Recent immigrants in pro-immigration countries face the burden of economic instability due to lack of host country work experience, resulting in job search in the unskilled labor market as cashiers, grocery packers or waiters. At the same time, many other immigrants have taken on entrepreneurship by starting businesses that reflect deep linkages to their mother country (nationalism) in terms of products, network and cultural work environment, establishing a source of unskilled employment for other immigrants. However, there are both practical and theoretical needs to understand intergroup phenomena occurring when an immigrant intends to apply for work in a business of different ethnicity. This paper explores job seekers’ perceptions of nationalistic ethnic businesses concerning intergroup feelings (prejudice and group competition), social identity issues (nationalism) and perceived job opportunities. Results on an experiment of immigrants in Montreal indicated that, consistent with the main hypothesis, nationalistic businesses are deemed more prejudiced by job seekers than non-nationalistic ones. Interestingly, the evidence also suggested that job seekers regard each business ethnicity differently and that those prior ethnic impressions affected levels of expected prejudice. Moreover, individual variables such as job seeker’s openness to experience and ethnic identification revealed marginally significant impact on perceived prejudice. This work helps enlighten literature in intergroup conflict in the context of job search and ethnic business and enhance literature on immigrant experience. Important practical implications for recent immigrants, ethnic businesses and immigration policies are discussed in favor of reducing perceived prejudice in multicultural countries.