If you are coming to Australia, Read this!

Coolin325

Just wrote up a little bit about my experience in Australia looking for work and my experience with the working holiday Visa if anybody wants to have a read.


Finding Work In Australia On A Working Holiday Visa

Before I left Ireland late last year I spoke to everyone I knew who was currently in Australia or had been previously.
I researched where to go and which city would suit me best. I finally settled on Melbourne.

When I arrived in Melbourne I was on my own, I got set up in a hostel for $180 a week and started to look for work.
Australia is an extremely expensive country when you are not working and without the help of my friends I would not be here today.
I applied for nearly one hundred jobs all over Melbourne and Sydney.
I have an excellent resume that has got me every job I have applied for back home, but over here, nothing.
The reason, my working holiday visa.

The working holiday visa allows you to work for one company for only 6 months, after that time you either have to get sponsored, travel or get a new job.
A lot of companies are reluctant to sponsor because of the costs involved but it is possible, especially if you have a trade.

I was told by a friend who works in the recruitment industry in Melbourne, that business’s do sponsor on occasion, but when they do they know that they have power over you and can use it against you. This means they can give you the worst shifts, make you work the weekends, and can keep you in the same role for the full duration of the contract.
They know that if they offer you a 4 year sponsorship you have no choice but to work for them.
They also know if you leave their company, you have to leave the country.

Because of this Visa you wont get a contract of over 6 months and on occasion you wont even get the 6 month contracts
As the employer is worried if the contract goes over the 6 months he has to hire and train a new employee.

We decided to leave Melbourne and head to Perth, stopping along the way at the mines to see if we could get work there. We had no luck as we didn’t have trades and apparently thousands of other backpackers had the same idea as us. So we decided to move onto Perth.

Perth was a beautiful place, with amazing weather but it is very small. We spent 4 weeks looking for work and found nothing except bar work. We had met a lot of fellow travellers who were in the same situation as us and didn’t know what to do. The majority of people had spent all their money looking for work and were trying to get help to go home.

I had heard about the farm work from friends and read stories about people having great times and saving a couple of thousand dollars. We thought that we could do the 3 months farm work, which would qualify us for our second year visa, save up some money and then leave and go back to Asia. We would then have the option of coming back here later. We spent a few more weeks looking for paid farm work and found nothing. This was the same for everyone in our hostel.

We were looking for farm work all over Australia, not just in Perth.
We were looking for a job earning $22-25 an hour, a job where we could work as many hours a day and as many days a week as we could and from what we heard this was possible. We just wanted to put our heads down and save.

All we found were jobs offering $19 an hour and working a basic 35-37 hour a week(the farmers say this has changed because the government are cramping down on the long hours previously offered) You have to provide your own accommodation, which usually means staying in a Hostel for about $185 a week no matter where you are. This is the same price as a hostel in Sydney/Melbourne city center.

When you are earning $19 an hour, paying rent of $185, paying for food, transport and trying to save this becomes virtually impossible.

My only advice is If you are planning on going to Australia to emigrate and don’t have a trade, either apply for a permanent migration visa or try to arrange something before you get there. If you can’t, remember you only have 6 months to make a good enough impression on a company and convince them to pay to sponsor you and that’s not a long time. Also, bring a lot of money!

Three of my friends went to Cairns to do Banana Picking, two of them left the farm after one week because of poor treatment. They were told they could do one thing and then when they arrived things changed. They were given terrible jobs and little hours. They were promised work and when they got there they only had 2 or 3 weeks worth of work.I went back to Melbourne and was denied several jobs because of my Visa again before finally getting the job I am in today. After Christmas I am going to Vancouver, Canada where I have received a 2 year visa with no farm work involved
Hopefully It will be easier to get a job there…

ArseBurger

Coolin325 wrote: »

They also know if you leave their company, you have to leave the country.

Not true. On a 457 your next employer can take the visa over. Or if you are let go you have 28 days to find a new employer who will take on the visa.

danotroy

Coolin325 wrote: »

I have an excellent resume that has got me every job I have applied for back home, but over here, nothing.
The reason, my working holiday visa.

T

I think this is highly misleading. sure companies are reluctant to hire WHV in serious professional roles but if your resume was "excellent" are you sure you were applying for the right roles to match your experience? were you listening to stories your mates told you at home about how easy it is to earn 70k a year doing IT ?

