply for your credit card, make sure you request that they use this process. If the customer service rep tells you it doesn’t exist, ask to speak to a supervisor. While I can’t be sure about all banks, if Bank of America does it, I’d imagine that many of the other major banks do this as well. If they don’t have such a procedure, I would seriously consider another bank ahead of taking that gamble.

I was able to secure a monthly credit limit of $1500, which isn’t much objectively, but still seems comparatively massive to the $500 that many of my fellow Canadians were allowed out of the gates.

New Phone Number
Data guzzlers, get excited — the US has waaaaay cheaper rates for data plans than Canada.

For context, I’m currently on a prepaid plan with Verizon that gives me unlimited talk and text, plus 3 GB of data for $45 per month.

If you’re also in the market for a new phone, as I was, my personal recommendation would be to buy the phone outright from Best Buy, etc.

There are a few advantages to this. For one, your phone is unlocked out of the box, which will probably save you a few dollars down the road if you ever want to switch providers. Secondly, having your own phone allows you to choose ‘prepaid plans’, which tend to be cheaper, and mean you’re never locked into a contract. In fact, signing up for a contracted plan requires a credit check, which involves sharing your SSN with a bored-looking clerk at a desk — which makes me rather uncomfortable. You also probably don’t have great credit at the moment. And finally, buying a phone through a provider itself requires a credit check as well. Which again entails what was just discussed.

If you like contracts because they provide nice things like replacement phones if yours breaks, invest in a good case, and phone insurance.

As far as providers go, the main choices seem to be Verizon or AT&T. T-Mobile is an option as well, but seems to not have the greatest coverage if you wander out of the populated regions of the Bay Area.

Finding More Permanent Housing
There are a lot of excellent resources out there already on how to find housing in the crazy San Francisco market, including this blog post.

I won’t double-up on any of those resources, but I will drop the following pieces of advice:

• Craigslist, HotPads, and Zillow will be your go-to’s for online postings. When in your in the midst of hunting intensely, look often. I found my pad in the city through a Craigslist posting that went up less than two hours before I responded to it.
• You’re going to need a little bit of good luck to find a place and to find roommates. Create that serendipity by talking to absolutely everyone you can about your situation — co-workers, Uber drivers, friends of friends. I actually met my roommate at a company barbecue while he was still interviewing with us.
• Don’t compromise on your housing in terms of neighbourhood or niceness, within reason. You’re going to be locked in to this place for at least a year, and while time does fly, not feeling comfortable in your own home will make that year go by dreadfully slow. Also, as someone pointed out to me, when you’re 23, a year is still a decent percentage of your life. Don’t waste that precious time.

Wrap-up

Well, I hope that was useful advice! If there’s anything that you still have questions on, feel free to drop me a comment or reach out to me. Happy to update this blog post as I receive feedback.

But most importantly, welcome! The Bay Area is an amazing place to live, ridiculous rent aside. It won’t quite be Canada, but it’ll be a fantastic experience nonetheless.