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It's pretty slow here in Brisbane. ..

Yeah, that's Brisbane

Seriously though, it's unhelpful when a prospective economic migrant asks a (albeit pointless) question about job prospects and is met by a wholesale response based only on one person's narrow experience.

I've said this before, the IT market is actually hundreds of markets, some of which are good and some are less good. If you are a particularly desirable prospect then you will find work even in a poor market. But then I guess those people will be doing proper research and contacting agents are recruiters rather than just asking on here and being met with the usual list of sob stories. Remember, the vast majority of IT workers are employed.

It's pretty slow here in Brisbane. Contract vacancies much reduced by the change of Govt. V few large projects starting up as far as I know which impacts demand for BA's, Change Managers. Architects seem to do OK.

I work because I have a great relationship with a consulting company who keep me supplied with small projects but think it would be really tough out there on my own. Big difference (drop) in number of calls I get from recruiters compared to even a year ago..

The market isn't dead.

Who was this meant for?

Shouldn't you be busy applying for jobs?

And you should add that you have a degree in modesty too :-)

Maybe just apply for some jobs?

...We get a recruitment fee and we really need someone now so don't mind broadening the hunt I don't think sponsorship is an option unfortunately. Well not last time I asked..

Great contribution, thanks.

If you are in Melbourne or are coming to Melbourne and are looking for a Field Engineer role, please PM me, between 2 -3 year's experience please PM me.

Btw, I was never asked for Form 80 before my application wss approved.

Yeah, I reckon that if your HR dept calls them, it's very simple and clean-cut so they'll just tell you outright whether it'll be refused, then just withdraw and reapply.

Nope, you'll just have to re-apply.

Maybe HR thought 2 years after 457 approval. I think (but am not sure) that it's 2 years after starting the nominated role for the nominated employer.

Thanks for all the congratulations and good luck to those waiting.

I second MaggieMay24's comments, transition is definitely 2 years before you can apply.

Can you clarify the date of arrival and the date commencing the role?

If it's not 2 full years, it'll get refused, I checked this with them before I applied (I REALLY wanted to apply early!).

My advice - get your HR to call immigration and double check dates. If they confirm what we think, then you can either withdraw the nomination. Re-apply after that (you will not get you) nomination fee back most likely - so you might have to cop the $800 or whatever it is). Seeing that you applied early March you'll likely get a decision soon anyway.

You definitely don't want to lodge your application now because if the nomination is refused your $1000s in application fees go with it!

I can now post my timeline:

Application & nomination: 14th Feb 2014 (Transition Stream, IT, English)

CO Assigned and medicals requested: 30th April 2014

Medicals attended 7th May (after having to reply to get my HAP ID)

Visa Grant: 14 May 2014

Just that I have white coat syndrome, but mine was quite a bit lower than that and the medibank doc said it was fine. I've read in a few places that it can result in referral but never refusal that I've seen. Good luck!

That sounds familiar star1976! Do you mind if I ask what his BP was?

Thanks :-) ...

but I was wondering how long others had waited (not those that front loaded medicals) - 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months..?

Congrats on the visa!

All docs apart from medicals loaded together a week before yours. Medicals loaded a week ago after requested by case officer...

Congratulations to everyone who have had their visas granted.

Can anyone give some indication of how long after attending for medicals you had to wait before either a decision, or a request for further information?

My nomination and application were submitted together with everything except for medical.

Submitted nom + app together, Transition Scheme on 14th Feb. Site showed 'in progress' more or less straight away.

I'm british, and am the sole applicant.

Still waiting.

The company I work for has really struggled to find decent IT staff with good client-facing skills. My comments below are after unsuccessfully helping my employer look for 2 X wintel/infrastructure people (including looking through CVs, advertising directly and through many agents, lots of phone and face-to-face interviews)

It seems that people who are decently skilled (to CCNA, MCITP-level, circa 5 years' experience) but also impressive in front of clients for less than $100k are nowhere to be found.

Someone in this thread above said that there was 300 applicants for one job. Whilst that may be the case, 285 of them are flawed in one way or the other. They're either personally flawed (anyone who works in IT knows exactly what I mean by that) or are lacking in the sort of the technical learning agility that would have made them develop into decent L2/3 engineers after their few years in the job.

My assessment after more than 6 months of searching is that the network/systems market *is* saturated, it's saturated by poor quality candidates.

(by the way, if you are nodding along with the above, and are looking for a systems engineer job, send me a PM :-) )