We (wife and 2 kids 5yrs and 1yr old) emigrated in September last year to Melbourne on a skilled migration visa(my wife was the main applicant as an early years teacher). I am a Civil engineer with 18 years of experience(contracting) in the UK working up from a site engineer to an assistant construction manager with Amec and then VolkerStevin. I have applied for up to sixty jobs in the Melbourne area and a number country wide and had 1 interview for a site engineers role (i appreciate that i am going to have to start further down the ladder to gain experience and i am willing to do so). My patience is wearing thin and our savings are being eaten up, I am confident in my own ability but just need the foot in the door/chance. Prior to this post this is what i have done to gain employment whilst being here:
Obtained white card, visited numerous agencies ,door knocking on construction companies, re written my resume and had it professionally reviewed, obtained my abn number.
I have gained some short term work, labouring on various small sites, where i have met some useful contacts but none of these have come to anything and i don't want to waste my experience in the engineering sector to become a labourer(not that there is anything wrong with that).Feedback that i am receiving is that the construction industry is very quiet and there are candidates with more Victorian/Australian experience than me. I am now looking in all Australia for employment. We gave ourselves 2 years to see if this move was for us at this rate its looking like 12 months and we will be home due to financial reasons. Everyone that we have met, the social networking, the people couldn't have been more helpful and we really want to stay, but.......
Same story with us. My husband is a civil engineer and he was the main applicant.He has 8+ years experience on roads and highways construction, prior to coming to Australia he worked in FiFO roles in north Africa for 2,5 years.We were saving that money for migration and after a careful research we decided Australia as they advertised that engineers are in great demand.Also there are a lots of jobs advertised and the argument that start applying after coming here was reasonable.So we came and now it's been just a year-with one interview and no job.He did the same things in order to get a job, had professionally written resume, sending off to companies, applying to jobs, made some contacts (like you are he is now working as a laborer), and no success.To be clear, as someone might say if his English is good enough as we are coming from a non English country, he mostly worked in international teams where all correspondence was held in english and passed IELTS with 8.5 overall mark.Now he is still working as a laborer and I am doing some part time work, so financially we have just enough to make ends meet, and he is thinking again doing FIFO, anywhere, as here in Australia seems that the market is really struggling and as migrants from a developing country he will be always at the end of the line for any job.So...we are in the same boat. See some people on here are doing FIFO, any advice appreciate.
Foot in the door required!!
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Same story with us. My husband is a civil engineer and he was the main applicant.He has 8+ years experience on roads and highways construction, prior to coming to Australia he worked in FiFO roles in north Africa for 2,5 years.We were saving that money for migration and after a careful research we decided Australia as they advertised that engineers are in great demand.Also there are a lots of jobs advertised and the argument that start applying after coming here was reasonable.So we came and now it's been just a year-with one interview and no job.He did the same things in order to get a job, had professionally written resume, sending off to companies, applying to jobs, made some contacts (like you are he is now working as a laborer), and no success.To be clear, as someone might say if his English is good enough as we are coming from a non English country, he mostly worked in international teams where all correspondence was held in english and passed IELTS with 8.5 overall mark.Now he is still working as a laborer and I am doing some part time work, so financially we have just enough to make ends meet, and he is thinking again doing FIFO, anywhere, as here in Australia seems that the market is really struggling and as migrants from a developing country he will be always at the end of the line for any job.So...we are in the same boat. See some people on here are doing FIFO, any advice appreciate.