Hiring in Montreal means navigating a bilingual talent market with strong tech and creative sectors, but also facing longer time-to-hire than smaller Canadian cities. Cost of living is lower than Toronto or Vancouver, which attracts mid-career talent, yet salary expectations have risen sharply since 2023. Remote work has flattened commute constraints, but many candidates still expect Montreal-based roles to offer flexibility. Tech talent clusters around the Griffintown and Mile End neighborhoods, while finance and professional services remain concentrated downtown. The city's talent pool is split between anglophone and francophone candidates, and many employers underestimate the friction of language requirements in screening. Raffi, an agentic AI recruiter, handles the friction points specific to Montreal hiring. It automatically screens candidates who apply to your job postings—filtering for both technical fit and language capability—without requiring manual outreach or Boolean searches. Because Raffi works with your existing applicant flow through Workable, you skip the overhead of external sourcing and focus on interviewing qualified candidates. For Montreal teams, this means faster time-to-hire in a market where passive sourcing is less efficient than activation of active applicants. Raffi schedules interviews directly into Google Calendar, removing back-and-forth delays that compound when candidates juggle bilingual workplace demands. Start by posting your Montreal role with clear language requirements in Workable. Raffi will handle screening within 24 hours.
<60 sec
Application to first contact
10-15 min
Per applicant interview
$0
Hire fees, ever
Raffi calls every applicant for a 10-15 min structured interview. Not just the top 5 résumés — every one. Result: nobody good slips through.
Conversational AI interview, rubric-anchored scoring, transcripts you can read. You get a top 3-5 shortlist while competitors are still scheduling first-rounds.
SaaS pricing from $199/mo. No 15-25% of first-year salary, no per-hire kickback. Cancel anytime.
Montreal's 2026 hiring market is split. Software engineering and AI/ML roles remain competitive, with median time-to-hire around 35–45 days for mid-level positions. Demand for French-fluent engineers is outpacing supply. Financial services and insurance are hiring, but at a slower pace than 2024. Marketing and creative roles remain active but salaries have plateaued. Tech salaries have normalized toward $90K–$120K for mid-level engineers (down from peak pandemic rates), making the market more sustainable. Manufacturing and logistics are cooling. Demand for bilingual talent across all sectors remains structural—French fluency commands a 10–15% premium. Talent supply is adequate for most roles, but screening friction delays placements. Remote-first companies still source nationally, reducing local urgency.
Montreal hiring demands explicit language strategy. Many candidates speak both English and French, but job descriptions must specify which is required, preferred, or optional—vagueness kills applications from qualified bilingual talent. Salary expectations are 5–12% below Toronto for similar roles, but candidates compare against U.S. border markets, so positioning matters. Commute expectations have softened; most mid-career talent expects at least two remote days weekly. Tech candidates often evaluate cultural fit around workplace language use (many prefer English-dominant, some prefer balanced). Time-to-hire stretches longer than Vancouver because talent is more geographically dispersed and negotiation cycles are slower. Summer hiring (June–August) is notably slower due to vacation culture. Top sectors: software, fintech, SaaS, advertising, design, and industrial tech.
Yes. Raffi operates in 30+ languages and supports candidate calls in any timezone via self-booking — there's no per-city integration. If you can post a role from Montreal, you can run Raffi from Montreal.
Raffi is calibrated against the major AI-in-hiring frameworks (EU AI Act + NYC Local Law 144) and discloses AI use to every candidate before the call. For Montreal-specific work permits and right-to-work checks, those happen outside Raffi — we screen, you verify eligibility before extending an offer.
Not always, but you must be explicit. If French is required, preferred, or not needed, state it clearly in the job description. Many bilingual candidates avoid applying to roles where language expectations are ambiguous. If you can hire English-only, say so—clarity attracts the right pool.
35–50 days is standard, depending on role and language requirements. Remote-first roles tend to close faster because you're not competing solely within the Montreal pool. Specialized roles (French-fluent AI engineers, fintech backend) can stretch to 60+ days.
Remote flexibility is now table stakes. Most candidates expect at least hybrid arrangements. Fully remote roles give you national reach but reduce local hiring advantage. If you're on-site, emphasize culture, location benefits, or salary premium to offset commute friction.
Agentic recruiting is recruiting done by an AI agent that takes action on your behalf — not a chatbot or résumé summarizer. Raffi calls every applicant for a structured 10-15 minute interview, scores them against your rubric, and hands you a ranked top 3-5. The work happens autonomously.
Most agencies charge 15-25% of first-year salary as a placement fee — a $90k hire runs $13-22k. Raffi is SaaS at $199-599/mo plus per-action credits, typically landing under $10k/year for a team hiring 12 people. Same shortlist quality, no placement contract.
About 25 minutes to onboard, post your first role, and have Raffi ready to interview applicants. No engineering work, no integration project. Connect your work email, paste a JD, you're live.
Free $25 starter credit. No credit card. Screening live by tonight.