# My understanding of the job market in Sydney



## kaushikczech (Oct 24, 2010)

I am a PR holder, recently moved to Sydney and just wanted to share my observations and experience with the job market

My observations are based on my own and my wife's journey towards securing first employment in Australia

Always better half first

My wife is a Software professional, standard BE in comp science, worked in TCS, IBM, Infosys, CTS & red hat. Total work ex 11 yrs, expertise is in Java, Telecom & Banking domain, lived in US for 2 years, EU for 4 yrs and the rest in India

Before coming to Australia my wife had secured an interview with a company called ODC through internal Cognizant connections. She appeared in the interview but did not make it. The HR contact of the company never responded to her mails whether she was successful or not. 

She had many friends in Sydney and through her friends she contacted many recruiters. None of them ever responded to her emails or phone calls.

Then she tried my fav trick in the book. Started adding every single recruiter whose Linkedin profile said she/he is an IT recruiter. Surprisingly many of them were Indians. One of them responded and set her up for an Interview. she cleared it. She joined an Indian IT firm and works as a Tech lead with a leading Australian telecom giant. its a full time role. She started after 3 weeks

My obs: IT recruitment
Recruiters are either very busy or not courteous enough to respond to you if they have no roles which suit your profile 

Market is very fast moving and does not always wait for the best candidate and would rather go for a candidate who is available to join immediately (might vary across sectors & company)

Because of this Luck matters

As always networking is the only solution and being a migrant need to be flexible bla bla bla............


Worse half next

I am a Supply Chain & Operations guy. Engineer-MBA, IIT_IIM, 12 years work ex, 5 years in europe, multiple projects in Australia, Middle East etc, rest in India

I had used my Australian connections to setup links with Australian recruiters. One of them met me 2 days after I arrived. Told me that my CV is impressive and forwarded my CV to a retail company. Never came back for 2 months 

I continued linking to recruiters in my domain and regularly checked for job posts both in LinkedIn as well as seek. One thing I used to do is find the name of the recruiter at the bottom of the page in any seek post and connect to her/him in LinkedIn. At least 80% of the recruiters accepted my invite. I used to send them a personal message and at the same time apply through seek. 

In 4 weeks time I met nearly 10 recruiters talking to them about my skillset, experience & strengths, only 3 of them said they had a role for which they would forward my CV. the first one was a failure, the second one got me an interview for an analyst role and the third one got me an interview for a senior analyst role

I succeeded in both my interviews, and joined with the analyst role on my 5th week in this country. The other one has no response on a possible joining date. Today on my 8th week I have 2 other interviews lined up for managerial/consulting roles. Lets see how it goes.

My obs: Supply Chain recruitment
Recruiters are not too busy or courteous enough to respond to you acknowledging your communication even if they have no roles which suit your profile 

There is a recruiter interview before the actual client interview, I think especially if you are a migrant with names which are not so familiar here in Australia

Market is quite slow especially if you compare with IT, even if you are the best candidate available and cleared interview, client might put a hold on recruitment based on factors on which you and the recruiter has no control

Because of this Luck matters

Take the first thing that comes on your way, it will help the cash flow going and uplift the mood, if you have the skills the right roles will come to you ultimately.......

As always networking is the only solution and being a migrant need to be flexible bla bla bla............


Hope this helps other members, excuse my TYPOs and english


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## oz_rockz (Jul 5, 2013)

Thanks for the post. Some important points you have made and it will help me when I move.

Which are the best months to move to Australia to start with the job hunt when there are more vacancies compared to other months?


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## sun99 (Feb 27, 2014)

kaushikczech said:


> I am a PR holder, recently moved to Sydney and just wanted to share my observations and experience with the job market
> 
> My observations are based on my own and my wife's journey towards securing first employment in Australia
> 
> ...


'

Kaushik, you have given lot of useful information regarding job search.

Many Recruiters are looking at new Immigrants because 

They are ready to join immediately 
They can relocate to any city

Because of no local experience, we need to be ready for

lesser pay and lower role


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## kaushikczech (Oct 24, 2010)

oz_rockz said:


> Thanks for the post. Some important points you have made and it will help me when I move.
> 
> Which are the best months to move to Australia to start with the job hunt when there are more vacancies compared to other months?



In short there is no good answer. Traditionally I have seen in this forum and other places people saying that one should come either in July when the new financial year starts or in new year when people come back from Christmas break. 

