Looking for a job

[Dimi]

Hi everyone.

 

I hope everybody is doing well.

 

I arrived in Adelaide a bit more than a month ago and I have actively been looking for a job.

I have a Business Administration and a Management degree that I obtained overseas.

Ideally, I would love to get involved in the organizaton of events like festivals, concerts, etc. But I know it is not easy, so I just keep applying for administrative positions where I have some experience.

 

My problems are the following:

 

1. My studies appear very broad and therefore I cannot apply for positions in Marketing or Accounting because it is not my specialization (even though both were a big part of my curriculum).

 

2. I don't have local work experience because I grew up overseas, even though I have the Australian citizenship. So I guess employers are hesitant to give me that first chance, especially if they know they will have to train me.

 

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to overcome these obstacles?

 

Any suggesions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks a lot in advance for your help.

 

Dimitri

[NicF]

Are you applying for casual and fixed term contracts? Lots of these around and often they are a way in to an organisation. I work at a Uni and it's rare that a permanent job goes to someone who isn't already working at the Uni somewhere, either as a casual staff member or on a fixed term contract. I started on a fixed term contract then got made permanent.

 

Have a look at the job sections of all three of the University websites. I'm pretty sure there are one or two jobs being advertised at the moment that may be suitable. When applying for a job make sure you address the selection criteria fully, giving real life examples of when you have demonstrated that particular requirement. In Adelaide it's often who you know rather than what you know but if you can get a foot in the door, as a temp or casual member of staff you can start getting to know people. If temping is a possibility try speaking to Entree - we get quite a few temps from there (and I know a fair number of people that started as temps and moved on to other roles in the Uni). Good luck.

[Dimi]

Hi NicF. Thanks for your response. At the moment I am applying for anything really, be it casual, fixed term or permanent. Like you said, I just need to get a foot in the door somewhere, hoping I will gradually be able to advance to something better.

 

I checked the ads of the universities, but they require experience that I don't have. That's always the main obstacle for me. I have done an internship for about a month in an Accounting department, then for about a year I did admin work for a company protecting patents, and for about six months I worked in a bank as a credit analyst before coming to Australia. All my work experience is from overseas.

 

However, I did sent my resume to Entree. So I am hoping they will get back to me.

 

As for networking, well, this hasn't really been helpful for me. It seems that not a lot of people are willing to help these days. But there is always exceptions. So I don't know...

 

Thanks again :-)

Edited December 9, 2016 by Dimi

[Toni]

Where I work we hire a lot of staff through temp organisations like Entree. We've had some temp staff stay for 2-3 years. I've seen it help people get their foot in the door to more permanent work.

I used to do temp work a while ago and loved it because if you didn't like being somewhere you didn't really have to give an excuse and just leave.

This time of year we don't tend to take on staff and usually it starts up again towards the end of January early February.

I work in government so that tends to be the way they operate.

[Dimi]

Hi Tony. Thanks for your message. I agree that temping is a good way to try different things and you can potentially become permanent. Let's just hope that Entree will overlook the fact that I don't have local work experience.

[NicF]

The whole needing local work experience is a load of rubbish, particularly in admin roles. In my experience when you are turned down from a job because you don't have local experience (or in my case because you haven't got experience of the systems used) it just means they have someone within the organisation that they want to give the job to. In these instances you could have all the experience in the world and still not have a hope of getting the job.

 

You do need to ensure that you really sell yourself on the experience and skills you do have though. Don't sell yourself short in a job application or in an interview.

[soo_the_panda]

I second Entrée as a great agency for marketing - also try Hudson.

 

My other advice

 

- Call, don't email agencies and when asking questions about a role

- Always call to introduce yourself - don't just press submit on an application. Have a couple of smart questions to ask that could lead to a short conversation.

- Make it really really obvious you have citizenship on your resume - eg a summary line at the top eg 'Marketing professional and MBA holder, recently relocated to Adelaide (Australian citizen) after XX years working in the UK and XXX. Looking for permanent opportunities in XXX or XXX' - obviously more carefully written than that, but make it really obvious

- There are lots of roles here that are quite broad - eg in marketing and comms, events and community engagement, events and volunteer coordination etc. Make it obvious you can do all of those things.

- There aren't many big national organisations here, so consider universities, government and the not for profit sector.

[Dimi]

Thanks for the great tips soo_the_panda. I always state that I am an Australian citizen on my resume but I probably have to do a bit more than that, as you suggested.