Job and moving worries!

Hello

My husband and I, along with our 3 children are due to move to Canberra later in the year. We have the 176 Visa, and due to family issues we have not been able to come to Australia before now, leaving only 9 months left before expiry.

My husband is a Building Surveyor here in the UK. He has been looking for positions in Canberra and has contacted numerous companies but has not heard back from anyone, not even acknowledging receipt of his details, even when chased with follow up emails. There are only a few positions being advertised yet in other states there seem to be many.

Worries are starting to seriously set in now as, with 3 young children, we cannot take the risk of him not getting employment when he arrives. Did anyone else experience a lack of feedback from CV's before arrival?

I know this Visa has no conditions, however, we really want to do the right thing by coming to Canberra.

Would love to hear if anyone else has successfully secured a position in this industry - Property Valuer (RICS/API)

Thank you

I think getting a job has to come before the loyalty to a state, if there are no jobs you are risking losing your visa. With visa's getting harder to find, if the move means everything to you I would be considering other states.

Deb,

This may not be an easy read. I am chartered through CIOB and my formal title is chartered project manager within the construction industry. My experience has always been with insurance companies, banks and private clients ie financial institutions meaning I'm a quite specialised even in the UK.

I was lucky enough to secure work before leaving with a dream deal in our chosen city. Unfortunately after 6 difficult months I left moving to a technical role on less money but much better suited and I have not been happier. The issues are as follows.

1, nobody gives a dam about RICS, CIOB even AIB (Australia's own equivilent etc).

2, local experience is what they want.

3, assume your husband has BSc (hons) as this will help.

4, building industry is run by builders with licensing being most important to them oh and experience!

5, real estate is run by.....amatures and needs a kicking but nobody is brave enough to do it!

6, when I was applying I was strongly advised, drop the word surveyor and install other definition. Surveyors are simply looked down on here and RICS counts for nothing. Even a QS here does not need RICS qualifications where as in UK you would struggle without.

You must remember the building industry in Aus is still run by unions where they have been driven out of UK. The UK building/housing market is much more professional and is run for the client, here it is run for the contractor or vendor.

You are in a difficult position and are moving to an area where I'm not sure house sales are that high? Speak to RICS as they operate here on a small scale. Speak to agencies etc. Maybe set yourself a 6 month plan, don't sell up, come over, give it 6 months and then decide.

Best of luck and hopefully with some hard work it all comes good for you.

S

I agree with SRG73, frustratingly its pretty much start again once you get here and maybe even downgrade a little just to get a foot in the door so to speak. It is a very lucky few that can secure a job prior to arrival in Aus, so there is a risk in finding suitable employment straight away, some people do say you need to be prepared for self funding for some 3-6 months.

Do not be disheartened merely prepared, Canberra may be a little ltd on opportunities so maybe a better chance in Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne especially now with the low interest rates said to help the property markets.

I wish you well.

Keith

It is unusual to get traction with the job hunt before you get here. Having said that, I agree with the earlier post that your ability to support the family has to come before loyalty to a state government, so I would be keeping options open initially.

Make certain to budget in at least 8 months of financial insecurity funds at $3500 a month, plus $13000 for a better used car and year worth of registration. Tough to get jobs in ACT because:

- it has very little private sector jobs

- for government jobs you need security clearance

- lot of competition for jobs

etc. etc. etc. Key is to socialize, most jobs you'll get is through connections, agencies are useless. Good luck and I hope it works out for you....

The biggest employer in Canberra is certainly the Federal Govt but a significant proportion of people are employed by either the ACT Legislate Assembly or the private sector both of which employ non citizens.

There is a lot of building activity and a high turn over of property. I think the biggest hurdle in securing a role for a migrating building surveyor would be a lack of knowledge in relation to local building legislation, technical codes and construction standards. Your OH will have to be able to convince prospective employers of his ability to quickly acquire this knowledge given it is fundamental to the work.

Thanks for your replies everyone.

SRG73 - your info has been very informative and certainly puts things a little more into perspective. My husband has lots of experience and has worked his way up to earning a good wage. The positions advertised are on a much lower salary which is a concern in itself. When we started the whole process 6 years ago, there seemed to be plenty of positions available in Canberra and my husbands salary here was not so good so seemed to be a "no brainer" at the time.

However, money isn't everything so there are many more draws for us to come to Australia.

My main concern is my children are all primary school age, I dont want to get them settled into school when we arrive only to move on again a few months down the line should we not find empoyment in ACT.

The rules on the whole "moral obligation" are so sketchy with no definitive answer. I would not feel comfortable going straight to another city without at least giving Canberra a fair chance! Im a bit of a scaredy cat!

