Any tips for me? Still cant get any work :(

LizOHagan

Propane Nightmare wrote: »

Hey, ive been here in Oz for nearly a month now. Have applied in close to 50 stores/business's etc id say by now, but only have got 1 call back so far for a job interview.

Funds are starting to run low, and I really dont fancy heading home yet

Im in the Brisbane area and just cant seem to get anything. Im a hard-working guy with experience, and made up a good CV. Its casual work im after (D2D, Sales, retail etc.)

Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

Is it unusual for one to come over here and not get work and have to head back home because of it? Id honestly be crushed inside if I have to leave without getting work.

Have you spent the AUD$5000 you brought with you in a month?

Tigerandahalf

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2012/01/11/tremors-from-australias-crash-will-reach-our-shores

He wrote this article on Oz recently. It's interesting and informative. He could be spot on. The Australian banks don't have as much cash from the Chinese buying mine resources, thus they are raising interest rates and sacking workers to balance the books.
China is clearly exposed. They are in Europe this week in talks with various governments and they were in the US recently as well.
Everybody is connected now with this globalised world. We're like a boat on the sea, up and down together on the waves.
The OZ economy just like Ireland was is becoming uncompetitive. It's currency is overvalued. It could happen that the currency will be devalued down the line.

jackbhoy

Batgurl wrote: »

While common sense dictates that I should, common courtesy (towards other housemates who's "mates" they are) leads me not to.

Don't get me wrong, I've tried. The old "but sure they've no where else to go until they get enough money saved up for a bond" has been bounded about. Here's a novel idea, stop going Tea Gardens & Cock n Bull every Thurs, Fri, Sat and Sun and you mite just get enough money together for a bond???

Sorry OP, I've gone totally off topic. Advice is: work harder, be prepared to move/commute, network...and if all that fails, you probably know my housemates so I'll no doubt see you on my couch shortly... :P

Now it makes sense! You are taking your frustrations from wasters on your couch out on poor OP

The vast majority of people who come here are not like that in fairness.

And I wouldn't give a fook about common courtesy, if someone was treating my house like that and showing me zero courtesy they'd be out on their arse very quickly! They need to grow the fook up or get on a plane back to the mammy and daddy that have obviously been spoon feeding them since birth....

hussey

Mod Guys back on track please, let's help the OP, rather than bickering

CiaranC

Batgurl wrote: »

By my calculations, after a month I'd applied for over 250 jobs online and a further 50 in person

<snip> Mod I just said no bickering ... </snip>

OP, dont listen to this nonsense. You need to specifically target jobs you can get, develop a CV tailored for each one and spend the time to follow up your application properly. Not spray your CV around like a meth addict with OCD.

It can be tough to find work. You need to go into conserve mode with the cash bigtime until you land something. Look rural if you have to.

Batgurl

Hi OP

Just wanted to let you know that 10 resumes a day isn't exactly whoring yourself out.

Depending on what you are looking for (and you have said that you are not being picky) I would say that 10 applications a day is the minimum someone who is serious about getting a job should be doing.

You are looking for advice on how to get work. There is no magic formula. You just need to put yourself out there and hope somebody bites.

At the end of the day, competition is fierce and while you may tailor your resume to the position perfectly and look great, your one issue is that you are ON A WHV!!! The only way you can overcome this when applying for jobs is by sending as many as possible and hope that someone needs the staff urgently so as to not have the time to wait around for an applicant with PR.

Diamondmaker

Best advice is get out of Brisbane.

I have lived here nearly 5 years and can confrim 1st hand through my own experieinces and of my many friends, collegues and acquaintances here, that the local economy in Brizzy and Qld is in a pretty bad state.

Unemployment stats are greatly skewed by the huge numbers working in mines. I have 3 mates who have had to go the mines in the last few months for work or career progression due to the current lack of opportunites. QLd unemployment, even allowing for the inclsuions of the mine work, is one of the highest in Oz. Its mines or mine periphery work or nothing it seems.

I have changed employer this year and the projects I will be running is for the mines, my mate in an airport consultancy mainly consults to the mines, another mate a geologist...mines and another in constrcution PM as me has moved to Gladstone for mine work.

I have a few friends ( local and Kiwi ) out of work and while I was in between jobs I tested the water, while the contract came through for my current which I only got through an established relationship with my new and former boss from a few years back.

My wife was made redundnat and has been getting scraps of temp work but nothing since Nov, she again is looking good for a job now, but again only through a contact of a boss she worked for already for a few years.

Its really tightneing up and getting a job here is easy if you are decorated with mine experience and expect to get paid HUGE money.

Otherwise people are recruting selectively as you woudl expect in togh times and its mainly who you know here right now in all inductries.

