Quick ways for skilled migrants to find work or jobs (and overcome the ‘local experience’ BS!)
Once you have obtained your formal letter of acceptance as a skilled migrant into Australia, you must immediately prepare yourself for the Australian job market.
Now comes the hardest part.
You must find your first job in Australia that will satisfy the “local experience” criteria – either as the primary applicant or as a spouse of the primary applicant – and pay your bills.
Many people will tell you that this key requirement may cause you to be out of work for weeks, months if not years. Hence, the need to have enough savings set aside before moving to Australia – you will need it!
Overseas-born graduates can’t find professional jobs
Australia is awash with unemployed graduates. One in three young Australians is unemployed or underemployed according to the Foundation for Young Australians.
The reality is that there are already many (over) qualified but unemployed experienced professionals already in Australia who are also looking for jobs!
As Australia’s minimum wage is the highest in the world, research by the Australian Population Research Institute based on 2016 Census data found that most overseas-born graduates (i.e. who that arrived between 2011 and 2016) could not find professional jobs. Only 24% of overseas-born graduates from non-English speaking countries (who comprised 84% of the total) were employed as professionals as of 2016, compared with 50% of overseas-born graduates from main English-speaking countries and 58% of the same aged Australian-born graduates.
As a new migrant, you will be competing with all these experienced job seekers in Australia.
With the global challenges facing workers worldwide, it is becoming harder to find work. This means that you must work much harder and strategically to secure your first job in Australia.
Your job-hunting strategies must be so different from the traditional approaches and other job seekers that will give you that advantage. Your approach should be unconventional and strategic. It’s a real competition!
If you are only relying on responding passively to online job advertisements as your main strategy, you will never find a job in Australia!
The most common obstacles for migrants trying to find jobs
Let’s start by saying that the most common obstacles for migrants trying to find jobs are:
(1) Lack of Australian experience. This includes the lack of knowledge of local laws and regulations and the lack of local certifications and professional qualifications.
(2) Lack of basic communication and conversational skills in English.
(3) Lack of cultural awareness of unwritten rules of the workplace culture and daily living in general.
While some professionals will need an understanding of the local practice, laws and be certified to practice legally in Australia, the obvious question for everyone else is where do you gain local experience if you can’t get your first job in Australia?
Prepare well before you apply for migration
People don’t plan to fail but they fail to plan.
Ideally, when you are thinking about migrating to Australia, you must already be thinking ahead about getting your first job. Don’t just think that when you apply for that first job in Australia you will get that job automatically or instantly.
The job market is small and very different from where you are outside of Australia.
Don’t assume that you will get a job
While you can be very confident in securing any job, you want in your home country without any problems, there is a high likelihood that you will not get any job in Australia!
Without any income, you can be financially str, etched especially if you have a family to support. Government assistance may be limited and conditional. You can experience tremendous stress and mental health issues. Some migrants have even packed their bags and head home.
Are your skills and qualifications accepted in Australia?
The first thing you must do as a skilled migrant is making sure that your professional skills, experience, and qualifications are relevant and applicable to the local job market.
For example, many medical, legal and technical roles require bridging courses or additional study to translate or convert your overseas qualification to equivalent local qualification.
As jobs are sent offshore, overseas qualifications are accepted
Many Australian roles have been outsourced offshore and so there goes the argument that you need local experience to get a job.
If you have solid overseas IT experience, there should be no reason why you would be considered less than a local unless you cannot communicate well and don’t fit into the organisational culture. The IT industry is full of people with qualifications and experience from overseas.
Some jobs will require local experience to apply the local laws
However, some professional migrants may not be so lucky.
Accountants are required to be knowledgeable about Australian corporate law and taxation. Employers prefer job seekers with an Australian CPA or CA for public accounting roles.
For building, construction and engineering professionals, they will need a working understanding of the Australian standards and codes.
All this is difficult or impossible to do without any local experience. The application of laws and codes will require years of hands-on experience, which first-time skilled migrants don’t have.
Audit your skillset
Work out what you’ve got and any areas you are lacking. Intentionally bridge any skills and experience even if it cost you money.
Make a list of skills and capabilities required to succeed in your target or selected job title or work role. Then match your skills and experience with those Australian job titles that are found online from job sites.
Professional qualifications
If you have a professional qualification that’s recognised in Australia, write to an Australian professional organisation for information and advice. You may apply for membership if you lack local experience. But you must document the work you did before migrating to Australia and have it verified by your supervisors at the time.
Membership in these organisations is usually obligatory as a precondition for working in specific job titles in Australia.
