Three months in Oz- advice

[Guest]

Hello everybody,

My husband has recently been adviced that he has been granted three months unpaid leave from his South African company/ Therefore, we intend coming over to Australia for three months to look for work. Would forumites mind answering the following few questions for us please :

a. Any advice on how to get the edge in the Australian Job market. My hubby is a criminal/civil lawyer and he has Australianized his resume. We would ideally like to set up interviews before leaving. Does anyone have any contacts for lawyers out there? We are flexible on the state we will settle in.

b. Can anyone suggest what we can do in Australia for 3 months- administratively wise. We already know about Centre link.

c. Also, we face a big quanadrum in that we are only over from September to End November (three months)- so is it advisable to then open up a bank account in oz and transfer funds in there to use in oz and does anyone know if we can move funds back to SA from that oz bank account in event we have to leave end of November having not secured work? Can anyone advise what the best course of action would be money wise since we going for three months.

I should also mention my hubby is a qualified lawyer for oz and we do have Permanant residence for oz.

Thank you all for your advice- appreciate it.

Kindregards

Emma

[Nev]

It has been discussed a heck of a lot on the forums but you might not have seen it so just as a recap.

Some people have found jobs from South Africa, I am one of them so it can be done,

Recruitment processes take long, the more skilled the person the more interested in getting the correct fit they are, skills are normally secondary and the primary requirement is will this person fit in, south Africans (as compared to Australians) have an attitude, make sure you fit the Australian culture in any interviews.

Linkedin is king here for skilled requirements, make sure it is up to date and look for companies to approach, send your CV to them.

www.seek.com.au

The "Hidden job market", what is meant by this is that most of the jobs don't get advertised, as companies are generally more concerned with company fit they normally don't advertise jobs but look for friend of a friend references, this makes it harder to get into the first spot, but the company has a better chance of finding a good fit so that is why it happens.

The "Australian Experience" bit, you may see that on most job applications rejections, essentially most people and most recruiters don't consider any experience outside of Australia to be worth anything (Depends on the industry but true in almost every case i have heard of), timezone is an issue, the recruiter will not call your old company at 8pm to get a reference, they also cant confirm that the company is valid on something like the ABN lookup site as they can for Au companies), they are also looking to ensure that you can fit with the culture of the company, this can be easily found out by calling your last company or a local reference, RSA has a very different work culture.

I deal with a lot of executive management in companies and they all tell me that if the applicant is not living in the city they normally don't bother, this is simply because if they are advertising for a position they want to fill in now, people still living overseas or even in a different state are looking for a position in 3-6 months,

The second larger problem is they normally have problems, waiting for a house sale, kids, pets, flights...etc. Unless you have a hard to find skill they will rather look local.

So there are a lot of chalenges, for this reason a lot of people spend a while looking for work, even once they get here, it can be done however and looking now already is a good bet, just understand that if you don't immediately find work it is for these reasons and you will do better once you are here

Good luck and keep asking

[mrniceguy]

I can vouch for what Nev said.

I applied for hundreds of jobs before I got here. Only secured one meet and greet with one recruiter. When I arrived I setup a meeting and things went from there. The cultural fit is of utmost importance here, then skills. Aussie workplace is more about getting along and mateship to get the job done. I have seen staff that don't fit get worked out of a job over time.

Also, most companies use recruiters here as they usually don't have the time to find and vet new candidates.

Having said that; shoulder to the grind, and against all odds, you will do well here. It is worth every effort to succeed here !!

[Riekie]

LinkedIn is definitely a good tool for job hunting - many employers use that.

Go onto the websites of Lawyer firms and check out their vacancies. They're not always posted under an obvious "vacancies" or "jobs" tab - sometimes they hide it in the "other" link in the smallprint at the very bottom of the webpage. Then apply to them directly.

[Guest]

Thankyou so much guys. My husband has had his cv "ozzified" so to speak and he has been using Linkedin and thats upto date too. Is there a link for any previous posts regarding what to do in the first few days regarding banking, Medicare, driving licenses and what documents we will need etc. I cant seem to find it on the forum but I am sure Ive seen it somewhere? Also any advice on the bank account itself I do know we can open one online, but if we do transfer money over and we dont secure work is it easy enough to transfer it back. Or is it best not to do that at this stage?

Quite excited at the prospect at being in Oz for 3 months but actually nervous now that its all moving very quickly and the fact that he could actually get work! That means he will have to go back to SA and get a container etc and organise things that end while I start looking for rentals. I was thinking of getting quotes for containers now so when and if he does have to come back we have things in hand. Also maybe pack a few things up in the meantime?

Thanks for all your advice you really are a great bunch:-)

[monsta]

I am surprised that nobody has told your hubby to quit his job and just relocate over here.

Why spend $2000 to fly back to go back to his old job. Once he is back in RSA, it becomes a lot harder to find a job in Aus.

I have seen several peeps on the forum been recommended to just take the plunge. I couldn't agree more.