Basically you may think you have an excellent resume but in a competitive job market on the other side of the world maybe your resume is just average. I'm not saying you have an average resume for all i know you could be the best in your field in Europe but selling yourself here is a bit different than back home you generally have to put a hell of a lot more effort in. Every resume and cover letter i send out i tailor to the individual job/company/role it takes an age!

GiftofGab

Believe me I've been trying to get any sort of good banking / finance even office admin job for a long time and if you're on a working holiday visa you would need to have a least a 5/6 years experience. Coming straight out of uni with 2 years experience is not going to cut it in Australia.

danotroy

GiftofGab wrote: »

Believe me I've been trying to get any sort of good banking / finance even office admin job for a long time and if you're on a working holiday visa you would need to have a least a 5/6 years experience. Coming straight out of uni with 2 years experience is not going to cut it in Australia.

It is a hard slog. I've had to put in hard graft for 16 months making a network of connections which in the last 3 months has gotten me various offers for roles and 2 actual short term contracts.


This link i just got sent on linkedin articulates my previously made point. http://www.hays.com.au/press-releases/HAYS_102819?ver=d

Slunk

As someone said. Your probably looking at the wrong jobs. Its a working holiday visa. I found jobs in both Sydney and Melbourne with a few weeks. Even lost a job in Sydney due to excess partying and got another one in a few weeks. Thing is I wasn't looking for professional / career jobs. I was on holiday earning a few quid to see the place. I packed boxes, knocked doors for optus mobile phones and worked in a call centre. I managed pretty well,had an amazing time and came back with a few quid too.

markymark21

Coolin325 wrote: »

We were looking for farm work all over Australia, not just in Perth.
We were looking for a job earning $22-25 an hour, a job where we could work as many hours a day and as many days a week as we could and from what we heard this was possible. We just wanted to put our heads down and save.

All we found were jobs offering $19 an hour and working a basic 35-37 hour a week(the farmers say this has changed because the government are cramping down on the long hours previously offered) You have to provide your own accommodation, which usually means staying in a Hostel for about $185 a week no matter where you are. This is the same price as a hostel in Sydney/Melbourne city center.

When you are earning $19 an hour, paying rent of $185, paying for food, transport and trying to save this becomes virtually impossible.

You'd be very very lucky to find farm work paying $22-25 despite what you hear on the grapevine. In fact you'd be doing well to get $19 an hour! Most places pay you per bucket. Also, $19 an hour - doing a 38 hour week will net you $722. How could you not save money? Even spending $180 on a hostel, food, transport you should have a couple of hundred dollars left over if you don't blow it all in the pub.

The Sweeper

ArseBurger wrote: »

Not true. On a 457 your next employer can take the visa over. Or if you are let go you have 28 days to find a new employer who will take on the visa.

+1 to this - and if your employer sacks you while they hold your 457 sponsorship and you cannot find a new employer to take over the sponsorship within 28 days, your old employer is responsible for buying you an economy class ticket home.

FernandoTorres

I've been in Melbourne since Feb on a WHV with the plan being to get sponsored and stay on. I've got a good CV with 4 years experience in a good finance job back home. As people have said, the WHV is very little use for "professional" jobs. I had numerous companies call me saying they were very interested but as soon as I revealed I was on the WHV they didn't want to know! So eventually decided to apply for the skilled independent visa which I luckily qualify for.

Being able to say I've applied for that visa definitely helped and straight away I got a temp job which was grand and then got a fixed term contract in my area of expertise with possible permanency when/if visa comes through so it's all worked out thankfully. The default opinion of most employers (and fair enough) is that you will be out of here in a year if you're on the WHV or you're going to be out getting pissed every night and it's very hard to convince them otherwise!

So basically in my experience of the finance jobs market is that there aren't that many jobs at the moment to begin with. Most will be full time perm so you can't get them on the WHV. A lot will go to internal candidates. A lot will go through recruiters, many of whom discount WHV holders immediately. A lot will require "Australian experience" (regardless of the fact that you may have done the exact same thing at home!). So you're left with very little to work with and even then you've got to convince an employer to take you on. If you can get a skilled visa, do it, definitely worth the investment.

danotroy

FernandoTorres wrote: »

So eventually decided to apply for the skilled independent visa which I luckily qualify for.

