24 years on - Why I still love helping people get jobs and new lives in Australia.

1995 was a fantastic year for me. I had recently just left my first 'proper' job since graduating, where I had worked with a great bunch of people at Endsleigh Insurance in Docklands, London. It was the year that completely out of character, I had flown my best friend and I to Paris, and where the love of my life had said 'yes' when I went down on bended knee and asked 'that' question, and it was the year I got my first understanding on the draw of the Australian Job Market.

Australia, that wonderful country that pre-internet, was so far away that you had to book an international telephone call to speak to your long lost relatives in the Sydney, but that you saw 'normal life' everyday on British and Irish TV when Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan kissed each other on Ramsey Street in Neighbours (twice a day at lunch time and in the evening!!). And of course, Australia was the country that Crocodile Dundee had come from, and everyone had seen the panoramic scenes filmed in the Northern Territory, to the soundtrack of the didgeridoo and that iconic opening sequence by Pete Best.

But above all, Australia is still the country that in many people's hearts, represents a fresh start. A land of opportunity, where the sun nearly always shines, where there is a high standard of living, in a culture underpinned by its British Foundations, and in the 21st Century offering a diverse and strong community made up of many different backgrounds, all proud to be Australian.

Since 1995, I have had the great fortune to have worked for, and owned a number of recruitment companies, and during that time have assisted in excess of 3,000 individuals and families with making that great move 'Down Under'.

Whilst the Visa processes have changed names and numbers, the demand is no less today than it was all those years ago.

There are now stricter criteria for some; Visas are issued to only those individuals whose occupations are in demand (as set out by the Australian Government) and that require additional resources from abroad to supplement local talent. It makes for a complicated system, but likewise it makes for a fair system.

Yes there is a upper age limit of 45 years for Permanent residency, but not for a Temporary TSS (subclass 482) Visa, and this does give opportunities for upto 4 years per Visa for people to live in Australia for a short period (or as the Visa can be renewed potentially longer, just not indefinitely).

So why do I work with Australian Companies to help them find talent (money aside obviously!!)?

Well to be honest in the majority of cases I help bring someone's dreams true.

People who first think about living and working in Australia, can find the process both daunting, expensive, and in many cases both impossible or just too hard to contemplate whilst living incredibly busy lives already in the UK, Ireland, South Africa, India, or elsewhere.

In the traditional way of doing things, Individuals are asked to spend a lot time chasing that 'perfect' job, but they are doing it from thousands of kilometres away, and often during the middle of the night if they actually want to speak to potential employers.

Then after applying for an advertised job, and having sent across their details, they may be invited to a telephone or video interview, with a company they have read about on the internet, in place they have seen on a map. Meanwhile, if successful in that telephone / Skype interview, they are then expected to make life changing decisions for themselves and their families, if they sign a Letter of offer etc which can effect them for the rest of their lives.

So this is where we come in. We work with the Australian Companies and the Individuals together. I and my team go and visit the Companies, and find out what they want. We try and get a understanding of the culture of the organization, what their existing workforce is like, what their systems and shift patterns are, and in short how good an employer of International Workers they are / could be.

In some cases we walk away, as we quickly realize that that company is not one for change, and therefore will not be able to support a Foreign Worker's different requirements to that of a local hire.

For others more open to diverisification, we work with them to create different systems and programmes to make the transition of the Foreign Worker and their Families as smooth as possible.

After all, a happy, motivated and fully supported new employee, who feels they have made the right decision coming to that company, is a worker who will show a great deal of loyalty in return.

So we have the Company on board, we have introduced them to our Registered Migration partners, Emergico pty, and we are given an order to fill. What happens next?

Our Overseas Recruiters (based in UK, Canada, Ireland, India, South Africa and New Zealand) then go and find the potential candidates, understanding it's not the simple recruitment model used elsewhere. We can't just trawl in CVs and Resumes from databases, and simply send off to our Clients. We have to get a full understanding of the individual, their families, their financial circumstances, their health, their criminal background, their genuine enthusiasm to move, and whether they are actually committed to a move before we even present to a client.

Once we are satisfied that the individual is a good fit for our client, and that the client is a good fit for that individual, we then put the two together. Even then there is no guarantee of success, but if we do get it right, and we luckily often do (!!), then that Client and that Candidate can talk, they can work out a plan of action, and they can agree on a job. Some months later, they are on the plane, accomodation on arrival arranged, information on schools, banks etc provided, and someone waiting to meet them at their destination.

So my original statement of why do I do it? The answer is the smiles of the families when they arrive in Australia. That first step out of the airport, more often than not accompanied by tears of joy, makes them realize that the effort was worth it....