Goochie

Whatever he does, ensure the course is accredited by Engineers Australia - Without this he will struggle to find a job at many companies. As an employer I've looked at many CVs and interviewed many graduates and would say the following: University of Western Australia (UWA) = They appear to focus on their students helping them into the "top 100 universities" list. This means they teach a lot of theoretical maths and physics etc. to a broad base of students before they specialise in anything. For example, a Mech Eng student will spend many of his first year lectures with Chemisty or Physics students. At the end of it the graduates are clearly well versed and capable of theoretical stuff but lack any practical experience. Curtin University = When employing I always see a Curtin Engineering Degree as a good thing. The students we've taken on always do very well, have a good practical understaning of stuff and are also good at theoretical calculations etc. A Mech Eng student will spend the whole time at uni learning about that subject. Edith Cowan University (UCU) = Previously only offered a BSc in Engineering which is useless, now they offer a BEng. However, many people I meet through work make jokes about the uni and say that they only take students who were unable to get into Curtin or UWA.

As an employer I thought you'd all like to hear the other side of the story. A few months back we had a vacancy for a mechanical engineer so advertised directly on seek. Within moments of the ad going live we had the first application and after a week we had over 200 applications. We're a small company and can only spend so much time looking through covering letters and CVs so I came up with a few criteria to eliminate a lot of applications, If you applied for the job I would eliminate you if: 1) The covering letter appeared to be generic and made little or no reference to the job advertised. 2) You cited skills and experience that we werent looking for and tried telling me how they would benefit the company. 3) You fail to mention your visa status in your covering letter. 4) Your CV is so full of information it becomes incomprehensible - I dont have the time or motivation to read intricate details about projects you've worked on for the last 7 years. 5) Your CV is more than 3 pages long. Your covering letter is, in some respects, more important than your CV. If your covering letter lets you down the recruiter probably wont even read your CV. Within this thread there are a few people looking for opportunities but already I'm thinking I'd move on to the next applicant! You really need to make sure your spelling is up to scratch, particularly when looking for an Opportunity. There is also someone who is asking another member for details of Perth recruitment companies - If you cant find them yourself, what chance do you have finding components and parts you may need to complete a design? Many things are difficult to locate here in WA, partly due to the remoteness and partly because many companies have poor websites. Finding a recruitment company is a lot easier than finding some components we use. WE HAVE NO CURRENT VACANCIES - IF WE DO THEY WILL BE ADVERTISED ON SEEK

We've just moved into a new property (rental) and really dont have enough sockets anywhere in the house. The landlord is very accomodating with most things and I expect he would allow us to fit more if we paid for it to be done (or at least went 50:50 with him). Is anyone here able to give me a ball-park figure on what I should expect to pay to have a socket fitted alongside an existing double? Also, what do the Aussie regs say about fitting a double as a spur from an existing double? Can it be done or would the additional socket have to be a single. I used to work for a socket manufacturer in the UK so I know the principles of doing this work, I just have no idea how much it would cost here in Perth (probably a gazillion times more than the UK!)

If you house was made of straw, the crooks could huff and puff and blow your house down.......... allowing them to steal your stuff more easily than if it were brick with concrete tiles

Also depends on your laptop. Some big Dell "Mobile Workstation" laptops pull too much power and the in-seat connector will switch off. Check what the maximum kW rating is at the seat and compare with your laptop. Most "home" laptops will be fine though.

You can borrow to invest quite easily here but you do need significant security and have to put up a fair chunk of cash yourself. The repayment terms are often a lot shorter than a mortgage would be for a similar amount. Borrowing to invest is a good way of financing some things like a management buy-out where a company director wants to sell his share to someone with insufficient funds. The bank will look at the business history and decide if it will be able to repay the loan in time. Its not like you can walk into your local NAB and walk out again having borrowed $100k for investment.

Diddnt know they did Mankikis?

Hi. We have an overlap with our next rental, meaning we can move any time from August 24th. It is unfurnished.

