Australia - Job search experience

Hi there everyone,

As my loyal readers know I have been trying to find a job since Markus left Australia to fly back to Germany. This was Mid January 2014. Surprisingly enough and very motivating I got two interviews within a week of sending out my resume / CV to various Facility Management companies around Melbourne. (I have studied and worked in the Facility Management field since 2005 if you count my dual studies). In my opinion the two interviews went really well as I had the chance to explain what I did in my past jobs, I was able to answer all the questions and they seemed very interested in my work experience. But due to the visa restriction of only being able to work a maximum of 6 months with the same employer I couldn’t be considered for full-time positions. So I hoped for some project work or a part-time position in a kind of assistant role. They never got back to me even though I followed up on the interviews afterwards :-(

I am glad I decided to go to Tasmania for a week as I figured that these kinds of jobs would probably take a bit of time to go through the company organization procedures and stuff. In this week in Tasmania only one agency came back to me to get some more information for their data base and nothing else came up.

 

 I also set up profiles with lots of recruitment agencies (Hays, SetSolutions, Morgan Recruitment etc.), temporary staff agencies (QuickTemps) and I even had a few phone conversations which sounded very promising. They were very interested in my master degree and very positive about finding a position very soon as long as I keep applying to jobs that might suit me and my qualifications. Especially during the heat waves in Melbourne (several days in a row with over 40 degrees Celsius) I spent literally hours on the internet, scanning job websites (www.seek.com.au , www.mycareer.com.au , www.careerone.com.au etc.) and job announcements, writing cover letters, adjusting my resume and sending emails all over Melbourne. I didn’t care about the location of the job as I am very flexible. Just this week (Mid March 2014) I spoke to a few people on the phone where I got the contact through other people that I met in Australia and I spoke to someone in person who has a big network within the Facility Management field and he seemed happy to recommend me to some of them.

 

As I had no success with finding a job in my profession very soon I spoke to other backpackers and started scanning the information boards of hostels for short-time jobs which would bring a bit of money. In Australia and also in the UK the website www.gumtree.com is very popular for all sorts of things, so I also started to look that up every now and then and applied for jobs there. Christine told me that nowadays also groups on Facebook advertise jobs but I didn’t have a look into these. Here an overview of what I found:

 

-          Most jobs are promotional ones: either face-to-face standing in the streets or malls, going from door to door or in call centers. You might be a fundraiser for a charity or try to win new customers for a company (energy, milk & bread, new products) or handing out surveys, flyers or free gifts to passengers. Seriously, I am not that kind of person who could sell something to people that they don’t want or don’t need but I replied anyway just out of frustration and surprisingly I got an interview. Handing out surveys or free gifts is fine but I never got a reply back for these jobs.

 

-          Bar and waiting staff jobs are very popular but you have to react very fast for these kind of jobs advertised on the internet and you should have experience in that field to be invited to a test day. Also you need some sort of certificate here, called the RSA. Be careful as there are state RSA just useable in that particular state (e. g. Victoria or New South Wales) and national-wide RSA. There are different fees involved to obtain a RSA. I think it is easier to get this kind of job (if you have experience) by going from restaurant to restaurant and café to café in more rural areas. It can be quite hard in big cities to get something fast. I spoke to some girls who searched for several weeks before they got something. I have no experience whatsoever in this field…

-          Or cooks/chefs are requested very often as well, especially if you speak an Asian language. I saw lots of announcement for Mandarin/Chinese/Japanese/Korean speaking cooks.

-          What is also very common is to work in the hostel that you are staying in for free accommodation. So you work for a few hours every day and don’t have to pay for the accommodation and sometimes they even allow you to work more hours to earn some extra money. I mostly heard about 10 AUD/hour for any kind of work like cleaning, gardening, reception work, pick-ups or deliveries and even little labor work like painting or repairing small things around the hostel.

