Jessica Berry

Hi Carmel I notice you say you have 3 small children. I am not sure of your plans, but I thought it was worth mentioning that in my experience in Adelaide (not sure about other cities) within office environments the attitude to fulltime working mothers with small children is very different to the UK. I have only worked with 2 women in the 6 years I have been here (and I have worked in many roles and industries) that worked fulltime with pre-school age children. Most women with children I have encountered work part-time or fulltime when their children are at senior school. There is a lot less tolerance in this area compared to what you might be used to in the UK. So for example in Australia the norm is to get 10 paid sick days a year (but only if you are in a permanent job, if you are casual/agency staff you will not get any paid sick or annual leave, this is calculated into your rate of pay (which is debatable!!), but you have to accrue that before you can take it, so you would need to work 6 months before you have 5 days paid sick leave. If your child is sick and you need to take a day off work, this will usually come out of your 10 days sick leave. If you do not have any sick leave, you may have to take it unpaid, this would not be unusual. However, if you were always taking time off this would not be looked on favourably. I had a HR Manager and they received a phone call to say their child had broke their arm and needed taking to hospital and they would not leave the workplace to take their child because of fear of losing their job. Now that may seem an extreme example, but from my experience it is not an isolated incident. However, there are certain organisations that are more 'family friendly' and I usually advise people to target these organisations if they have small children and may need an employer that is more understanding. The downside to this, is these organisations tend to pay less because they offer more flexibility. The same works for annual leave, the norm is to get 20 days, but again you need to accrue this, so you would need to work 6 months before you had accrued 2 weeks leave. A lot of places shut down over Christmas for 2 weeks in Adelaide and you can be required to take annual leave for that period. If you had ran out of sick leave, then you can usually take annual leave for this purpose. On a personal note, we find living in Australia you need to have more of a safety net than we did in the UK. We have income protection against my partners income in case of illness or injury. We did not have this in the UK because we had a small mortgage and very generous sick leave allowances. Over here 10 days sick leave that takes a year to accrue does not go far. I have seen people on the poms in adelaide forum get unstuck in these situations when something happens and they are unable to work. One place I worked, we had an income protection scheme that staff could pay into, a member of staff had not joined the scheme and was then off sick and had used all their sick leave, their annual leave and long service leave and had nothing left, she gave a sob story to the HR Manager, but the response was "we have an income protection scheme, you chose not to join, therefore you will be on no pay". Over here the emphasis is very much on taking care of yourself and making provision. There are significant differences in a lot of areas in terms of how things work (and you would need to understand this as an employee but also as a HR person) and I am happy to share my experiences if it helps people.

Just a pointer, when you are looking on realestate.com.au, remember on top of the price you have to pay stamp duty, we paid $25,000 in stamp duty (it varies) so you would need to consider this on top of the for sale price.

Out of interest, what line of work is your partner in that was offered the job?

I have just been looking on seek.com.au and as I mentioned above the recruitment agencies are all fighting over the same jobs, this temporary assignment for 3-6 months in Adelaide has been advertised by 5 agencies!!! It has probably gone out to more recruitment agencies as well, as the State Government has so many prefered supplier agencies they use. If someone has these skills, the recruiters will be falling over themselves to get you in front of the employer. http://www.seek.com.au/job/24826951 http://www.seek.com.au/job/24827165 http://www.seek.com.au/job/24827817 http://www.seek.com.au/job/24828516 http://www.seek.com.au/job/24832036 This can also give an inaccurate view of the job market because to the untrained eye it would appear there are more jobs available than there actually are!