We've found another property and have a 6 week overlap until the end of our lease. The agent says they'll allow us to break our lease cost-free if they can place another tenant before the end. The house is situated in a quiet cul-de-sac just 15 minutes walk from Hillarys Harbour and 5 minutes in the car the Whitfords shops. It backs onto the Ern Halliday recreational camp which is used by scouts etc. for weekend camping trips and general outdoorsy stuff. However, all this happens a long way over on the other side and we never see or hear anything. 30 minutes to the city (at the weekend!) 20 minutes to Joondalup city and Hospital Nice small park with pond just around the corner. 10 minutes walk to the lovely Mawson park. Close to Sorrento Beach Close to Whitfords dog beach Small Coles corner shop and a fancy Deli 5 minutes walk away on Flinders Ave. Garden is small but has re-tic throughout. Large family room with AC (it does heating too!) Master bedroom with en-suite and AC Everything is clean and everything works! The agent sorted out the few problems we had very quickly (replaced a broken dishwasher, replaced a broken TV aerial, fixed leaking re-tic, fixed a toilet that wouldn't flush reliably) Why are we moving?? Well, I have a few projects I want to start and I really need a double garage - Currently we have a double car port.

For anyone really worried about this, you can get a GPS tracker to fit around your dog's collar when its out of the house. However, they're not really discreet and the dog rustler will simply remove it - Probably placing it on the nearest bus or train for a laugh. http://trakapet.com.au/

I lodged my postal application (prepared and printed with the ATO e-Tax software) on July 2nd and the refund was in the bank within 2 weeks.

We declared a $800 vacuum cleaner as new and it came through without a hitch. It was the ONLY new thing in there though (we diddnt try and sneak anything else in).

The dog theft thing is a hoax, perpetuated by gullible people on gumtree etc. posting old made-up warnings as if they're fact. I had an email from a nice man in Nigeria recently. He says he has a gazillion dollars he'll send me once he has my bank details. What do you think I should do? I read it online so it must be true.

Thanks. I have been thinking of renting a van from Thrifty and paying a couple of lads from work to help me lift stuff - Looks like that could actually be the expensive option!

Something larger than a tennis ball!!

Here in WA the biggest Coles/Woolies spuds are still smaller than a tennis ball! Spud shed not much better I'll have to try IGA

The bizarre thing is that my wife picked a recipe magazine recently that had suggestions for what to do with jacket spuds yet we cant buy them! I did wonder if it's something to do with WA soil? Incidentally, Spud shed have sweet potatoes the size of rugby balls!

So what was their hourly rate?

We've been looking around for some big potatoes for several months, hoping to be able to bake our own jacket spuds at home. However, not even spud shed have big spuds! So where can I get them from?

XBox Live subscription will work fine here in Oz. However, some games such as CoD will not realise you're now in Oz so will keep trying to match you with players in the UK. The obvious limitations of the distance mean that online gaming can be very laggy as a result, when I first came over I used to get very frustrated at not even being able to find a game to join, despite there being thousands online in Australia. Registering a new XBox live account solves this problem though.

Try Austal Ships. They recently announced a couple of big new projects and your experience sounds like what they're looking for. From memory, they have a good recruitment section on their website.

How does PVC double glazing stand up to the summer heat? Back in the UK we had a back door and a couple of windows that used to bind on a hot summer's day and over here they'd see those kind of temperatures for weeks on end in the summer.

I live in Hillarys which is just over the road from Padbury. I drive through Padbury every day taking a short-cut to avoid some traffic lights and the area looks reasonable. Some of the houses look a little tired but there are others which could be $1M+. Many areas here are like that as prices rise and people move out leaving their home to be demolished and replaced with a mansion. I think Sorrento and Hillarys have become too expensive for many and that's pushing up prices in the surrounding suburbs. Padbury has an excellent primary school according to a colleague.

Remember that whilst this looks like an attractive option with today's exchange rate, if it swings the other way you could find things difficult.

Will you be taking out a private superannuation (pension) policy in Australia? Australian Super (they're a super provider) have a policy which includes both life and income insurance. However I'm on a 176 permanent visa so things may be different.