As for a bank account, you open one from RSA, deposit your Rands, then fly over, present your passport and permanent Aussie address to the bank. They will then let you withdraw money.

But, never take financial advise from some guy on the net like me. Do a google search for the migrants section on the banks websites, e.g. I searched for "anz bank migrants" and was sent here;

http://www.anz.com.au/personal/travel-foreign-exchange/moving-australia/

There are tons of banks to checkout, Commonwealth bank, westpak, ing direct Australia, rabobank, bendigo bank and suncorp bank.

Talk to someone at the bank you choose and confirm the process You are not dealing with "Mr Ungaas" (Mr I don't know).

You also need to sign up for Medicare. Google maps can point out your nearest Medicare office. Go in and they will explain the process. Again, its 1st world.

Edited August 4, 2015 by monsta

[RedPanda]

Since you are there for 3 months it is also feasible to do a driver's license conversion. We did ours for Victoria. For us the process was: make an appointment, pitch up with the relevant documents (they give you a little list) and NB! at the appointed time, have a friendly chat with the person doing your conversion but make it quick since we were in-and-out within 15mins, for two people. It does differ from state to state. Then they mail your cards to the address you provided them with as your residence address. Ours arrived a few days later. A point to note: South Africa does not qualify for conversion automatically(List 1) but they do give us credit for driving experience (List 2) so if you have had your license for more than 5 years they will convert it for you. Sometimes the staff don't know about List 2, that is why I mention it.

Bank accounts are also very easy. And once set up you can manage them online from RSA.

Good luck!

[Mara]

Australia does not have exchange controls, so you can do what you want to with your money out of an Australian bank!

[Guest]

Monsta it would seem the best solution, but we do keep hearing of lots of people being made redundant in Oz, and it is quite a scary prospect to up and leave everything not knowing if at the other hand you will even land a job.The Legal market in Oz is very competitive at the moment. My friends who did leave on a sponsored visa and have been in Oz for a few years now also said they would not have left SA without work. I do know people who do it, and fair play to them its great if you have that kind of guts. At the moment we do have this opportunity whereby we can have an extended stay. We are staying with friends so we wont be paying out for accomodation either. If nothing comes of it, then we will consider the big move, but we still have time yet :-)

Thanks also to Monsta for info and Redpanda and Mara"::-)

[BrendanH]

I keep reading about people "Australianizing" their CV. Can someone point me to a resource that explains how one goes about doing that?

[Nev]

In short the format here is a bit simpler, less of the boring stuff, and more of the how i am a good fit into the culture.

I did my own research and built my own CV, but am fortunate that i am in a specific skills high demand industry so get away with more, if you think getting it professionally done will help, then do so, also a good plan to get your linkedin profile sorted at the same time if you are in a white collar job.

In south africa it can be about having a big CV showing everyone everything about everything you have ever done, here it is a short couple of page affair that a recruiter can scan through to see if you fit the bill and should get a interview, if it is long they will skip over bits or just ignore it as too much work, and there are tons of applicants so they can afford to do that .

Oh and clean up the public profile on your facebook, personally i leave some albums that show happy family outings and some basic stuff so that they can see that i'm not an axe murderer, this is an opportunity to show what a good company fit you will be, a locked down facebook is a missed opportunity.

Don't say anything on your CV, but they will always go have a look, if you do say something on your CV they will know it is staged

Yes you dont have to show them anything, it has nothing to do with them..... and they also don't have to hire you....

My CV is 4 pages long and that covers - 20 years of experience, certifications and 4 jobs

Page 1

-Personal Details

-Summarized Skill-set

Page 2 - Overview

-3/4 of a page giving an overview of my capabilities and what i would bring to a company, dont waffle, if you only have 1/4 of a page of stuff just put that or you will loose them to boredom

Page 3 - Employment History

Company Name - City - Country

Title - From Year - To Year

One line overview of what the company does

Job Description

Page 4 - Certifications

Create a table with:

Institution, Qualification or Certificate, Completed

List all the certs, qualifications, i have 41 and it all fits on one page, keep it simple, dont add every subject in your degree and every mark unless it is SPECIFICALLY relevant to the specific job you are applying for, don't waffle

[RYLC]

You can also download a PDF of your LinkedIn profile to use as a cv and it will automatically be in a great format without unnecessary personal details that Saffas seem to include like marital status, number of children, code of visa etc. recruiters are not migration agents. They don't know a 190 from a 189 or whatever and including it only highlights your foreign-ness.

[Guest]

There are a few really good resume writers that came highly recommended to us by other forumites. I do know one member who was in Oz for 3 months and had no interviews, he had his cv re-done and within a week had got call backs and interviews set up and landed the ever important job. So its really critical to get it done. Some other members have mentioned that in Oz many companies have an automated system whereby if your cv does not contain keywords it automatically gets chucked. We had ours done by Roland Coombes and we were very happy with his service, excellent. But also theres a lady on the facebook group called Roz Fisher who can help you.She often posts some good tips on the group too regarding CV. Maybe check her out, or as others have previously mentioned try and give it a go at redoing it yourself.