Thanks for your replies everyone.

 

SRG73 - your info has been very informative and certainly puts things a little more into perspective. My husband has lots of experience and has worked his way up to earning a good wage. The positions advertised are on a much lower salary which is a concern in itself. When we started the whole process 6 years ago, there seemed to be plenty of positions available in Canberra and my husbands salary here was not so good so seemed to be a "no brainer" at the time.

 

However, money isn't everything so there are many more draws for us to come to Australia.

 

My main concern is my children are all primary school age, I dont want to get them settled into school when we arrive only to move on again a few months down the line should we not find empoyment in ACT.

 

The rules on the whole "moral obligation" are so sketchy with no definitive answer. I would not feel comfortable going straight to another city without at least giving Canberra a fair chance! Im a bit of a scaredy cat!

hope you'll have a better luck than we did!

Oh no Maggie2012. Do you mind me asking what situation you are in now? Are you in Canberra? Working?

I agree with the others ACT is a hard nut to crack although I doubt citizenship would be needed for building surveyors which it often is for IT personnel for example (security clearances). It is very much a place of nudge nudge who you know and even 6 years ago when you started this process you would probably have found that there was someone earmarked for the job but they had to go through the motions.

Personally I would be taking a career break - never give up a good job without something to go to, renting out the house then seeing what would fly - getting employment from overseas especially when you don't have any local experience is always going to be fraught and they do reckon that you need to have a buffer to see you through 6 months of unemployment and, sadly, for some, it has been longer than that as the best they can do is often short term contracts and that drains the finances.

Would it be better in other states? - who knows (several of the once booming states are now rather fizzing than booming!) but good on you for considering the moral obligation, many can't even be bothered to do that! At the moment it is a moral obligation only but things change and as the bigger cities and states get flooded, there is always a pressure to be more insistent that the obligation becomes actual more than moral (rules can and do change). ACT is notorious, too, for putting occupations on its list where there are actually no jobs!

Thanks for your replies everyone.

 

SRG73 - your info has been very informative and certainly puts things a little more into perspective. My husband has lots of experience and has worked his way up to earning a good wage. The positions advertised are on a much lower salary which is a concern in itself. When we started the whole process 6 years ago, there seemed to be plenty of positions available in Canberra and my husbands salary here was not so good so seemed to be a "no brainer" at the time.

 

However, money isn't everything so there are many more draws for us to come to Australia.

 

My main concern is my children are all primary school age, I dont want to get them settled into school when we arrive only to move on again a few months down the line should we not find empoyment in ACT.

 

The rules on the whole "moral obligation" are so sketchy with no definitive answer. I would not feel comfortable going straight to another city without at least giving Canberra a fair chance! Im a bit of a scaredy cat!

You could always send him first and meet up once he has secured a job. It's not pleasant, but is the less risky option.

Just like the OP we are almost in our last year of our 176 visa and still in The Netherlands but are now finally preparing the move. Two visits to Canberra over the last 3 years didn't scare us away So we are now preparing everything to move in 12 months.

The wife has secured her job with her current employer (working from overseas) so that's a big plus but I am slightly worried about my chances.

I'm in IT since 2000 in multiple roles but mostly as Project Manager and/or Team Lead (mainly in IT Infrastructure if anyone is interested Think along the likes of Atos, HP, Fuijitsu, Telstra) Looking on Seek I have of course noted al the NV1 and other clearances requested. Not being a citizen that seems to throw a bit of a spanner in the works... If I read the offical statement about getting a clearance it leave s a bit of wiggle room. But has anyone real life experience of this wiggle room being used? Or does it sounds nice on paper but it never happens in real life? How exceptional do I/the circumstances have to be? Any advise is most welcome!

[h=4]Q5. Do you have to be an Australian citizen to be eligible for a security clearance from the Australian Government?[/h]Australian citizenship is a condition of eligibility for security clearances. Only in exceptional circumstances can the head of your employing agency waive this requirement.

I'm in IT since 2000 in multiple roles but mostly as Project Manager and/or Team Lead (mainly in IT Infrastructure if anyone is interested Think along the likes of Atos, HP, Fuijitsu, Telstra) Looking on Seek I have of course noted al the NV1 and other clearances requested. Not being a citizen that seems to throw a bit of a spanner in the works... If I read the offical statement about getting a clearance it leave s a bit of wiggle room. But has anyone real life experience of this wiggle room being used? Or does it sounds nice on paper but it never happens in real life? How exceptional do I/the circumstances have to be?

They have to be desperate. If there's another applicant who is even half-way acceptable, they will appoint him rather than go to the trouble of getting you through the system!

