Almost 40 % of Australia’s population live in Melbourne and Sydney. Job market is the only factor which drives this trend. Clearly its difficult if not impossible to find a job in any other city in Australia, specially when you are new to the job market.

I have had a lot of people (including my husband) encouraging me saying that local experience does not matter . And to some extent , they are right. Let me write my story to elaborate the situation.

So far I have got 5 calls and 2 of them materialised into interviews . Its worth mentioning that all these calls were directly from the hiring companies and not from recruiting agencies. I did receive enquiries from recruiters who vanished after they realised I had no local experience and I was on career break . I mean who cares about the fact that women also have this added responsibility of giving birth and rearing a child. We can wait for this agenda to be publicised till human species comes to brink of extinction.

Let my hormones not deviate me further from the topic.

There are enough jobs advertised on job boards everyday. Now why one does not get call even when the job description matches almost perfectly with his/her resume. I can only blame it to the overwhelming number of resources available in these 2 major job hubs thats Sydney and Melbourne. Ofcourse I don’t believe that some of these jobs could be fake. I would be a looser otherwise.

Now coming back to the topic of local experience. If you have a niche skill , then certainly your place of work would not matter. Infact I have seen people getting hired directly from overseas. However if you are a commoner by which I mean you are a Java, dotnet , mainframes , oracle guy, then welcome to the paradise . Only an angel can help you in this wonderland.

Again , this is my experience. If you ask my husband , it would be a different story altogether. He is a “Java guy” and got job within 3 weeks of coming to Australia. I say he was lucky and he thinks its his hard work.

Here are a few things that I would do before coming to Australia if I could go back in time

  • Find out the latest trend if your area of work and get yourself a CERTIFICATION. Certifications go a long way here. -Dont take a break after leaving your current position. Come to Australia as soon as possible. Career breaks of even 1 month can be questioned if your stars are not right.
  • Search internet for interview questions in your field and prepare them as you prepared for your 10th or 12th exam.
  • Think about some real time issues in your previous projects and how you contributed to solving the issue. These are very common questions here and I can bet you would not escape this.
  • Work on your cover letter as recruiters concentrate on Cover letters more than your resume. Its a small document and hence easier for them to scan through.

Last but not the least , if you have never worked in Australia then listening to some audios in Australian accent might help. You dont want to ask your interviewer to repeat his questions only because he has a difficult accent.

I have changed 3 jobs in India and worked in USA for couple of years. Based on my experience, I would say, the market is surely not as good as USA, but not as difficult as in India. At the end of the day , everyone gets a job here.

Its just about not giving up.