Being able to say I've applied for that visa definitely helped and straight away I got a temp job which was grand and then got a fixed term contract in my area of expertise with possible permanency when/if visa comes through so it's all worked out thankfully. The default opinion of most employers (and fair enough) is that you will be out of here in a year if you're on the WHV or you're going to be out getting pissed every night and it's very hard to convince them otherwise!

youve applied for the independent skills visa?
i was under the impression when you apply for this you have to wait until they get back to you? can you please explain the process?

mandrake04

danotroy wrote: »

youve applied for the independent skills visa?
i was under the impression when you apply for this you have to wait until they get back to you? can you please explain the process?

People often get confused by this

There are two steps

1) Register an Expression of interest.

2) When invited you can the make an application for a skilled visa.

Step 1 is like a pool of prospective applicants, depending on points, occupation, occupation ceiling will depend on an invite to apply.

Then you apply at stage 2.

danotroy

mandrake04 wrote: »

People often get confused by this

There are two steps

1) Register an Expression of interest.

2) When invited you can the make an application for a skilled visa.

Step 1 is like a pool of prospective applicants, depending on points, occupation, occupation ceiling will depend on an invite to apply.

Then you apply at stage 2.

this is what im wondering? at what stage are you at torres? have you just registered an interest? of have you been invited to apply?

can anyone not just register and tell employers they are getting a skills visa? when in fact they may be years off getting one.

wesf

Friend of mine saved $20,000 in just under 6 months working on a cotton farm, and he got the job within a week of arriving in Australia

oz2013

The point the OP is trying to make is about this misconception that a lot of young Irish have about the streets of Oz being paved with gold!

Fair comments added though

catbear

Is just me or is the "holiday' nearly non existent in that WHV report?

Cooperspale

catbear wrote: »

Is just me or is the "holiday' nearly non existent in that WHV report?

No, I agree.

Many Irish arriving in Australia on WHVs in recent times are coming here to try and stay. This isn't the purpose of the visa but the whole concept of it has changed and become somewhat skewed in Irish minds compared to 5+ years ago. There are some who secure sponsorship and fair play to all but it can be the exception rather than the rule. Irish media cover stories about mass emigration when a lot of these "emigrants" are on WHV to Canada, Aus or NZ. If the US was available they'd be heading there no doubt.
The Australian WHV is primarily designed to make money for the Australian government and economy. It is a huge cash cow. You work, you pay your tax and a lot of the money you earn is ploughed back into the economy depending on how you spend or squander it.
It is a real shame that so many are either not interested in the holiday aspect of the visa or just don't have the funds to really enjoy it through poor management or bad luck. Back in my day 3 months was the time limit per employer and it was a 1 year visa. I worked in 3 different states and travelled through all of them seeing and doing as much as possible, I had a backpack not a suitcase.

These days arriving in Oz hoping to either earn loads or get sponsored, you will need to stand out from the crowd in some way. CVs need to be tailored to each position, network where possible, any extra qualification that can be gotten before arriving get it, (and to be honest this applies a lot for Canada also)....Anything that can single you out from the competition. Hostels can be a good place to get one settled in on first arrival but to be honest they are not the best place. Everyone is in the same boat and a group mentality can set in sometimes and all n sundry are looking for the same farm jobs etc. so less chances for all involved. You can often be much better off striking out on your own, I know a bunch who have.

markymark21

Cooperspale wrote: »

No, I agree.

Many Irish arriving in Australia on WHVs in recent times are coming here to try and stay. This isn't the purpose of the visa but the whole concept of it has changed and become somewhat skewed in Irish minds compared to 5+ years ago.

But that's the beauty of the WHV. The visa itself is cheap and easy to get and It gives you an opportunity to come to Australia, earn good money and work in a few different jobs before you find the right one in order to extend your stay. I think the risk is far less then if you were to splash out on looking for PR right off the bat or even to look for sponsorship before you arrive. The latter is a massive risk in my opinion as we all know you only have 30 days to find a sponsor if It doesn't work out. With the WHV you have flexibility.

danotroy

Ok here is my two cents on moving to australia on a WHV intent on getting sponsered.