Melbourne and Perth are very busy by all accounts and I have mates moving to Vis as a result, you may want to consuder this. Sydney is not booming by any means either. If you are keen to stay in QLd Gladstone is not too far up the road and a mining hot bed and the ancillary industires may garner work. APart from here the rest of the locations get really remote.

For the record Nurses can pick and choose their shifts here as they are such high demand but thats about it ! My Sister in law is visiting and has had no drama in getting multiple shifts ( contract work only ) ny bro who is a dentist got work but by no means as easy as he ahd hoped and expected.

I am in construction PM for the record and my wife a high level PA in property....2 of the hardest hit sectors here.... just as at home !

Brizzy is a great place but it is not the land of opportunity right now for most.

woolymammoth

Charlie Haughy wrote: »

....

Ok i'm a bit late back to the party, but Charlie Haughy, seriously? And ever heard of F3? Or such a thing as truth and tough love? If someone cannot accept the hard truth, don't ask for it. It gets on my nut when fools like you come on and try to lambast me for having a very negative outlook. I have a very realistic outlook. And i have it because I've been in the position of searching very hard for jobs that are simply very scarce. I've spent endless weeks looking for all kinds of labouring watching my savings dwindle. I've spent time in the blistering heat laying concrete for nothing, so i do know exactly what it's like, and it's not fun. You haven't made a single valuable contribution to the thread, positive, negative or indifferent, except bagging me for being honest. It's very clear to me from the OPs response to my implying questions that he's tried incredibly hard to find work, but he hasn't tried everything. I'm merely trying to encourage a point of view I believe he already knew when he created the thread. What he does at the end of the day is up to him though.

6ix wrote: »

That's not really fair IMO - everyone has certain parameters they have to/want to live within - being on a WHV doesn't mean you discard those.

I broadly agree with you but what I mean is that everyone's situation is different and there may be reasons that you can't be free to travel. For example - if you've travelled across the world with a partner then I don't think you'd want to just leave them in one city while you go set up a life elsewhere.

Well, imo, you kind of do have to adjust the parameters you want to live with if you're on a WHV. Yes, everyone does have a different situation. But the simple fact is, a WHV is a WHV, and people ought to know the limitations it has before getting it. If people were really intent on coming out to make a life here, they'd apply for a different visa, or, they'd be off getting some regional work to apply for a 2nd WHV, not waiting around for retail jobs that might never appear in the middle of one city. Plus, if you've really travelled the world with a partner, then you're gonna be more world wise the possible difficulties, and be better adapted to travelling a little further.

I hate to be a downer sometimes, but I don't believe in sugar coating this stuff so as not to hurt peoples feelings! So what I say may sound harsh, but i'd rather see people well informed so they don't ruin themselves. What do you tell someone, for example, who's come over on a WHV, with say 5,000 euro in the bank, and tries quite hard to get a particular kind of job, in an environment where they're scarce, and cost of living is high, and they don't try outside 50km of that location, for 6 months? Can you answer that? I can, you tell them the truth before they're there for 6 months, before they've spent their savings on accomodation and food. Is it expensive to travel? Yes. Is it expensive to stay in the city and not work? yes.

I know the mods have said no bickering, and i hope this all doesn't read that way. Just telling it like I see it. Without meaning to be sarcastic, what do i know about the aussie economy anyway? Nothing. I look at what's going on around me and I form my opinions on that. And if you look just at figures, Australia says it created what, 46,000 jobs last month? That despite all the reported job losses, unemployment actually fell!!! So my argument is pretty much either sh!te or well justified who can really tell.

OP, Tip #2 before i leave this thread altogether; Make your own luck. Don't take anything i've said to heart, but keep it in mind. That is all.

Diamondmaker

woolymammoth wrote: »

Australia says it created what, 46,000 jobs last month? That despite all the reported job losses, unemployment actually fell!!! So my argument is pretty much either sh!te or well justified .

Jobs are being lost all over the place in the traditional employment areas, there are 10s of thousands of jobs being created and wating to be filled in mining and gas activites. The vast majority are remote based and are not accesssable to the normal job hunter.

It is very much an accpeted and acknowledged fact that there is a 2 speed economy, particulalry in Qld where people are earning 200k - 300k and the rest, on mining work and the rest are losing their jobs, or taking pay cuts or doing it tough if self employed.

From a cross section of say 20 people I see regualarly all Perm residents or Aussies or Citizens and all with uni qualifications and 10 years work min, everyone has had 1st hand trouble finding work. Be it:

3 months out like me, my eventual job came from a personal contact, an opportunity new arrivals less likely have.
Sporadic agency work like my wife
Moving to the mines 2 friends
Projects are related to the mines 2 x
Only on part time hours 3 x
Redundancies 3 x
Illegal sacking to aid "streamlining" without the cost of the above x 2
Promotion to "see how you go" no raise x 1

No one you talk to on the street will say things are going well, quite the opposite.