If you intend to make any money and get head in the IT Consultancy business in Canada (or the US) you don't take holidays per se, you just work less somewhere else. Having been in your shoes 15 years ago, the difference between my ability to rise in pay and title vs my peers whose careers started at the same time has been my willingness to be available, even on vacation (note this does NOT mean I necessarily work 18 hour days - I do not, though I have in a crisis). If you become focused on vacation early in your career, that's absolutely fine, but you should recognize you're choosing that as a work-life balance that you want. In other words, it depends on your goals; if you are career minded and want to become a superstar with the accompanying earnings, you need to put the work in. As other posters have said, if one of my employees asked for vacation right after they started, they would simply get categorized into the "I better not invest too much here because they might not turn out to be long term hard working team players until I know more". If that's OK with you consequence wise, then no harm in asking. But otherwise . . . I wouldn't be chancing this tainting my first employment arrangement nor the perspective the first person who can give me a reference for another job . . .