I was 24 a recent masters graduate (in a skill on the then critical skills shortage list). When i finished my undergraduate in 2008 all my friends were finished their apprenticeships and/or had got made redundant/lost their jobs so they collectively decided to head for Australia. I decided it wasn't for me so i stayed at home and got a masters. As i was finishing up my masters my mates were coming home from OZ and telling me about how much money they made and how the life style was great. In fairness none of them told me farming would make me a millionaire they said they had a terrible time on the east coast living in a van for 5 months earning nothing but having a laugh. Anyway 6 friends left 2 stayed and got sponsored as tradesmen, 2 went on to new zealand and 2 went home enrolled in engineering courses to extend on their trades in order to get back here or go to canada.

I spent the summer of 2011 living at home for the first time since i was 18, it really got me down having to sign on the dole and look for jobs that were non existent whilst not being able to hand any of my 100 euros over to my mother. I had a friend from my time in the UK living in melbourne who promised me melbourne was great and i should come try it. I put if off in my head until it all got too much at home so I booked a ticket and went for it on a WHV with the intention of getting some work in my field making loads of money getting sponsored and turning into some sort of pro surfer.

Due to listening to friends I had all but forgotten than the WHV is a holiday visa this cannot be stressed enough it is for a holiday. I arrived and hit the streets looking for a bar job which i got pretty quickly (not easily but quickly) after a few weeks finding my feet i started applying for roles in my field and i got limited responses and when i did it wasn't that i didn't have enough experience it was because i did not have full working rights in Australia. This was a bit of a set back but i put my head down studied australian practice in my field and kept applying for work. Before i knew it 4months had passed, i was making good money in the bar but i was still living in a hostel. I realized besides being expensive and lacking any personal space hanging around with backpackers was getting me nowhere. Going to the same chapel street bars, being on the lash most nights, having the odd smoke was getting boring and it wasn't what i had came to melbourne for.

I found a short term let and moved to carlton i made a conscious decision to make more solid friends if they were backpackers fair enough but i was looking for a more ozzie experience and all i've gotten from 4 months of backpacker mates is stories of mega $$ made doing regional work and visa scams. I started making some good friends and started networking with some rather strange and wonderful people. I got involved in urbex and cycling each of these opened up a vast array of contacts to me. However time got the better of me and i found myself with 4 months to do 3 months of farm work. I tried to find farm work online but it was a fruitless task. There is very limited work in victoria so i looked further a field i had stayed in contact with my backpacker mates who were still around and i asked them for farm work help. low and behold when i rang the places they had it was the same old story mentioned on here i.e living in a remote hostel and not guaranteed any solid work. I quickyly realized i was up that brown creek without a paddle.

However the locals are a great bunch and in a very irish way they all networked for me and found me a position on a farm 70km north of the city. A friends dad owned a farm, i worked there did my alloted time thus securing a second year visa. I made no money during this period, i actually lost money and alot of it. I worked for free on the farm, I caught a lift from the city on monday morning and came back friday afternoon after working a 30 hour week, I then had to work my bar job for 25 hours at the weekend to pay for my rent. It was a bad time i was not happy during this period but i figured that it was worth it as i was putting down some solid roots here.

Things got back to normal and i went back to a 40 hour week in the pub and after 2 months i found myself financially secure again in a new rented apartment with a mate sponsorship was muted at work but for various reasons I decided against pursuing it. I started thinking about professional work again and sent some CV's only to get the same reply however my networking provided something out of the blue! a mate in the urbex circle knew a mate in the bike circle i became the basis for their friendship and it turned out one of them knew a guy in my field who had a bit of hiring power. the next week i found myself sitting behind a desk earning $35 an hour on a 3 month contract working 44 hours a week. that contract finished up last week and when the financial year ends they are going to try and re-hire me if budgets allow. During that role i somewhat abused my privileges at lunch time, i used linkedin extensively and my email address. I contacted loads of peers requesting information, making contact and asking their opinions on issues pertaining to my brief. I basically networking my arse off. I went for lunches with people i didn't know and spoke on topics i wasn't tasked with. When the contract finished up i had three offers on the table for volunteer work. I figured the money earned in my 3 month stint can now tied me over for 3 months doing volunteer work. At my first day in my new job i had to book a meeting with the mayor and i present a case to him at the end of the month over lunch with my new colleagues. I now have until late november to get as much experience here in melbourne as i can. I shall be trying to secure a job which may offer sponsorship but i do not hold much hope for this i figure i should get some great work experience under my belt and head to canada with experience in ireland the uk and australia in my field.

