working in australia

by m. werneburg, 2000

Please note that this article dates to 2000; it's practically a historical document and shouldn't be treated as a guide to the current situation in Australia.

This is a guide for IT people looking for work in Australia. I am Canadian, so this is written from the that viewpoint. There are a number of others (such as 'POME's and Kiwis) working here, and they've reported similar findings.

Finding work in Australia is fairly routine, but it's got all of the ins and outs you'd expect from being in a different country. So, here it is:

Visas

To work in Australia, you need a visa. Third parties such as employment agencies are pretty convinced of the government's ability to deport illegal workers, so I suppose it's a very real requirement. There are two types of visa that seem to be worth-while.

Working holiday Visas
Sponsored work visas (so-called Long Stay Working Visas)

We came to Oz on the former. It enabled us to work at any location for three months, and up to six months in Oz, tops. This suited our intentions. However, almost everyone we talked to down here started urging us to upgrade, because the second class of visa is good for even six-month gigs! Employers in Australia at that time were hungry enough that they'd sponsor foreign IT help for six month contracts! We wound up taking an offer of sponsorship from a management company called Ayers Management.

This entailed applying for the Long Stay visa (#457), and that, in turn, involved:

Getting a chest X-Ray (to test for TB!), a procedure that costs about $50.
Spending $360 at the time of application (each)
Having an additional $640 taken off our pay over a period of weeks (each; this brings our total costs to $1000)
Getting passport photos taken ($10)
Securing references from locals or people we knew back home (priceless, nyuck nyuck)

Why did we decide to switch? Easy:

We liked it there
The IT market was hot in Australia, with plenty of 3- and 6- months contracts
Sydney is that expensive that saving money here takes a bit longer than we expected. But once we learned more about the job market, we learned to adjust our earnings requirements upwards, and everything's worked out.

You can read more about these visas at the Australian High Commission site.

To get our working holiday visas, we had to tell the Australian High Commission why we deserved them. They wanted to know why we hadn't applied before the age of 26, and what was the cultural benefit to Australia if we went. I pulled out my shovel, and this is what I said.

Jobs

Looking for work follows the same pattern as back home. Research your targets, talk to agencies, place your résumé online, and be prepared to wait. Ozzies are somewhat relaxed in their business pace than are Canadians (perhaps one of the reasons we came!).

Rental Accomodation

This is a bit of a catch-22 if you have no friends with couches to crash on. You can't get a normal apartment to rent without a job, but withuot a permanent place to live, it's not easy to find work. So here are some tips.

Rent a mail stop

These were available at "Global Gossip" (an internet café with several locations), as well as the Traveller's Connect Point (Level 7 in the Dymocks building on George St.).

Find a short-lease rental place

Cheap rentals in Sydney proper are general small, dirty, and in inconvenient places (goes without saying, yeah?). But they can sometimes be had for a short minimum stay (e.g. two or three weeks), which will help you get your bearings.

The Australian Youth Hostel association (YHA) hostel next to the Central Train Station has good listings of backpacker locations you can look at. They also rent ensuite two-bedroom place for $70 a night. For Sydney, that's pretty good (though you don't get your own kitchen facilities or TV).

For a little more, you can get a serviced apartment. We did this, by watching the listings in the Thursday morning 'Morning Herald'.

Read your newspapers

The Thursday morning Herald, as mentioned above, has listings.

Go to open house viewings

This is how most apartments are viewed in Sydney.

Be warned that open-house viewings in Sydney are open for only ten/fifteen minutes! This means that you turn up specifically when the listing says the viewing starts (e.g. precisely 11:30), and everyone files through together!

Carry one week's deposit with you to an open house. If you want to apply, you'll want the deposit, or they won't take your application seriously. In Sydney apartment rental is paid by the week.