If you are an accountant, you are expected to be a member of CPA Australia or Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand. If you are an engineer, you need a membership with Engineers Australia.
Get certificates and licenses
If your job requires you to obtain a local certificate, get it as soon as practical. This will help you find a job easier. Your priority is to obtain all these certifications and licenses early.
What’s listed in the skilled occupation list differs from reality
Just because your job title is listed in the Australian skilled occupation list doesn’t guarantee you a job!
It does not reflect the reality on the ground in different locations around Australia.
Verify the job demand via Google trends
Using an “accountant” job title as an example, go to Google Trends.
Enter the word “accountant” as a “Search term” and “Topic”. Enter “Certified Public Accountant” as a “Topic”. Then gain an understanding of the job demand in “Australia” over the “Past 5 years”, as shown below.
If the Google trend line is flat and constant, you know that your chosen occupation is a stable one. But if the trend line is declining, then you should rethink whether you want to work in a declining occupation.
Key obstacles in securing a job in Australia
The most common obstacles and challenges for skilled migrants trying to find their first jobs can be categorised into two key pre-requisites for securing any job in Australia:
(1) Technical fit – This refers to your ability to perform the advertised job using the required and expected skills, knowledge, experience, and competencies.
(2) Cultural fit – This refers to your ability to integrate well as a person into the culture and sub-cultures of the organisation you want to work in. It includes whether you can get along with your co-workers in performing your work.
Technical fit
When employers look for a technical fit, they want to know the following:
(1) If your job title is associated with an Australian membership or registration body that will assess your skills, knowledge, and experience for doing the job, then are you a fully registered member of that body.
Professional bodies specify the minimum professional standard that you must attain for you to practice competently in that job title in Australia. It relates to years of experience in that field including working under the supervision of another recognised member and having the appropriate undergraduate and postgraduate education.
These bodies may also ‘certify’ you for that job title when you have met all requirements for full professional membership. For example, if you are a professional engineer, you must be a member of Engineers Australia.
As part of the migration skills assessment, these bodies may also be the assessing authority where your skills and qualifications can be assessed. Here is the list of assessing authorities.
(2) If you have an overseas professional qualification that is not issued or assessed by an Australian professional or certification body, then you must convert that overseas qualification into an Australian qualification and gain full membership in a professional body.
Depending on your industry and job role, you may be required to sit for exams that will bridge your understanding of the Australian tax, organisation, and human resource laws and regulations. Only on passing these qualifying exam papers are you able to convert your qualifications and be considered by potential employers.
If you are knowledgeable in your area of practice, then you should not have any problems to pass these exams.
(3) Do you have the appropriate education (undergraduate or postgraduate) to perform the job well? For example, most professional jobs require an undergraduate degree.
If you have an Australian undergraduate degree issued by an Australian educational provider, then your chances of securing a job are much better.
If you do not have an Australian degree, then you may need to enrol in an Australian education provider to increase your chances of securing a job. This route will require the investment of time and money.
Alternatively, you may show that your overseas degree is recognised in Australia especially if it obtained in a Western country from a recognised university. This will require you to provide your academic transcripts and information about the course content. You will have to map what you have learned to what is required to be covered by an Australian education provider. The burden of proof is on you to make.
(4) Do you have the appropriate working experience to competently perform the job in Australia? Are you technically skilled to avoid any potential legal liabilities to the employer?
As Australians are becoming more aware of their legal rights, employers want to ensure that their staff is qualified to perform the work without attracting any legal actions or liabilities.
The number of working years and the organisations and industries you have worked in will be taken into consideration. Depending on your industry and job title, you may not need to list details of all your employers if it was more than 10 years ago. But do check with the industry experts as to the practice within the Australian context.
As hiring managers are not familiar with the overseas organisations you have worked in, you must provide summary details of what they do and the size of the organisation.
But if you have worked in global organisations like Microsoft, then you don’t have to provide details about your employer.
Therefore, you must plan your career path early especially when you are already thinking about migrating to Australia. It may take years to put these foundations into place to set you for future success.
Cultural fit
The key for most employers hiring new employees is whether new hires will be able to integrate well into the organisation’s culture and work closely with their co-workers without attracting problems or legal liabilities.
Generally, employers only want candidates whose beliefs and behaviour systems are compatible with their specific culture. When a candidate’s values, beliefs, outlook, and behaviours are compatible with those existing within the organisation, he or she is likely to be considered a good cultural fit. The job seeker will most likely be hired if all technical boxes have been ticked off.
While employers are evaluating whether you can fit into their culture, you are also evaluating whether you want to work in that organisational culture. As you may be desperate for a job, this may not be your selection criteria, at least for your first job.