In brief the advice i would offer to those who are coming on a WHV to try and get sponsored ;

If you are straight out of uni stay at home get on job bridge and get some experience before coming here.
Move out of hostels and distance yourself from backpackers to an extent.
Move away from St.Kilda i have no clue why people live there. The beach is horrible the pubs are terrible the place is full of young europeans on the lash in various hostels and mega sharehouses. I know very few locals that actually live there. Granted there are obviously loads! but it has the highest proportion of WHV-expats- and the infamous gatwick hotel! I didn't come to melbourne to sit in a ****e irish bar with a guy from my home town i hardly spoke to at home. Also rent is more expensive i have a 2 bed apartment with garden in parkville (5 min walk to CBD) for 160 a week.

People in melbourne aren't sick of backpackers but they certainly wont go out of your way to invite you along to events if your intent on leaving pretty soon. Or if your gonna rock up with 10 "mates" from the hostel as does happen quiet often, A kind of cabin fever sets in to hostels when someone has the drive to get up and do something invariably people tag along its not good turning up to casual drinks with one of your work mates with 10 multi national backpackers who are scraping together 20 dollars for a jug of beer and sharing it amongst themselves.
Network as much as you can!
Don't be a dick!
Leave your sense of entitlement at home!
Don't forget your manners!
Leave your jersey in the wardrobe unless your going to the gym!
Get regional work done when you arrive, think of it as a requirement for when you arrive! i strongly recommend this. It will give you the best part of 20 months to find a job with sponsorship if you do it first! Rather then putting roots down and having to tear up and leave in a rush towards the end of your 1st year.
DO NOT BELIEVE THE STORIES ABOUT MEGA DOLLARS! it does not exist without hard work/lots of experience. nobody arrives here on a WHV slots into a $40 an hour job and makes the big bucks you will be told they do but they dont. If anyone actully has done it well done but frankly i don't believe you until i see a pay slip. I've heard it all but its always my friend earned it kind of story. Also forget about the mines! they don't exist! don't bother thinking about them! it would be akin to an aussie back packer in manchester getting fergies job at united!
I should add that being a tradesman on a WHV you do have a much better chance of getting sponsored. Many of my mates have done it one has done it in the last month.

That is my story maybe its relevant maybe its not and i'm sleep deprived and self indulgent.

oz2013

Well done DanoTroy. I hope everything works out for you. Great advice for young people heading over without Mammy and Daddy

Stevie888

Coolin325 wrote: »

When you are earning $19 an hour, paying rent of $185, paying for food, transport and trying to save this becomes virtually impossible.

Bull**** tbh, your not trying hard enough. Doing 35 hours a week at $19 an hour you should easily be able to save $200 a week. However, some Irish people never seem to want to make the sacrifices necessary to do this.

catbear

danotroy wrote: »

Leave your jersey in the wardrobe unless your going to the gym!

That would a deal breaker for those who are surgically attached to their jerseys.

Doc

wesf wrote: »

Friend of mine saved $20,000 in just under 6 months working on a cotton farm, and he got the job within a week of arriving in Australia

Friend of mine won the lotto and never had to work again. I think everyone should base their emigration on this because if one guy can win the lotto why cant all of us just do that?

Ramshackled

This spot is pricey.. I've got a middle of the road job in Sydney earning roughly $75k per annum, not going too crazy at the weekends and can only just support myself, you need to be earning a minimum of $90k to have a comfortable life and do any kind of saving over here.. $90k aus dollars= 45-50k Euro roughly from my experience and using my previous wages in Ireland as a bench mark but I'm open to correction

Mellor

Coolin325 wrote: »

A lot of companies are reluctant to sponsor because of the costs involved but it is possible, especially if you have a trade.

