HOW TO: GET A JOB IN AUSTRALIA WHEN YOU'RE NOT AUSTRALIAN!

I’ve had so many career coaching clients who struggled to find a job when moving to Australia.
I hear them say things like:

• I’m not getting any interviews because I’m from overseas.
• No one will hire me because I haven’t worked in Australia, or haven’t got enough Australian experience.
• I’m working in retail/hospitality/manual labour … though I’m trained in [insert incredible qualifications & highly relevant industry experience here].

I’ve heard this from Europeans, Asians, Americans. And I’m sure if I asked an Antarctic penguin, it would sing me a similar story. STOP THE MUSIC! You are drowning out the sound of your own success with your problems & excuses!!!

So here are my 5 top tips for getting a job in Australia when you’re not Australian.

1. Reframe Your Value
Instead of seeing your overseas origin as a hindrance, see it as your
biggest strength. In case you haven’t noticed, Australia is an island… For
hundreds of years we got music, movies, technology, car models, fashion, fast
food chains & other trends later than the rest of the world because we are
so geographically isolated. The likelihood is that you come from a country
that’s bedded in a continent (Europe, Asia, America) with a history far longer
& far richer than the mere 200 or so years modern Australia has been
hanging around (Indigenous cultures excepted, of course). You come from a
nation that borders a ton of other countries & thus you have come from a
culture with centuries of exposure & influence to other ways of thinking
& working. Embrace it. Your overseas experience in an advanced market is a
value-add to any company. Even more so, not only is Australia a multicultural
society, many private & public sector organisations have a diversity policy
& encourage hiring a variety of backgrounds to bring vigour, ideas, &
experience in. Not being Australian is a huge bonus for you.
2. English-cise Your CV
Your language is beautiful. But sadly, you need to leave it at the door
when job-hunting here because English is our national language. So of course
your CV is written in English. But where possible translate the names of your:

• schools
• academic institutions
• companies
• industries
• projects

into their English equivalent. It’s not lying - it’s the same words,
just a different language. Because when a recruiter or hiring manager who only
speaks English sees foreign words peppered through a CV, it’s effort for them
to interpret it & can raise unconscious red flags. Take out the risk of
unconscious bias & make it easy to read.

3. Get Local Experience
Of course it looks better if you’ve got some Australian experience on
your CV! Now I hear you think: “How am I meant to get Australian experience
when no one will hire me?! Answer me that, genius!” Well I faced the same
problem - how do I get a job to be eligible to get a job? The difference is - I
was a uni student. So I volunteered, did unpaid internships, & casual or
short-term contracts to build up my bank of skills & experience. This
qualified me to get a Sales & Marketing role in a large consumer goods
company despite not actually having studied either Sales or Marketing! Need to
still bring in some cash? Do the work for a few days a week, & find a
casual paid job for income. Again - that’s what I did. I worked in a cafe 2-3
days a week, unpaid internships 2-3 days a week, & had a 1-2 days off a
week.

The other thing I’ll add here is - I always recommend putting the city
of your company in your job history in your CV. But unless it’s extremely
relevant to the job, I don’t see the point in putting your country. And the
reason is transferable skills (which I’ve written about before).

• If you know how to manage teams, you know how to do that in any country.
• If you know how to do graphic design, you know how to do that in any
• country.
• If you know how to run projects, you know how to do that in any country.

A city gives you job credibility; a country might be unnecessary
information that distracts the hiring manager’s attention away from your
incredible transferable skill set that you can apply in any role, any industry,
any country.

4. Bridge Your Qualification Gaps
Look, the truth is some Australian industries from a
legal/regulatory/safety/insurance perspective, do require you to have
Australian accreditations in order to practice here. I’m thinking Law,
Medicine, many Health Practitioners, Education, etc. It sucks, yes. But,
rightly or wrongly, it maintains standards of service & safety in Australia
& also ensures that local talent who have come up through our education
system have a level playing field. 

So find whatever bridging qualification or certification
you need & do it as soon as possible. Because the longer you are out of the
industry you are actually trained & have worked in, the more your own
confidence in that industry will fall. Plus, doing the course can help deepen
your English, understand cultural norms in Australia, & even build your
network with Australian professionals.

5. Build Belief in Yourself
This is actually #1 but you wouldn’t have kept reading if I’d put it
first. You’ve moved to a brand new country with new people, new culture, new
government, & sometimes a new language. It is stressful. You feel like a
fish out of water. You wonder if you made the right decision. You don’t know
many people here & all your friends/family/colleagues/support networks are
back in your home country. Don’t underestimate the huge emotional toll this has
on your psychology.

Similarly, don’t mistake the cultural shock of moving to a new country
as being the same as you having lost your skills in your industry. Yes, you’ve
suffered a confidence blow - but it’s not in your career. Understand &
accept that you’ll have learning anxiety moving to a new place. Then take
comfort in the fact that you’re an incredible professional & that your
career is something that you can nail.

If you don’t have the belief in yourself, you’re going to be projecting
that dis-belief in your own abilities through your job applications &
interviews. Shifting beliefs can be hard, so you can always get help from a
career coach like me. I’ve transformed people’s entire psychology just by
re-writing their CV properly to make them shine.

So welcome to Australia. There are more jobs that people to fill them
right now. We need you in them.

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