There are employers who are not government-based so it's going to be a case of tracking them down and hoping they have vacancies. Or looking for jobs elsewhere where you can work remotely - I do know IT people in Canberra who work for Sydney firms, they work in Sydney one or two days a week and from home the rest of the time.

Yeah, thought so. (that they might not be inclined to go through the hassle)

The working home/Sydney option also crossed my mind and seems like a viable option as long as there's nothing in Canberra itself. Again happy the missus at least has her job secured. Saves us a lot of sleepless nights I guess

If someone has more/other/same experience please do share. I prefer to have the reality check now instead of over there

Here is an update on our situation. Shortly after this post my husband secured a position in Canberra, we begun to make plans to make the move. We had a few situations to get through and had just started to put things into place when the company withdrew their offer of employment as a local candidate came through. We were devastated. My husband looked for another position but there just wasn't anything out there. We thought that was it.

Then in November, he secured another position in Canberra. What with Christmas and only 2 months left on the visa we knew it would not be possible unless there was some way of extending our visa. After researching, we discovered this was not possible but we would possibly be eligible for a Resident Return Visa 157, the reasons we had not made the move in the last 5 years would be taken into account. The applications are in process. This morning my husband and one of my children's has come through so it looks like we will at last be coming to Canberra! I will be seeking lots of local advice over the next month or so!!

Here is an update on our situation. Shortly after this post my husband secured a position in Canberra, we begun to make plans to make the move. We had a few situations to get through and had just started to put things into place when the company withdrew their offer of employment as a local candidate came through. We were devastated. My husband looked for another position but there just wasn't anything out there. We thought that was it.

 

Then in November, he secured another position in Canberra. What with Christmas and only 2 months left on the visa we knew it would not be possible unless there was some way of extending our visa. After researching, we discovered this was not possible but we would possibly be eligible for a Resident Return Visa 157, the reasons we had not made the move in the last 5 years would be taken into account. The applications are in process. This morning my husband and one of my children's has come through so it looks like we will at last be coming to Canberra! I will be seeking lots of local advice over the next month or so!!

Hi Deb, good luck with the move! We are in a similar position in that we will have had our PR visas for 4 years in March 2016 so need to get cracking with our move (Adelaide or Melbourne for us). Similarly, it is family issues which have kept us in the UK - both having lost a parent since we got our visas, and on a happier note, in among it all, having our little boy who is nearly 2.

I'm interested to know how long a period of time the RRV 157 will give without having as yet lived in Oz - a year?

Hi Petal38

Im sorry to hear about your family losses, what a sad time that must have been for you all.

And congratulations on the birth of your little boy!

Looking at the criteria for the RRV 155 and 157, we didn't think our "special circumstances" would fall under the criteria for the 155 which gives you 1 year from the date it is granted. The 157 only gives you 3 months. When you apply, it is the same form and the officer who deals with your application will either grant you the 155 or 157. We have been granted the 155 which we are so pleased about. It has cost us $360 per person though - which is almost £1000 for us but well worth it. The visa is processed very quickly - 48 hours!

Good luck xx

Your choice should be Melbourne over Adelaide. The latter is not great for any job prospects. We know people who had fallen for bad advise and and they've regretted it greatly.

Hi Deb, good luck with the move! We are in a similar position in that we will have had our PR visas for 4 years in March 2016 so need to get cracking with our move (Adelaide or Melbourne for us). Similarly, it is family issues which have kept us in the UK - both having lost a parent since we got our visas, and on a happier note, in among it all, having our little boy who is nearly 2.

 

I'm interested to know how long a period of time the RRV 157 will give without having as yet lived in Oz - a year?

Just like the OP we are almost in our last year of our 176 visa and still in The Netherlands but are now finally preparing the move. Two visits to Canberra over the last 3 years didn't scare us away So we are now preparing everything to move in 12 months.

 

The wife has secured her job with her current employer (working from overseas) so that's a big plus but I am slightly worried about my chances.

 

I'm in IT since 2000 in multiple roles but mostly as Project Manager and/or Team Lead (mainly in IT Infrastructure if anyone is interested Think along the likes of Atos, HP, Fuijitsu, Telstra) Looking on Seek I have of course noted al the NV1 and other clearances requested. Not being a citizen that seems to throw a bit of a spanner in the works... If I read the offical statement about getting a clearance it leave s a bit of wiggle room. But has anyone real life experience of this wiggle room being used? Or does it sounds nice on paper but it never happens in real life? How exceptional do I/the circumstances have to be? Any advise is most welcome!