There are very little costs involved with sponsorship. Maybe $1,000
A lot of people are willing to pay this themselves to get sponsored

I was told by a friend who works in the recruitment industry in Melbourne, that business’s do sponsor on occasion,

About 70,000 people got sponsored last year. That's a bit more than "on occasion". Irish people make up a significant % of these.
Number are up this year.

They know that if they offer you a 4 year sponsorship you have no choice but to work for them.

That's not true.

They also know if you leave their company, you have to leave the country.

That's not true either.

Because of this Visa you wont get a contract of over 6 months and on occasion you wont even get the 6 month contracts
As the employer is worried if the contract goes over the 6 months he has to hire and train a new employee.

In my experience that's not true either.


I appreciate that you are trying to highlight that they don't give out 457s and jobs at the airport. But by the sounds of things, you are just repeating something somebody (in recruitment no less) told you, and have no first hand experience of the visa. So you aren't really in a position to make those claims.


A 417 makes it harder to get work, but its not impossible by any means.
Regarding farmwork, you shouldn't have believed the stories of saving a fortune. I think the fact that you had a per-concieved wage you wanted was a bad idea too.

markymark21

Good post danotroy, hope it works out for you

But I have to disagree what you said about St kilda. I think it's an awesome spot - if you look beyond the elephant and wheel Barrow there are some brilliant bars around and the town is loaded with top restaurants. Also, the the beach is great to chill out on a day off. Granted its not one of the best in Australia but it's still does the job.

Coolin325

ArseBurger wrote: »

Not true. On a 457 your next employer can take the visa over. Or if you are let go you have 28 days to find a new employer who will take on the visa.

Im talking about if a company says they will sponsor you and your 1 year visa is up. You then have to leave as your visa gets cancelled. What company will sponsor you within 28days?

Coolin325

oz2013 wrote: »

The point the OP is trying to make is about this misconception that a lot of young Irish have about the streets of Oz being paved with gold!

Fair comments added though

Thanks mate, thats all I was trying to get across.
The working holiday Visa is perfect if you actually plan on working and then holidaying.

I want to tell people that unless you will be travelling try get the other visa because the 417 puts employers off.

Coolin325

Because of this Visa you wont get a contract of over 6 months and on occasion you wont even get the 6 month contracts
As the employer is worried if the contract goes over the 6 months he has to hire and train a new employee.

I did find this to be true actually and It was repeated to me in several interviews.


They know that if they offer you a 4 year sponsorship you have no choice but to work for them.

"If you do stop working for your current sponsor, you have 28 days to find a new sponsor and apply for a new 457 visa"
you are going to find it near impossible to get another company to sponsor you if you dont like it there.


I am not just repeating what a friend told me that was two lines in the story mate, I do have experience in this actually as I am in Melbourne at the moment with a foot in each visa.

Thanks for your "Corrections"

markymark21

Coolin325 wrote: »

Im talking about if a company says they will sponsor you and your 1 year visa is up. You then have to leave as your visa gets cancelled. What company will sponsor you within 28days?

You can work around it though. I I know a guy who was working as a restaurant manager and was sponsored. He was with them for a couple of years. He left however to look for a new challenge and the restaurant he was working with said they keep the sponsorship going until he found a new sponsor. It didn't cost them anything but fair play to them all the same.

Batgurl

Coolin325 wrote: »

"If you do stop working for your current sponsor, you have 28 days to find a new sponsor and apply for a new 457 visa"
you are going to find it near impossible to get another company to sponsor you if you dont like it there.


Thanks for your "Corrections"

http://www.irishecho.com.au/2013/05/09/weve-moved-to-1962-with-a-broadband-connection/25390

Well would you look at that??? Two offers in 28 days. Hard? Yes. Near impossible? No.

Mellor

Coolin325 wrote: »

They know that if they offer you a 4 year sponsorship you have no choice but to work for them.

You can work for them, and if you aren't happy or get a better offer you can transfer to the new sponsor.

you are going to find it near impossible to get another company to sponsor you if you dont like it there.

That's nonsense. People change sponsor all the time.

I am not just repeating what a friend told me that was two lines in the story mate, I do have experience in this actually as I am in Melbourne at the moment with a foot in each visa.

What your friend says isn't true. The 457 has its flaws, but not the issues you suggest.

What experience do you have with a 457?