Hi All,
I have been in Sydney, Australia since a year now as part of the IT industry here and based on my experience of finding work or changing jobs, I am sharing the below points. This may or may not be true for other industries or situations but I am sure will help some of you to get an idea about how things are in Australia.
1> The job market is pathetically slow during the November end through to mid of January due to pending signoffs, approvals and key people going on vacation
2> Don’t go by the number of jobs that you see on SEEK, most of them are there since a long time and repeated across different consultancies in Australia. Its very common that a single job is advertised by a number of different IT recruitment agencies
3> The market usually starts picking up from mid January onwards and you start seeing new jobs on the market
4> Probably the peak time for the job market is between June to October but again there is a decent number of the jobs available from February through May
5> You might find it a little difficult to get into the OZ job market initially. You’ll find a lot of job agents and employers cribbing about you not having local experience in order to try and exploit that to pay you less money. Ironically, you’ll have to be prepared for this and take whatever you can find as your first job. It becomes a lot easier after you get some local experience
6> Generally the interview process is very slow. Under normal circumstances it would take you about a month from the time your CV was short listed for an interview until fetching a decent offer in hand. Add at least one more week for joining. This is assuming an ideal situation.
In summary, come with a open and positive mindset, brush up your communication skills in English (this usually is the difference between getting a job in a couple of months or a number of months) and be confident.
As far as IT industry goes, if you are good, confident, and have the right skills along with an ability to utilize all possible networking and communication channels, you should not have a lot of trouble finding your first job in Australia.
A few tips
1> Remember your resume is the first thing that sells your skills, so work on your CV and research about Australian standard resume format.
2> Have a decent profile on Linkedin and get recommendations from your peers and managers
3> Have a significant number of referees from your previous job who can vouch for you
Hope this was helpful,
All the best to everyone!
Raafee