One thing I realized is that after Christmas break it takes a while for things to pick up. Because of school holidays lot of people take long breaks and come back only after 26th which is the Australia day. I arrived on 2nd Jan and was kind of stuck in first two weeks.

So there are months Like December & June which you could avoid, for the rest Paul the octopus can only help:juggle:


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## CareersDownUnder (Mar 4, 2015)

kaushikczech said:


> I am a PR holder, recently moved to Sydney and just wanted to share my observations and experience with the job market
> 
> My observations are based on my own and my wife's journey towards securing first employment in Australia
> 
> ...


Lucky to get going so quickly visa the recruitment firm pathway. Imagine how quick it might have been if you have researched your targets and gone direct to the market. Recruiters are involved in about 8% of placements only.


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## nikhilchamp (Oct 14, 2014)

*unskilled temporary jobs*

Thanks a lot kaushikczech for this post. Really helpful.

I am looking at another aspect of the job market – “unskilled temporary jobs”, like on gas stations, pizza joints, etc. till the time I find a job as per my skill set – just for survival.
I am thinking on lines like – 
-	if it is easy to get such a job, 
-	does it pay ok for survival of a family with a small kid, 
-	where do I start finding such jobs, 
-	will I get time with such a job to apply for other jobs of my domain, etc.

Not sure if you would have any observations on this front since you got your job in 5 weeks. But any comments would be helpful.


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## sun99 (Feb 27, 2014)

nikhilchamp said:


> Thanks a lot kaushikczech for this post. Really helpful.
> 
> I am looking at another aspect of the job market – “unskilled temporary jobs”, like on gas stations, pizza joints, etc. till the time I find a job as per my skill set – just for survival.
> I am thinking on lines like –
> ...


My advice is dont jump on to temporary jobs first itself, Keep 2 - 3 months buffer (worst case) and search in your domain. 

Once you start with unskilled jobs, you will not have energy and time to concentrate on interviews for skilled job.

First come alone and search jobs, it will be advantage as you can move to any city for Job, then you can bring your family.


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## funkyzoom (Nov 4, 2014)

nikhilchamp said:


> Thanks a lot kaushikczech for this post. Really helpful.
> 
> I am looking at another aspect of the job market – “unskilled temporary jobs”, like on gas stations, pizza joints, etc. till the time I find a job as per my skill set – just for survival.
> I am thinking on lines like –
> ...


I think I can provide an approximate answer to this question (because I haven't been in a similar situation):-

- It is pretty easy to get unskilled or semi-skilled jobs, as long as your English is decent, and you're not being picky about what you do.
- It is quite difficult to manage with a kid, if you're doing an unskilled job. Both you and your spouse may need to work.
- Search online (seek.com.au), or just go around in your locality. You find so many shops and restaurants seeking people to assist, with white signs pasted on their Windows regarding the requirements. 
- You will of course have time to apply for others jobs, during the evenings after you return home from work. Not a big deal, really.


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## nikhilchamp (Oct 14, 2014)

Thanks a lot sun99.
In agreement to your advice I am also planning to go alone first, find a job and bring my family later.


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## nikhilchamp (Oct 14, 2014)

Thanks funkyzoom.
Your reply is a morale booster.
On a side note, your signature tells that you returned to India in 2 months of landing in Australia. This made me curious.


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## hemaa (Sep 8, 2015)

Following


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## DeepakDhankhar107 (Dec 18, 2015)

*Hi*

Hi Kaushikczech

I am planning to move down under in April.
Coincidentally I am having 6 yrs exp. in supply chain after Mechanical engg. from NIT while my wife has 3+ yrs exp in Java programming in IBM for Singapore based financial bank & got interview calls thru LinkedIn in Indian IT firm at Sydney for financial project.

Hows the job scenario for person like me who has worked as sourcing manager for manufacturing sector for 6 years & with APICS certification?. Request your guidance!!

Can you plz share pm/share your LinkedIn to have some supply chain connections in Sydney. 









kaushikczech said:


> I am a PR holder, recently moved to Sydney and just wanted to share my observations and experience with the job market
> 
> My observations are based on my own and my wife's journey towards securing first employment in Australia
> 
> ...