 

Q5. Do you have to be an Australian citizen to be eligible for a security clearance from the Australian Government?

 

Australian citizenship is a condition of eligibility for security clearances. Only in exceptional circumstances can the head of your employing agency waive this requirement.

ACT State Government would employ you. You say you're now looking at 2017?

Is your experience in servers, or network infrastructure? Any application experience?

ACT State Government would employ you. You say you're now looking at 2017?

Is your experience in servers, or network infrastructure? Any application experience?

Yeah, everything is setup for mid January 2017, this would allow us to enjoy the second half of summer before winter kicks in

My experience is from being a system engineer on Windows Servers and Juniper and Checkpoint firewalls to teamlead of a team of engineers which administered those systems to Operations Manager of multiple teams (Windows, Networks, AS400) in the financial world. After that I moved on to a global IT service provider with a relatively small presence in Australia but 80.000 people globally.... Australia options are thin on the ground but it is a small lead which I will follow up shortly. Did Project Management in networks, storage, servers area (windows, linux, unix) Note: being a project manager I am not always knowledgeable on the systems itself. I do understand all technical concepts being a former engineer though. From that I transitioned to Service Delivery Management (again: networks, servers, storage, databases) And since a few weeks manager of an Incident Management team which services all our national customers. I might move more in the team lead/manager area as it probably translates easier to other jobs without clearance issues(?)

Hope this paints the picture

Thanks for confirming that I can work for local government without the citizen thingy, I was aware of that. But confirmation is always nice! Looking at Seek.com.au the Federal/security clearance needed jobs outnumber the non-clearnace jobs by 99 to 1 though

OK, well it's too early do anything now but i can give you some good contacts nearer the time if you send me a PM around October. No promises though, I was here 6 months before i got something and that was through a contact i found on here!

It's all about getting your foot in the door in Canberra, then it can flow pretty well as you build up contacts and prove yourself.

There's a lot of demand to project manage application upgrades and moving them from physical to virtual servers, and single server systems going to redundant/high availability. A lot of early systems seem not to have been done brilliantly, or were done in-house by the customers themselves in a hopscotch manner...so there are upgrades and fixes to do at the same time, moving things from offices to data centres !

Lots of application people but not many with the technical or infrastructure knowledge to manage them the whole way through or understand what Vendors and solution architects are telling them. If you have experience of dealing with customers and can be pro-active here, that's a big bonus. Don't have to be a particular systems expert, you just learn whichever one is the subject of that project...some are pretty simple.

Prince2 Practitioner would be a good thing to get before you come here, if you haven't already done that. Very often it's put on requirements lists even if the job doesn't really use it, but it's a way they sort out shortlists. Even if there are jobs on the "BAU" side, people often get pushed into doing projects where their skills are required. It's not an overly "mature" business as yet and there is a lot of demand for flexible people who can be trusted to think on their feet and achieve good outcomes, despite the changing environment.

I guess from what you say above you know ITIL, they always ask for ITIL Foundation as a minimum. Obviously if you've got any MCSA or MCSE stuff you wouldn't need to worry about the ITIL.

Thanks for the offer VERY much appreciated! Any help, even if it's just a chat about life in Canberra, is more than welcome. Sure we will be in touch closer to the date.

If I look at what you are telling me about the factual work and which skills are needed; man it sounds like...like me! I did a few projects in the last few years which were all about (often crappy old applications) migrations to Windows or Linux virtuals (ESX 5.x) Interesting, one such project was the application which took care of all the cases which were handled by the High Court (isn't there something like that in Canberra Damn that NV1...) Other similar project were migrating different apps of a semiconductor factory and a BIG migration/consolidation of the core system of same factory to Unix.

I understand more or less everything what people tell me, vendors, architects, engineers, on a conceptual or better level. I have never ran into an environment I didn't head my head around pretty quick. And when with a vendor or customer I often smell the bullshit quite early (if there is any) And I have experience on the BAU/Operations side and Project Management. So I can understand both parties/views (keeping the show on the road vs. changing the road )

In regards certification, that's all taken care of

Prince2 Practitioner: Check

ITIL Foundation V2 & V3: Check

ITIL Inc. Mgmt: Check

MCSE: Check (NT4.0...)

MCSA: Check (W2003)

Will be doing a problem/incident/crisis management course next two months. Really interesting stuff, will share in more detail with you if you like at a later stage. All in all: I hear options

Thanks again for your reply, nice to receive some positive news on jobs on Australia Day!

(also received a 260 A$ speeding ticket today so was in need for some good news Our trip to Canberra & Sydney last December is getting an expensive afterbang...)

Cheers!