Today, we're going to talk about how to find a job in Australia. Through these series of articles we're going to walk you through how you can prepare yourself, how to find the jobs, how to interview for them and ultimately get the jobs.

There are 2 groups of people that come to Australia: those with jobs and those without jobs.

Those with jobs come over sponsored on a 457 visa which means an Australian company has already hired them and wants to bring them over to Australia to work.

The other group, those without jobs, can be young or old and anything from the graduate to the ones that want to start a new career or life in Australia. Those are the ones that are on working holiday visas or have tried their luck at the Skilled migration visas. Of course there are family type visas too but they generally come to Australia to be with a loved one and therefore do not have jobs yet.

So how do you find a job in Australia? Let's start with the most obvious first step: your CV.

If you don't want to stick out like a sore thumb then you must use the Australian format for CVs.

If you can't conform to an Australian format for a CV then chances are, you hadn't done your research on doing business in Australia and worse still, you're signalling to your future boss that you're not serious about working for them but that any job will do.

Think about it, you want to shine in these things and you want your future boss to feel like they're the only company in the world that you want to work for. Don't shoot yourself in the foot by submitting a generic unformatted CV.

Less is more? Wrong.

The most important thing that I can recommend is: more is better. But not in the sense that you should list every single small job that you've ever done. I mean, details. Long gone are the 1 page CVs with size 10 font so that you can cram 10 years of experience into them. These days we want more details about the jobs, projects or task that you did.

You need to provide context so that they can judge whether your skills are as good as you say they are. For instances, consider the following:

2010 - 2014 Joe Bloggs Company, New York City  

Sales Manager

• Sales
• Accounts receivable
• Inventory
• Team player

My first question is, what does Joe Bloggs Company do? What do they sell or produce?

My next thoughts would be, "Geez, this person has just listed a bunch of random tasks that they may or may not have done over the course of those 4 years that they worked there"

And my final thoughts would be "NEXT!" and promptly throw away your CV.

Be detailed in what you did there and provide context for the company. Unless you worked for big name brands such as Procter & Gamble or Big law firms that everyone knows, don't expect your future boss to know what that company is. Even with companies like Procter & Gamble, you have to narrow it down to division as they do all sorts of FMCG.

Metrics and being specific

In this day and age we're all about data and metrics and measuring everything.

Think back, how were you reviewed on your performance in your job? Were you measured against a sales quota? Were there specific KPIs that you set and then smashed through?

Use these! Write these in your CV!

Really narrow it down and demonstrate that you had a hand in the success of a task/project or team.

Caveat: sanitise the data that you're using. Do not give away confidential information such as a financial position of a company. Use ballpark figures for deal sizes or something similar.

Avoid buzzwords - show don't tell

Don't be afraid to write sentences to explain what you did there. But also don't waffle on. You need to demonstrate that you can be succinct and concise.

These are filler words that have no meaning. "Team player", "determined", "enthusiastic" - all these are meaningless and don't really tell the employer what you can do. A better way is to write about a project that you were part of a team for. E.g Together with a 3 person team we worked 50 hours to meet the product launch deadline.

Tailor your CV to the specific job

This is a general tip not necessarily an Australian tip but tailor your resume to the specific job. Only include jobs in the past that is relevant to the job that you're going for now. No one cares if you worked at McDonald's 10 years ago making fries when the current job you're going for is an IT specialist.

Use every opportunity to show that you are relevant and best fit for the job and company. Use your hobbies and interest section to get their attention. You can either put your whacky hobbies there to try and spark a discussion (and even a call) or you could use it to show that you have interests outside of work that incidentally align with what you do at work.

Australian spelling

This seems a little silly but it's always nice to see this attention to detail. It's another way to SHOW your attention to detail and not simply just writing 'I have attention to detail'.

And you never know if you'll come across someone who really values this stuff or not. But this is definitely another way to demonstrate that you're serious about finding a job in Australia and you know how its done here.

Use British English or Australian English spell checkers and change those z's and remember the ou's.

Examples:

• Organization vs Organisation
• Color vs Colour

Warning: red flags ahead

Other information that is not necessary and often of concern on CVs that I see is personal information that would otherwise be illegal for an employer to ask in an interview.

Don't give this information and open them up to a discrimination law suit!

I see many CVs with 'Marital status', 'Age' and even photos. This may be the norm elsewhere, for instances, Europe, but definitely not in Australia. Whilst these are seemingly harmless, these will:

1. identify yourself as someone who doesn't know how business is done in Australia
2. provide information that can be used to discriminate

It's probably a stretch to say that an employer goes into a panic by seeing this information but frankly its illegal for employers to ask about this stuff in an interview. There is always a possibility that when you're rejected for a job, you could come back and cry discrimination because you had provided this information prior.

Basically, don't do it.

It doesn't add to their decision making process and it shouldn't (by law) influence their decision in hiring you.

Visa status

You can add information about your visa status if you want but I've found that that clouds people's judgements. They see a perfectly experienced and qualified person but just seeing the line about visa status being temporary can deter them from hiring that person.

Choose wisely on how you want to present this. Remember, you are not obligated to disclose this in your CVs and they are definitely not the norm in Australian formatted CVs.

Next week

Well that concludes today's talk around the first steps to getting a job in Australia. Feel free to share this with your friends or ask questions in the comments below.

Stay tuned for next week's article on WHERE to find these jobs and how you should structure your job hunt.

If you'd like more samples of resumes or CVs in the Australian format then consider checking out our CV services here.

Other news...

Have you checked out the Australian Partner Visa Guide?