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## kaushikczech (Oct 24, 2010)

DeepakDhankhar107 said:


> Hi Kaushikczech
> 
> I am planning to move down under in April.
> Coincidentally I am having 6 yrs exp. in supply chain after Mechanical engg. from NIT while my wife has 3+ yrs exp in Java programming in IBM for Singapore based financial bank & got interview calls thru LinkedIn in Indian IT firm at Sydney for financial project.
> ...


Hi Deepak,

A hearty welcome from Future me to future you in Sydney. 

Now lets get to the point. 
Point 1 is assuming your wife has an offer in Sydney I am guessing you will stick to Sydney only. This unfortunately means recruiters from Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth etc are not going to be interested in you. This means almost 60% of jobs are not applicable to you. Even if you write in the CV and cover letter that you are willing to relocate I found it very difficult to get a call from any other city. 

Point 2 is degrees from Indian universities NIT, IIT, IIM does not matter. Its net worth is zero. APICS helps. other things like PMP, CIPS, SAP, Six Sigma Black belt would also help as all of these are universal and more or less recognized by Australian market

Point 3 is value of your work ex. here it is all about the familiarity of the name of the org(s) you have worked for in Australia. So if you have worked for a globally recognized firm like a Coke or Bayer or Ford or similar your chances shot up. If its a Indian company or a small company; well tough luck.

Point 4 is industry. Kindly note Australian mfg industry is in a decline and will continue to do so. And what I 've heard that mfg is more concentrated towards Melbourne rather than Sydney. I personally did not study this or feel this, but the stats might be right. The industries which do well in Sydney are retail, FMCG and other service based industries like e-commerce etc. the only few mfg companies are all into very high end engineering firms. Construction might offer your something

Lastly regarding sharing details you are free to PM me for more personal discussion. For linkedin all I can say is use the search button and search using a combination of key words like Sydney, Supply chain, recruiters etc. Send friend request to all of them. I am sure I am going to be one of them. Many of them will block you but others will accept you. Then use the accepted links' friend list. It's pretty easy if you invest some time. At this point it is important to add the recruiters.

Wish I could have put up a more rosy picture than this but its better to know the harsh truth. 

Best of luck; wishing you a safe trip

Kindly ignore typos & poor verbals. CAT was a long time ago


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## rathia10 (Mar 21, 2016)

kaushikczech said:


> Worse half next
> 
> I am a Supply Chain & Operations guy. Engineer-MBA, IIT_IIM, 12 years work ex, 5 years in europe, multiple projects in Australia, Middle East etc, rest in India
> 
> ...


Hi Kaushik,

Thanks for this post. I have 3 years of experience in Supply Chain in India and overall 6.5 years of experience. I have come across very few posts with experiences related to Supply Chain domain. Infact I joined EXPATFORUM after reading your experience. I had few queries / doubts and was hoping that you could clarify :-
- How to connect with you on LinkedIn and ask more queries ? I have joined EXPATFORUM recently so cannot PM you as of now.
- There is a limit to the number of connection requests that one can send on LinkedIn. Also in case multiple individuals reject your connection request, then you might be restricted by LinkedIn. Even the number of searches that you can do on LinkedIn is restricted. How to tackle this situation ? 
Even I used to add Recruiters but after reading about such restrictions, I have stopped doing that.


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## naushadqamar (Jul 1, 2015)

Following


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## James91 (Mar 24, 2016)

The reason why recruiters often dont respond is because they get HUNDREDS of applications and its impractical to think they can respond to all of them. If they dont respond ... I wouldnt take it personally.


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## James91 (Mar 24, 2016)

another option is to try with some of the smaller companies ... they tend to be a bit more flexible with their hiring, and are more open to hiring travellers from overseas. There are a few different ones out there but if you are in Sydney Jobs NSW | Gumtree Australia Free Local Classifieds ... Gumtree is one that I've had the most success with. The jobs posted there aren't normally as high-end, but they can be a good way to get some local experience. Once you've got that local job market experience, that can open alot of doors with the bigger companies.




rathia10 said:


> Hi Kaushik,
> 
> Thanks for this post. I have 3 years of experience in Supply Chain in India and overall 6.5 years of experience. I have come across very few posts with experiences related to Supply Chain domain. Infact I joined EXPATFORUM after reading your experience. I had few queries / doubts and was hoping that you could clarify :-
> - How to connect with you on LinkedIn and ask more queries ? I have joined EXPATFORUM recently so cannot PM you as of now.
> ...


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