# 2.5 months in Brisbane - my experience and job hunting so far



## allendsz (Aug 31, 2014)

So I've been in Brisbane for two and half months now, having landed in mid Jan, and I quite like it here.

My first two weeks were in a temporary accommodation I booked online and spent the two weeks looking for share houses. I must have seen 10 places before I decided on a place. Word of advice for future movers: Look for house rentals on gumtree, it's the easiest way to get in touch with renters and probably has the most number of listings (these are share houses I'm talking about).

Once I moved in to my share house came the most important part: finding a job! This can be frustrating if you're from overseas since everyone asks for local experience (which is rubbish in my opinion). I spent the first few days of job hunting applying for vacancies on seek and calling up recruiters. A lot of my calls with recruiters were met the reply saying "Sorry we're only looking for candidates with local experience at the moment". A few of the recruiters were frank with me and said that the companies that go through recruitment agencies are generally smaller ones and they don't usually want to have to pay a recruitment fee for someone completely new to the country. They suggested applying directly to companies online or getting in direct touch with their HR....so that's what I did I applied directly on a couple of accounting firms websites and within days I started getting calls for interviews.

This brings me to my second point of frustration, companies over here generally look for cultural fit when they are hiring. They don't care too much if you're technically sound, they're more concerned if you'll fit in the organisation's team and culture (which again I don't completely agree with). So I had two rounds of interviews with two different accounting firms after I applied on their careers website. However they didn't end up giving me an offer, with the first place saying that they weren't 100% sure I was a cultural fit for the team, and the second place saying that they picked a candidate whom they thought was slightly better than me....this made me realise that companies over here hire based on how you come across in the interview even though your technical skills are sound and you can do the job. After that I had another interview with a third accounting firm (who was also my previous employer) and decided to fake my way a bit in the interviews. I decided to be more chatty and give the impression of being an outgoing person (which I'm not completely) so as to show it fits their idea of being a 'cultural fit'. And it worked. I had two round of interviews with them and got an offer at the end. So I would advice people attending interviews show that you're an outgoing talkative person and they're more likely to hire you (worked for me!)....after I accepted the offer I got calls from two other accounting firms and had to proudly say sorry I'm not interested anymore.

So I would say the job market for accounting is fairly good in Australia, as long as you can speak good English and have decent experience.

If anyone has any questions on Brisbane I'm happy to answer. I just mentioned about my job hunting experience since that's what I was most worried about before landing.


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## JBY (May 17, 2011)

allendsz said:


> So I've been in Brisbane for two and half months now, having landed in mid Jan, and I quite like it here.
> 
> My first two weeks were in a temporary accommodation I booked online and spent the two weeks looking for share houses. I must have seen 10 places before I decided on a place. Word of advice for future movers: Look for house rentals on gumtree, it's the easiest way to get in touch with renters and probably has the most number of listings (these are share houses I'm talking about).
> 
> ...


congrats on your move and job!


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## mah (Jul 16, 2014)

Congrats and thanks

It is really helping


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## blak3 (Dec 31, 2012)

fantastic. this is what i did too and worked like charm. 3 interviews, 3 offers. its not all about the technical skills  if you tell the interviewer what he wanna hear, you are one step ahead 

grats man!


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## FIFA_World_Cup_fan (Apr 25, 2014)

*hey*



allendsz said:


> So I've been in Brisbane for two and half months now, having landed in mid Jan, and I quite like it here.
> 
> My first two weeks were in a temporary accommodation I booked online and spent the two weeks looking for share houses. I must have seen 10 places before I decided on a place. Word of advice for future movers: Look for house rentals on gumtree, it's the easiest way to get in touch with renters and probably has the most number of listings (these are share houses I'm talking about).
> 
> ...



Many Congrats for the job offer - in profession of your choice - Allendsz ....
Nice to know about your full experience here @ Brisbane.

U have done it !!


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## sameer7106 (Apr 16, 2014)

allendsz said:


> So I've been in Brisbane for two and half months now, having landed in mid Jan, and I quite like it here.
> 
> My first two weeks were in a temporary accommodation I booked online and spent the two weeks looking for share houses. I must have seen 10 places before I decided on a place. Word of advice for future movers: Look for house rentals on gumtree, it's the easiest way to get in touch with renters and probably has the most number of listings (these are share houses I'm talking about).
> 
> ...


Hi mate,

*thanks for sharing ur experience here.*

Reagrds
Sameer


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## sam24112003 (Aug 26, 2013)

Congratulations and thank you for sharing your experience ... its definately motivating to read such posts from experienced people.


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## josh.machine (Aug 4, 2011)

congratulations.


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## TheExpatriate (Feb 7, 2014)

allendsz said:


> So I've been in Brisbane for two and half months now, having landed in mid Jan, and I quite like it here.
> 
> My first two weeks were in a temporary accommodation I booked online and spent the two weeks looking for share houses. I must have seen 10 places before I decided on a place. Word of advice for future movers: Look for house rentals on gumtree, it's the easiest way to get in touch with renters and probably has the most number of listings (these are share houses I'm talking about).
> 
> ...




Good luck. 

If you don't mind me asking, where are you from?


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## Solidmac (Mar 14, 2015)

Thanks mate for sharing your experience. I think we need need success stories for this forum. Any one having any success story with IT profile in Melbourne...


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## babajani (Jun 14, 2014)

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us.

Please keep posting.

Regards


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## babajani (Jun 14, 2014)

Hello Allendsz

Do you have any Idea about the Odd jobs in Brisbane ? I am also an accountant by occupation but my experience is a little less than decent. So I would be interested to know if their are other means to survive till I get a proper Job in my field.

And what do you think is the best way to get an initial accommodation in Brisbane for a single person?

Thanks in advance


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## allendsz (Aug 31, 2014)

babajani said:


> Hello Allendsz
> 
> Do you have any Idea about the Odd jobs in Brisbane ? I am also an accountant by occupation but my experience is a little less than decent. So I would be interested to know if their are other means to survive till I get a proper Job in my field.
> 
> ...


@babajani - I'm not very sure about odd jobs because I haven't applied for any, but from what people tell me it's hard to get such jobs because you have many people applying (students, unemployed people) so could be hard to get one.

What sort of experience do you have in accounting? There are lots of book-keeping jobs available on part-time or contract basis. If you have experience in that you could stand a chance.

For initial accommodation I booked a room on airbnb.com. I would suggest doing the same as it's the best way to get short term stays when you're out of the country.

Allendsz


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