Anyone from UK moved to Australia

Lee H

Hi

Just thought I would ask if anyone has up sticks and moved to Aus (or any other country), I heard a long while back they were despo for IT bods wondering if thats still the case, and do you need list as long as a toilet roll of MS certs to get the visa.

Cheers

Lee

Trashman

Australia is the best country in the world.

However, it's not as easy to get sponsored in Australia these days as it used to be.
Half of Europe is already here on a working holiday visa looking for sponsorship (no work in Europe).

They have a lot more to choose from and there is a lot more competition these days.

However if you are under 31 and willing to come over on a working holiday visa and find work on a cattle station in a very remote area in the outback where no one else are willing to work and get sponsored, that will get you a PR visa and you're free to go after a few years.

Applying for a working visa from abroad is mega difficult unless you hold a PhD in Computer Science or something similar.

Essendon

Very nice country to live in, no doubt. But being desperate for bums on seats, nope. We never were, stupid pollies thought there was a skills shortage while there was never a shortage. So the result now is too many folks competing for fewer jobs.

Four TE members, that I know of, have come (or are here) to Australia. GAngel (I believe he's a resident too but back in Canada nowadays), nel (he's now a perm resident), UnixGuy (unsure what visa he's on) and Sounds Good (on a holiday working visa). Might be best if they chimed in with their experiences of how they got here and how they fared.

Looking at your certs alone (dont know about your experience), you are going to have a hard time landing anything more than a helpdesk contract gig. Quite a few Hyper-v/vSphere admin jobs out there, would make sense to certify in those products. There are more jobs in Sydney than the rest of the country combined.

To give you a better response, where do your skills lie?

EdTheLad

Yes, that is a myth the Australian government makes up about loads of jobs etc. If you have skills and experience you will find a job, just like you would anywhere else. The pay is pretty good, but has been dropping year on year for the last 3+ years. Australian job sites are full of jobs, often several different agents advertising the same job. A lot of jobs advertised don't exist as it's just agents trying to gather resumes.
Most Australian companies reply on recruitment agents more so than any other country i've worked in, they don't seem to have in house HR departments that deal with recruitment. For some reason these agents seem to show no value to work experience outside Australia, so it can be difficult to get your first job.
In the UK, recruitment agents call you about jobs, chase you, suck up to you etc.. In Australia it's the other way around unless you know from a previous job. It will be difficult to get a job without being on Australian soil, most agents wont want to know if your overseas.

Can you tell i love recruitment agents?

If you plan on coming over here as a backpacker its the same deal regarding jobs, the government advertise job shortages, but on the ground its hard to find a job. Most backpackers in Melbourne average 25 hrs per week and get treated terribly in the process. It seems like a big scam to get cheap labor into the country.
Then there are the backpackers who go out to the bush and work on a fruit farm. The common setup is a central house which has contacts with local farms in the area. You average 3-4 working days per week, pay rent, pay transport to the farm, pay laundry... since their is nothing to do in the afternoon you drink beer or cheap wine. By the end of the week you have no money and the cycle continues, there are lots of backpackers trapped in this setup. I've heard so many of these type stories.

Where in Australia would you plan on going? Rent is very expensive, so you should definitely have some cash saved to make the move. If you are planning on coming, i'd make the move sooner rather than later, the situation here is only going to get worse, you can still make good cash, but for how long?

Just to give you an example of how expensive things are here:

Magnum ice-cream in 7-eleven $3.50 - $4.00.
Pint draft beer in Pub $9 - $10 in city, $8 in suburbs

Ah cant live without my Magnum dipped in a cold pint of beer.

Lee H

Essendon wrote: »

To give you a better response, where do your skills lie?

Around 10 years in IT, about 20 IT jobs/contracts a dozen were NHS. Just 1st and 2nd but nearly all 2nd line.

Lee H

EdTheLad wrote: »

Where in Australia would you plan on going?

Not decided anything or even made any other enquiries, this is my first

Essendon

Decent experience then, but work on the certs. Recruiters love hearing people have VCP's, MCSE's, CCNP's etc... Ed's given a great response! A team member is an Iranian national, but he's got decent L3 experience with vSphere, he found his job within 2 months of landing here. No certs, but I reckon he got real lucky because our HR dude is the friendliest guy you'd meet and is eager to let everyone have a fair go.