DavePE Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Hi All,Decided to make the giant leap to Australia. Would be coming over by myself. I've just turned 29 and my goal is to be settled in Australia before I'm 30. Pretty standard reasons for immigrating, crime, corruption and the general decay of this country. Watching Carte Blanche and reading News24 makes me either incredibly angry or just plain depressed. I don't see any future for myself here, so I aim to make the move as quickly as possible and start living a normal life where one doesn't have to worry about all of our third world problems. I think dealing with first world problems would make a welcome change! It actually makes me sick that this country has taken such major steps backward under the current government. But lets not get into that, that could be a whole new post of how bad South Africa has become in recent times...I'm going to apply for a 189 visa. Have the IELTS test booked for end of February and busy sorting out my documentation for my skills assessment. My parents are a bit unsure of me moving to Australia, they say it's so far away and they would rather I move to the UK as my sister is already there. I've never been to Australia and only been to the UK once when I was seven years old, and I know you can only get so much second hand info about a place from the internet and word of mouth, but the UK really doesn't appeal to me. Australia just seems to hold so much more opportunity. Hopefully I'll be able to do a LSD trip but money is going to be incredibly tight with the 189 visa costing in the region of 50K and then obviously having to save enough to live off until I can find employment. Employment is my biggest worry about moving to Australia. I work for a (very) big American IT company, but from what I've gathered from this site the Aussies don't really care about your previous work experience. But once I have the visa (jumping the gun a bit I know), I will apply for jobs from South Africa and see what the response is like. If the response is positive I'll jump ship immediately, else I'll try save up a bit more to be able look for jobs a bit longer.Thanks to everyone who contributes to this site, the "pay it back mentality" is very evident to see in everyone's responses. I hope I'll be able to contribute too as I go through this process.Cheers for now,Dave 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SurferMan Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Hi Dave and welcome!You are making a great decision, and being such a youngster! (Just ribbing ya mate!) You will be just fine. I am an IT dude myself, so feel free to fire me questions and PM me, if I am able to assist in any shapre of form it's yours for the asking. Many others helped me when I joined this forum and I keep paying that forward as I believe in helping others.Some advice, if you have PR is is HUGELY beneficial in your job hunt. Once you have nailed a job in Aus, that will count as Aussie work experience, which in general they put an emphasis on. i know the fees for PR are steep from SA, but as you say, SA is sliding back and in real terms there is zilch you can do about it. I have a very good mate who spent 5 years in the UK, and went back to SA for 9 months to sort out some stuff and deal with a family loss. He actually fled Joburg (he contracted in IT with Eisckdom) down to Ct, to await his flight out back to the UK in a weeks time.The only reason he went back there is to get his spousal visa so he can get UK PR, then he will come to Aus. In IT I can reliably say the UK market in my line is depressed and the next 12 months window holds little in the way of improvement.Berlin, Aus, and a couple of other places are showing huge promise though.The major trends to watch out for AND be involved in are as follows;1: Big data - data lakes, Hive and PIG, Hadoop, In Memory computing (SAP HANA) As an example, one of my clients used to process 40 000 utility invoices a day, and their SAP systems struggled. (This after spending >$20M to try and fix it with no joy) I was called in to see if I could fix it. I assembled my A Team :jester: and in 6 months the system is now able to process >1 million invoices in under 2 hours if need be. MONSTER improvement. We improved the message processing from a daily limit of 50 000 messages to where my solution can handle 100 million transaction in 30 minutes! Such is the nature of the technology on hand. :ilikeit: 2: IOT - Internet of Things. Eg wearables and the like3: Analytics and assymetrical and massively parallel computing.PM if you need help mate, it's a message away.God bless and well done.Surferman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mara Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Dave, welcome to our corner of the cyber world! I sincerely hope that all your plans come together smoothly! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavePE Posted January 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Hi SurferMan,Thanks for the response! Although working for an IT company I don't actually have any IT skills. I've been in internal audit and within our strategy consulting practice, although recently I've been doing PMO type roles. I joined my current company straight out of varsity with an eye on going into SAP, but low an behold, three months after joining they retrench 95% of the SAP practice. We've never recovered from the retrenchment. Can't run a consulting business without a strong SAP practice, but then I'm not the one making the decisions... As much as I hated doing internal audit or "business controls", that's what's hopefully going to get me into Aus, so I guess I should be grateful. Lol. I can sympathize with your friend. I'll never have anything good to say about Johannesburg. Ever. One of my main reasons for moving, is that if I want to stick it out in my area it would really have to be in JHB to have any chance of finding a job.I'm currently "on the bench", so using all my time to study for the IELTS, need to get an 8 to get a good total points score for my application. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SurferMan Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Good on yer maaaate! Go here DavePE----> saphana.comIt's a free academy where you can learn SAP etc. I am a registered SME on those sites in my field with global recognition, so can help to connect you to some people to get your leg up on the ladder. If you are on the bench, now is a most excellent time to stufy up on HANA, it's the future, along with robotics and nanotechology.I will guide you along the journey as best I can, if it has anything to do with SAP, I can be your go to mentor if you wish. I have coached over 200 people from all levels from zero to highly experienced specialists. Just a disclaimer, I am a family man and will be back in the workforce soon, so I'm not a bottomless pit of time! :ilikeit: But I will give you what I can, no worries. Forget the traditional SAP stuff, waste of time and money. Focus on HANA in the cloud. If you apply yourself you will be in the $800 - $1000/day consulting in a relatively short time. (Depends on your talent, skill, sheer determination and will power!)As an example, another guy i mentored back in SA before I left for Aus, also a Dave (actually a Dawie) he hailed from PE as well, was a pharmacist. He asked me for a shot at getting into SAP while I was doing a world first implementation of SAP and a custom Retail system. He looked hungry and eager, so I wrote the business case to have him sent on R120K's SAP training. I saw the gleam of passion in his eyes. Let's say I could see was going to go balls to the wall to make a success. In these cases all I do is create the platform and stand back to watch the fireworks. It is a thing of beauty I tell you.Well, what can I say, the rest is history.I have never seen such determination and sheer guts. He mastered SAP in under 9 months, and I mean wall to wall mastered his modules.He put ears on the consultants 10 years his senior. 6 months after I left that client I got him a job at one of the Big Four as a senior SAP manager. He spoke at SAPHILA the next year. (Huge honour)He now has his own practice and contracts BACK to his former employer at astronomical rates. This for a pharmacist who failed his exams 3 times. I am priveleged to have been part of his journey to awesomeness. It is stories such as these that inspire me to help folk with positive attitudes like you.Go get em tiger! Or as I always say with a voice like Johnny Cash, "How bad do you want it son?" :ilikeit: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kimmykins Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Heya DavePE, We from PE too and would be happy to assist should you need help, we near the very end (case officer assigned today ) can almost smell our visa. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SurferMan Posted January 23, 2015 Report Share Posted January 23, 2015 Soon Kimmykins, soon girl.All the best for Aus! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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