 

-          Next set of jobs for backpackers: labor work. Moving heavy things like furniture or building material. I am too small and too fragile to do that but hard-working guys with some experience in working on construction sites are high in demand. But working full-time as a trades person you again need the right certificates and something called the White Card (not exactly sure what it is). So even if you are an electrician or bricklayer or similar you will need this Australian recognized work evidence.

-          Then I started looking into fruit picking. But of course farms are a bit out of the way of cities and therefore some would only take you as a farm worker if you have your own transport. Also I looked too late into that, so Working Hostels around Melbourne were already full (there you pay to stay and the hostel in return would help you find a job but they don’t guarantee you a job!). In Adelaide the grape picking season couldn’t start due to some rainfall that made the grapes too big which meant the sugar content was too low for the wineries. So even farm work is a bit hard to get if you are not in the right place in time as they have a First Come First Serve basis which is fair enough really. I searched some government farm websites but they are often not up-to-date and I am sure the farmers nowadays have contractors who provide the staff for the picking jobs as there is a high turn-over in these jobs and farmers have to deal with other more important things. Also it depends if you are paid by the hour or per bucket of picked fruits. So the faster you are the more money you can earn but please consider that you have to work long hours outside under the burning sun and some fruits are low to the ground which will be back-breaking or high in the trees where you have to climb ladders all the time. In some areas it is even dangerous to pick fruits due to snakes and spiders being attracted by that kind of fruits (I heard about mangoes and bananas). AHHHHH!

-          And then there are Au Pair jobs where mainly female backpackers are interested in and work in. Lots of websites on the internet and you can set-up a contract with a host family before you arrive in Australia. If you decide to go to Australia with the help of an agency this is their main source of getting you a job but again you need to provide evidence of experience with children. If you don’t have experience you can also find families yourself. I actually applied to a few families who advertised their need on Gumtree and spoke to a family via Skype (Hurray to modern technologies!). They all sounded very nice and friendly but I met quite a few girls who have cancelled their contracts just after a few weeks because they didn’t get along very well with the host family. These are normally live in jobs, so you live with the family for free and also get all the food for free and in return you look after the children, bring them to school and cook for them. You also get a weekly pay which is very low. But after a few months you can save a bit of money to travel on.

-          Of course there are some other jobs (delivering catalogues and flyers, be a tour guide, write articles etc.) but these are the main ones on a temporary basis which can be done by backpackers or where backpackers will be considered. In some job advertisement it even states that only Australian residents or citizens with full working rights will be considered and backpackers shouldn’t apply. Lots of people I talked to and where I overheard the conversation in the common areas of hostels spoke about jobs that I described above.

So here I am, staying with my friend Carly, reflecting my job search over the past two months here in Australia. I rang up an agency this morning to hear if something might be available in the short-time but they only referred me to their website and said it depends on the company if they consider someone on a Working Holiday Visa. I am about to give up completely which is not my style. But I am getting very depressed by looking for a job in my profession with all the qualifications that I have in a country where they are simply lacking manpower while I could have stayed with my great job in Bremen. I am feeling uncomfortable staying with friends as I am taking up their precious space and time. I am very grateful but I don’t want to bother them too much. Carly understands the situation I am in as she looked for a job for six months in Melbourne and only recently she got a few babysitting jobs that help her to cover some part of her costs.

Now I am looking into backpacker jobs very late and I also feel a bit guilty for maybe taking a job away from someone who really needs it. Because most backpackers are really young and mostly they also don’t speak very good English which makes it even more difficult for them to find something. I am very torn between trying to find a more suitable job for my qualification and considering seriously taking up an Au Pair job that I have been offered. This is so not what I expected to go through in Australia…But such is life… What would you do in my situation? I hope I can laugh about all this later on…

 

Sorry about this long blog entry. I again tried to loosen it up with a few pictures that I haven’t posted yet. Hope you enjoy them and maybe my inside into my view on the job market here in Australia is of help for you as well. Stay tuned on what might happen next.

Yours desperately-job-searching Stefanie