Jessica Berry

Sent you a PM.

It looks as though from previous posts you were going to Victoria, then Geraldton, came to Adelaide, then considering a move to Perth and now perhaps Queensland. I am just wondering if what you are looking for is in Australia. Is your husbands job the main motivator for moving because you mention job opportunities for your husband in both your considerations of Perth and Queensland?

Welcome to Adelaide. We were in the same position of not knowing anyone when we arrived, but we have a good group of friends now. When we came over, we were quite focused on getting settled, finding jobs and a house and everything that entailed, that the first year seemed to whizz by.

Planned to come to Adelaide and that is where we have stayed.

Welcome to Adelaide. As others have said life in Adelaide is fairly normal. I go out to cafes, restaurants, the cinema (social distancing in place), shopping, hairdresser, beautician, take my car to be serviced and generally go about my business as before. You don't see many people wearing masks. I use the QR code app on my phone when I visit places, which is easy to use. If you switch on TV on channel 7 at the moment you will see the Adelaide Strikers playing cricket at the Adelaide Oval with crowds in attendance, although again with social distancing requirements in place. Definitely feel very privileged to be able to live in Australia when you see what is happening around the world.

I am based in Adelaide and the job market within Adelaide is my area of expertise, so I am not able to advise on Perth.

Thank you for the information. I will send you a PM.

Hi Lavers Belated welcome to Adelaide. I have enjoyed reading your journey to get here and your positive attitude and approach. JB

I would usually advise people to have a financial buffer of 3 to 6 months while they look for work, just in case. For administration roles, employers can often receive 300 applications for a position. Adelaide can be a hard job market, but it depends on many factors such as what you do, what you are willing to do, your attitude and approach, your skills set and obviously your covering letter and resume you submit for the advertised job. There are some areas of employment in Adelaide that are booming and others are struggling. Some people will find work very quickly others it can take months.

Andrew, do you know why the values have been increasing and why they may now have peaked?

We found the house search a bit of a pain to be honest, but that was also down to us taking the time to make sure we bought the right house in the right area. We did a lot of research and went to a lot of open inspections and a few auctions to get the feel for what was going on. Initially our plans were to find a block of land and build a new house on it, but that didn't happen in the end. We are very happy with our house and location so the time taken was worthwhile for us, but everyone is different. When we were looking to buy, house prices had jumped massively and houses were selling before they even got to auction, this is not necessarily the case now. Our house was up for auction but because we had been following what was happening we knew it would be sold before auction so we made an offer too good for them to refuse because we knew if it went to auction it could possibly go higher and they accepted it. In our area a lot of the houses around us go to auction because they are in demand and attract buyers, however a couple of the houses haven't sold recently but that is simply because the owners are greedy and are asking way above the going rate so they are now renting them out.

When we arrived in Adelaide we rented for a year. We wanted to take the time to find the right house and area to buy in. We spent a lot of weekends attending open house inspections in different areas to get a feel for the houses and the local area. It depends on your personal circumstances, budget, lifestyle, location of your job etc etc etc so what might suit one person isn't right for another.

Although there are jobs that will go to new arrivals specifically because the locals know not to touch them! Happened a lot in the 457 visa days, high profile roles in Adelaide that were career suicide for locals, but to the poor sucker overseas seemed like a great opportunity then after a while there would be an article in the paper about the person returning home for family reasons!!!!! Although when I work with my clients, if they are willing and are aware of the risks there are organisations I suggest they target because I know they struggle to recruit and it is a chance to get their foot in the door and some Aussie work experience on their resume.

Exactly. A recent admin job advert a friend applied for received 400 applications and this happens a lot, nothing new in the time I have been in Adelaide. Some adverts will state at the bottom...due to the volume of applications received only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Again, this is not to say there isn't work here, but it depends what you do, what you are willing to do, attitude, approach etc etc etc. I applied for a job recently and within 1.5 hours of applying on Seek the company was contacting me to arrange an interview.

I thought I would re-post a thread that I have posted in 2013 and 2015! The unemployment and under employment issues in Adelaide/SA are well documented in the press, on this site and in the past on Poms in Adelaide. SA currently has the third highest unemployment in Australia, which is quite good at the moment, usually we are number 1 or 2! You did multiple reccies and did your research so you were expecting it to take a while. In my experience, 3 months of job seeking is not unusual and up to 6 months I wouldn't be panicking, this is perhaps why SA Immigration have already shut you down. They are also aware that some migrants use SA as an easier option to get into Australia and then try to move elsewhere very quickly by saying they are unable to find work without giving it sufficient time. Kirsty has picked up work quickly so there is work out there, but this doesn't apply to everyone. I would also add that sometimes new arrivals can be harming their chances of finding work in various ways which they are not aware of because perhaps these things don't apply back in the UK.