Kasia down under – looking for a job in Australia

Looking for a job in Australia was one of the things, I was most worried about (just after sharks, spiders and rude koalas of course!) before my travel. I even started to send my resumes when I was in Poland. What of course didn’t make any sense and no one ever responded.

So, as I came to Australia, I knew that first thing to do regarding getting a job is to get an australian phone number, australian address and to add it to my resume. Yeah, resume – of course it’s the most important part. I prepared 3 different resumes. Professional one – with my experience in festivals, films and events, because these are the fields I used to work back in Poland, hospitality one with my poor experience gained in hospitality during my study time and sailing one, because it’s my hobby, I’ve been sailing since I was a child and I dreamed of getting a job in this field. So, very wide, I’m not sure if it’s better, than focusing on only one direction, but it gave me an opportunity to send my resume for many different adds, hoping that one of these will finally work out.

Step 1

Preparing resume was finished – I used one of the free, online CV creators, I asked my Australian friend to check it as I was not sure about my English and I was ready for bombarding my potential employee.

Step 2

Sending the resumes out. I tried to look for job every day, and don’t miss any add on gumtree.com and seek.com. I hated it, because every day there were about 6 or 7 pages of new job adds. So lots of scrolling… But lots of opportunities as well. I’ve noticed, that with passing days, my selection of interesting adds changed vastly. During the first week I was applaying only for this cool, interesting adds, which I really wanted to get and after 3 weeks I was sending my resume to almost every add which was somehow combined with my experience. I started to be a little bit frustrated and frightened, because I’ve send about 150 application and got only few answers, and my resume was quite nice. What can be called phase 2.5 was visiting potential employees and giving them my resume. And it was waaaay too more effective. I’ve got two trial days and one interview because of it.

Step 3

Yes – trial days and interviews – phase 3. I was on 5 or 6 interviews and I had 2 trial days – one in cafe and second in restaurant. I’m the worst waitress ever, so of course I didn’t get it, but I tried at least… Of course managers were very happy after my trial days and kept saying that I was the best and they will DEFINETELY call me, what never happened. But hope dies at last, new day new opportunities and so on.

Sending application for many, many adds even if you are not sure if this one is for you, is good because you can at least practise job interviews… You learn what is good to say, and what maybe not, that you need to be really happy and full of energy during the interview, and that managers are happy and full of energy all the time, whatever happens, so you have no idea, if your interview went well, so you need to keep searching. I’m really not good at it, I always say something stupid at the end of the interview, or don’t understand important question, but what really matters, whenever you are, is smiling. I’ve got my first job in my life, as I was a teenager, because of my braces smile, and I’m pretty sure that nothing works in Australia as much as wide smile..

Finally I’ve got even two jobs, one in hospitality and second connected with my profession, it took me some time and some nerves, but was worth it. I hope that next blog won’t be about “how to get fired in Australia after first two weeks”.