Finding a job in Australia at the moment is no easy task, with thousands and thousands of backpackers and students arriving in the country every year the competition has increased a lot lately. But with a proper plan and the right mindset nothing is impossible and even finding a job can become a lot easier.
I just finished my first year in Australia with a Working Holiday Visa, during which I worked 5 different jobs. With this post i want to share the best ways to find a job based on my personal experience.
The first thing to do to find a job is curating a good resume and preparing a couple of cover letters that will follow the resume. While writing your resume the general rule to follow is to put emphasis on your experience in the field for which you are applying; for example if your looking for a job in hospitality focus on your previous experience in the sector and even if you don’t have any, highlight the skills that can be more useful for that type of job.
For the cover letter it’s better to personalize every letter based on the job ad, it’s good practice to recall skills and information you find in the job ad to show the employer you carefully read the ad and that you have the characteristics he is looking for. What I did was writing a broad cover letter for every field I was applying to, (one for hospitality, one for retail and so on) and then i added information and details suited for the specific job ad.
Once you have your resume and cover letters ready you just need to apply for jobs. Applying for jobs is quite easy and fast but there are different platform and websites where to do it, below I will list the most common ones and the ones where I got the best results.
- Seek. Seek is the most famous and used website for job hunting in Australia, it’s very easy to use as you just need to set up your profile with all your work history and then you can directly apply for jobs in the app or websites uploading your resume and writing or uploading your cover letter. Being one of the biggest websites for job hunting means that here you can find basically any job you wish and there are always a lot of active ad. On the other hand though, everybody use seek which means you will face a higher competition. Moreover, there is no direct contact with potential employer and they will receive a great number of applications everyday so the only way to stand out from the mass is to have a strong resume and good cover letter. Nonetheless I suggest using seek because as I said earlier is very easy and fast to use, you can apply for dozens of job everyday from the app and it doesn’t take much time. Personally I found 2 jobs on seek, both of them in Sydney, so I can assure that it is a valuable website and a must for everyone looking for a job.
- Indeed. Indeed is another famous job hunting website, the functioning is very similar to seek, you just have to create a profile, upload your resume and you can start applying for job directly on the app. As I said it is very similar to seek and I recommend it as well because it’is easy and fast and let you apply for a great number of job in a short period of time.
- Backpackers Job Board. Backpackers Job Board is another website where you can create your profile and apply directly for jobs. As the name suggests, it is tailored to backpackers looking for casual jobs mostly in hospitality and farm. The most useful feature I found on this board was the one that lets you look specifically for jobs that counts towards the 88 days to extend the visa, saving you a lot of time from checking if the job location is actually in a remote or regional area. I recommend it even though I didn’t personally find any job with it, particularly for the focus on farm and casual jobs.
- Facebook. On facebook the best way to look for a job is to participate in groups about job hunting in your city and look for post of people looking to hire. At the same time you can also create your own post giving a short presentation of yourself, always focusing on characteristics that can be useful in the job you are looking for. In this way potential employers looking for workers can directly text you if they think your profile is in line with what they are looking for. Even though in theory facebook should be a very useful website for this, in my experience it has a lot of problems mostly regarding the high numbers of scams you will find. Most of the groups I entered were full of bots or scams and there weren’t any organic interactions. Moreover, the few groups that were active and populated by real people, were of course super competitive. I would still suggest giving it a try, as I heard a lot of people that were lucky and actually found a job thanks to facebook. I think the best way to approach it is to send a private message or, even better if they provide the phone number, directly call employers who post a job ad as soon as you see it. From my experience I understood that to stand out from other people the best way is to call and have a real conversation with potential employers so that they can remember you and distinguish you from the hundred of text they receive daily on messenger.
- Gumtree. Gumtree is one of Australia biggest marketplace for second hand sale, ranging from vehicles to clothes and furniture and any other thing you can think about. But on gumtree you can also look for accommodation and for jobs. When you are looking for jobs you will find ads posted by the employers and you can apply directly on the website, or even better if they provide it, email your resume or contact them by phone. Personally I liked Gumtree more than facebook because on Gumtree I found it more easy to get a reply. The platform is particularly useful to find casual job and “one time job”from people that need help just for a day or a few days. It’s good if you need some quick cash and you are not looking for full time or more structured jobs, even though you can still find also these type of jobs. Personally I found 2 jobs while in Sydney thanks to gumtree so overall I would highly suggest the website.
- Dropping off resumes in person. Looking for a job online can become quite frustrating especially when you get no replies after days of job hunting. In this case you can try to hand your resume in person in the business near your location. The great pro of dropping off resume in person is the possibility to show your face and demonstrate to employers you’re willing to work straight away. The problem I encountered however is that most of the times you will not find the manager available and you will end up leaving your copy of the resume in a pile of resumes, which is no different than doing it online. Moreover, a lot of places accept only online candidatures, and you will be asked to apply from the website. I think the best approach to this method is to previously research the business you want to apply to online and then visit it in person to drop your resume and if possible ask to directly talk with the manager. Overall I think handing resume in person is not efficient as it takes a lot more time and it’s not much different from doing it online, unless as I said before you don’t go there already prepared for a possible interview or a trial.
- referral and network. Creating a good network is not only helpful for directly finding a job but also to share your experience and gather useful information from other travellers. In the hostels is very common to help each other out sharing work contacts and tips on how to find a job. The more people you met the more probable it is you will finally find a good contact and start working. Even though this might seem like unnecessary work, most of the time it will come naturally, almost every backpackers is looking for a job and know of the difficulties you have to go through to find one so it’s normal that everybody help each other out when they can. Overall I would say that, unfortunately, this is still one of the best way to find a job in Australia. I say unfortunately because ideally you should be hired based on your skills, but from personal experience I saw that having friends that can put a good recommendation for you is very important. Understandably, employers receive dozens and dozens of resumes every day, most of which are very similar, so for them is difficult to make a decision. Of course, if somebody they already know guarantee that you are a good worker and you prove yourself to be one, they will probably choose the one they already have a referral of, especially when they are a small business.
