My experience in getting job in Melbourne – a first hand experience from a recent Indian newcomer to Australia

Choosing the place to move….

With lot of ambitions as anyone would have, I moved to Melbourne. Why Melbourne as one would ask?….Before moving to Australia I did a lot of research on which place to move.  Being a PR holder, I had the option to move to any state in Australia and as an IT Professional, I could see lot of opportunities for my role in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. Out of these, I filtered Melbourne and Sydney as my preference because I wanted to be in the most prominent and livable cities as they quote in articles and newspapers. As I started to read a lot about these two places, I gathered some very important information that Sydney was very expensive compared to Melbourne in rentals and commute. That actually made me to filter Sydney out of my preference as I didn’t want to drain all my savings in rental and hence I was left with only option as Melbourne.

To be honest, all places in Australia is the same as I got to know later after moving to Melbourne and in fact Brisbane and Adelaide are lot more cheaper in cost of living is what I got to know from the contacts here, but less IT jobs. Coming back to my Melbourne journey, I landed here in  Aug 2018 and stayed in a share house which I had pre-booked.

Job applications and frustrations….. 

Back in my home country, I had registered in Seek (most popular job portal in Australia). But there is no use of applying from there unless you have some consultant that can help you for the jobs here. So after I I came to Melbourne, I applied for all the relevant IT jobs initially in Melbourne alone. But I did not get even one call and hence started applying across Australia. Meanwhile, I also started applying for part time jobs (non IT jobs). I got one interview call, but I did not get selected. As the days passed, I did not even get a single call and I started to network with my contacts in Sydney and Brisbane, who gave me suggestions to apply.  Getting apart time job is also very tough. Uber Eats is the easiest if you have a cycle or car with Victoria driving license.I also searched in Facebook for different communities from which I got IndianConnection– Viv’s Phone number and  I reached out to him. Like him, I got few contacts through my friends and sent my resume. I started to get frustrated, but I did not give up. I started to visit temple that gave me some peace of mind. Everyday I spent 4-5 hrs in preparing covering letter, modifying resume and answering mandatory questions while applying for a job. “One size doesn’t fit All”  and hence need to change resume for every job that we apply for accordingly.

Finally after a month’s time, I started getting rejection emails for the jobs I applied. Then I also started getting one or two calls. One of the consultants told that if I was selected then I would get another call for face to face round in a week’s time and luckily I got selected and cleared all rounds. It was the happiest moment and I felt really relaxed as I got a job.

So for all the job seekers, my advice is that it is not easy to get a job as soon as you land here. It will take any where around 2 to 6 months. But having good consultants contact here might help in securing the job faster. I was lucky to get my first job soon.