What to do when searching for a new role when you first arrive in Australia by Andrea at Roo Resumes

Congratulations, you and your family have spent years planning this very moment, arriving in Australia having gained your Permanent Residency Visa spending thousands on it, having attended your medical examinations and jumping through so many Aussie hoops to get the dream ticket to begin a new life down under.

However, now you are here what do you really need to prioritize in order to get a great job as soon as possible before all your hard earned savings or money from that recent house sale gained are swamped up by the terrible exchange rate on offer at the moment? How can you really speed up the hiring process to work in your favour?

Well to start with, and I can only go of my journey here with my family but when we arrived here in Adelaide nearly a decade ago now our main priority once we had sorted out a Bank Account, the children’s school, somewhere to live of course, our Superannuation, Healthcare and Tax File numbers was for my husband to get hunting for a suitable job. After all living on a one wage income over here can be tough to say the least!

Initially for him, what was the hardest to adjust to was that in the UK and abroad in Europe and UAE my husband was a well-connected and highly networked professional, most projects came to him through word of mouth or via a business stakeholder referral yet over here we literally knew no-one. I think to start with, he found that hard. You see when you arrive in Australia your reputation where you came from means nothing so you need to build a reputation when you get here. You also need to be prepared to take a lower end salary offer when you first arrive as most of the time you are up against local Australian talent with local industry experience.

To start with you do need to understand that a recruitment process for a permanent role in Australia can take between 4 weeks to 8 weeks from an application been submitted, it took me ages to learn in recruitment that clients will sit on a great hire with all the right skills and culture fit for weeks, sometimes Months! So as hard as it is given the importance of finding a role please be patient and only apply for roles where you tick 75% of the key selection criteria.

However , If you do not have this length of time in savings then apply to contract roles only, the process is much quicker and you should hear back within only a few days of an application been submitted. If you have not had a phone call within 3 working days then accept you have not been selected for an interview. Contract roles come thick and fast over here and take up most of the market so speed of hire is essential.

Having understood the above to start with, he had his UK based Resume written by himself looked at by a Recruitment Professional, an expert other than myself as at the time I myself had only worked in the UK and Europe. He simply asked over a coffee if his Resume was suited to the Australian market. The answer was no.

It needs to be said that in the UK, and lots of Countries the style, tone, layout and font of a Resume and how many pages it goes over is so different to the Australia market and what clients look for and expect in a Resume and he was advised to hire a Professional Resume Writer.

We did this with ease, simply using Linked In and Google to find the most appropriate Resume Writer that seemed to know the market he was skilled in well. Within 7 working days he had a well-crafted and polished Professional Resume, Linked In Profile and Cover Letter to start applying for appropriate roles in the Adelaide area.

Then he took to Google to simply find via Linked In who was the most appropriate and connected Recruitment Agency and Recruitment Professional for his skill set and he sent them a coffee request via Linked In. Whilst some did not bother to respond the few who did was keen to meet him and discuss potential contract roles with him. You see, finding a permanent role in Australia takes time. Why this is I have never worked this out, but clients tend to want local experience so sometimes looking at contract roles when you arrive is your best option for the first year or so.

Understand that the majority of roles since the global recession are now fixed term contract or contract or temporary assignments here anyway. It is just the way the market is over here.

Upon meeting with three of the most appropriate Senior Recruitment Consultants suitable to his skills and industry expertise in the construction engineering sector, he then decided to attend a seminar coming up that was in line with his industry and project based experience over here. ?It meant he had to fly to Sydney for a few days but remember you can simply put the cost of this into your next tax return as it is a job related expense. By far, this was a great networking opportunity for him to meet with like-minded business professionals in the construction engineering industry and he came away from this event feeling really positive and happy he had attended.

If you do decide to attend a suitable event or conference that may be beneficial to you finding a great role then try to link up with the delegates beforehand via Linked In if you can and make sure you have your own professional business cards to hand over on the day. For him, he met with so many like-minded hiring managers and construction engineering professionals that day that was open to have a discussion or follow up meeting over a coffee with him over the coming weeks after this event. ?It was also a great way to make new friends in a strange Country.

Next he uploaded his new professionally written Resume and Cover Letter to Seek, Australia’s number one job board. You can also use others such as Indeed too but try and stick to just a few no matter how tempting it can be.

It is worth noting that when you do upload it via a job board then please do send a MS Word version as some PDF files get distorted upon upload depending on the back end software a company or job board uses and you do not want your Resume to be submitted but then cannot be read by a Recruiter or Hiring Manager. Simply save your Resumes and Cover Letters written on PDF files to direct applications only as the same happens with Recruitment Agency databases. That is why agencies may reply to you requesting a MS Word copy only.

Finally, he decided to visit the top 10 companies’ websites of global reputable companies that he would like to work for and armed with his new Resume and an appropriate Cover Letter and he submitted expressions of interest to his businesses of choice. Whilst he never knew if they had a suitable role behind the scenes or not it was a way to try and get his foot in the door. ?He also kept the Recruitment Agencies in the loop so there was no chance of any duplicate applications that would drown his Resume in the Adelaide market. Trust me, it is the last thing you want over here in Australia so please be strategic when applying for roles and stay on top of your job search at all times. In doing all of the above, he continued to keep a spreadsheet of who he had applied to, the date of each application and when to follow up with a telephone call having submitted an application within 3 working days.

So then, did it work?

Yes, within time it did, however it was not an overnight success story, he was offered three jobs in total and managed to negotiate a decent salary that we could all live off for the time being until he managed to gain that all important local industry experience clients seem to want over here in the land down under, the land where they say they have a skill shortage but then sometimes are cautious of hiring someone who has just migrated here. However that in itself is a totally different topic all together that I have discussed on here before.

I guess I would be really interested to know what your individual experiences are upon your arrival into Australia and how long it took you to gain a new role from arrival. I would also be keen to hear of any valuable tips that you can share with my valued network to help then upon arrival into a new Country of choice.

After all, they do say that we are all living the dream here!

I set up this business over 8 years ago now to help and support new arrivals into Australia in finding that all important first job.

If you need my help or support in writing a new Professional Resume, Cover Letter or optimizing your existing LinkedIn Profile then please do not hesitate to add me on here or visit our website at www.rooresumes.com today.

Professional Resumes at Roo Resumes start from $299.00.

Good Luck!

Andrea, Owner, Roo Resumes

?