Hi OP,
I will give you some of my first hand experience with the job market in Toronto, hopefully it helps.
First, a couple of facts about TO. 1. it has the most CFA candidates/charter holders per capita in the world. 2. Compared to many other cities of its size I would say that TO as a financial center is relatively small.
“I am thinking maybe I am not from the top university that’s why its harder for me to get a cfa related job.”
Good internships trump whatever school you came from. That being said good schools typically have good internships and bad schools typically bad internships if any at all. I’m guessing you did not get a proper internship during your undergrad. It’s easier said than done - I was in the same boat.
“Also do you guys suggest any programming skills we Must know in order to get the job? (VBA, SQL etc…).”
There is no programming skill you must know unless you are in IT or a developer. I know both languages and they are really only useful in back office/ middle office settings. When I did work in the back office I used VBA extensively for projects - It added a ton of value but I wasn’t really compensated adequately for the work put in. Some managers may not even let you work on macros since is posses certain operational risks.
To be honest, I feel like learning VBA would pigeon hole you to a back office role, and even then its probably not worth your time. I could be useful for some quantitative/risk role but it doesn’t seem like you have the background for that. Funny story, I had an opportunity to talk to a top performing investment manager - I brought up VBA and he didn’t even know what it was.
“Any other suggestions for candidates like me to land in a finance job ? (ex. Go for master, FRM etc…)”
I have done quite a bit of research on the MFin’s offered by Canadian Universities. In general, I feel like it is not worth it, and many of them have lowered their standards to attract more students. On top of that you would pretty much be learning the same thing as the CFA curriculum, so in that sense they are overpriced CFA prep. That’s not to say they are totally useless - it’s just not going to land you that front office role. If you have no prior work experience it could help you land something middle office’ish I suppose. Its’ up to you to decide whether its worth the 40k.
I really don’t have too many other suggestions. All you can do is apply and network. Working on your English skills can only help.
Right now you are probably looking at something BO in operations/fund accounting or similar. If you do decide to take one of these jobs is can be very difficult to work your way up. If you do get interviews for one of these jobs make sure it is at an asset manager instead of a custodian bank. If I had the option between that sort of job and a real analyst role in my home country, I would take the latter without hesitation.
I took the time to write this because besides yourself, I feel like there are a lot of candidates in a similar position, especially in Toronto. Hopefully it can be of some use. Good luck.