Is your OH aware of the retraining that may be required to work as a plumber over here? This post on poms in adelaide is a permanent fixture on the site and although it is over 2 years old it is still active and people are still adding information and sharing their experiences. There seems to be a lot of plumbers that come over to South Australia unaware that they are required to retrain and it takes time and money. The legislation may be different in other states, but it is definitely worth checking out. http://www.pomsinadelaide.com/forum/jobs-careers/23276-plumbing-workers.html Within the construction industry in Adelaide again it is a lot of who you know and I suspect it may be the same in other states. An Aussie friend was telling me at the weekend her relatives had been staying with her since February, they had come over from Ireland. One was a carpenter, the other an electrician. They physically went to every construction project/site around Adelaide and went asking for work, they also visited the Irish pubs in Adelaide and anyone in a fluro vest in the pub they assumed was a tradie and they went up to them and asked about work. They were not able to get work here, but applied to an agency in Perth and they have both got work in Perth. To work on a construction site in South Australia you need a white card (which is a OHS card), you will not be let on a site without one, other states will probably have a similar set up so you would need to look into it. Over here you usually go for about a day and it costs around $100. Do not do an online version as employers in Adelaide will not accept them. If you have relatives in Australia they should be able to help you with contacts etc. The problem I find is that relatives/friends give people well meaning advice regarding job hunting but then when you asked them when did they last apply and successfully secure a job (on their own merit) it can be 5, 10, 15, 20+ years ago. The job market is very different now.

The Adelaide job market is very much not what you know but who you know, to be honest I have never known anything like it. The best one I have heard so far is 28 out of 30 people in a department were either related to someone or friends with someone! In the team I work in, over half of the staff know each other and have gained their job via a contact. In the past I have ran workshops for poms in Adelaide covering resume and job advice and guidance. A big part of the workshop is understanding the Adelaide job market and how it works, there are also things I cover to enable them to gain a competitive edge over other applicants, it may sound harsh but I tell the people on my workshops if I were them I would not pass on the information as one day they may be competing with the person they tell for the same job. I look on seek.com.au almost every day and get the job paper (Adelaide is the only capital city that still has a separate job supplement in their newspaper as it is more old school). I can often tell you who always advertises the same jobs, who has a high turnover, which job advert they are trying to bury, which job is already allocated for someone, this takes knowledge and understanding of the job market and how things work. Another common technique is to initially phone screen applicants and they will ask you what salary you are looking for, you need to know where to pitch yourself and what the job will be paying. Often when you have too much experience you can be seen as a threat (a lot of you are very high level and experienced and in the Adelaide market this could be a problem (I have had a recruitment agent ask if they can change my job title on my resume, it was only HR Officer, because the HR Manager they were sending the resume to would see me as a threat!!!), so you need to know what to include in your resume and what to exclude. Another big thing is being the right ‘fit’ to the organisation, if your colleagues do not like you, they will get rid of you. The world of work in Adelaide can be a very harsh environment. A friends company recently advertised a $40k admin job and they had 297 applications for the job. Another friends company advertised for an in house recruiter and a lot of the people applying had been made redundant, big companies such as BHP and many recruitment agencies have made HR/recruiters redundant so they are all looking for work and employers have the pick of the bunch. Another friend ran a recruitment process for payroll positions paying $40k - $50k and received over 400 applications. Now people can say that in some areas of the UK, jobs are receiving the same or more applications, but the difference is if you were in the UK you would know which jobs you would have a shot at getting, here you are an unknown quantity. Having said all of this, with Adelaide it can also be a case of being in the right place at the right time, some luck thrown in and it works out, you never can tell. Attitude and approach has a lot to do with whether people flounder or flourish. I do a lot of contract/project work and I always find that something turns up, but a lot of people find it difficult to live/work like this especially if you have always been used to a set wage coming in and regular employment. I have worked in Adelaide in the construction industry as a Project Administrator and in aviation in exams. I had never worked in these roles or industries before in the UK, but my personality was a big factor in me getting the roles. I have worked as a business trainer and assessor (I have no Aussie experience of this, but I had the Cert IV Training and Assessment qualification and applied as soon as the advert was posted and often it is first come first served!), the woman that interviewed me was a pom but had been here years and the main thing was I could start straight away, if I had said I could start in a week or 2 weeks I would not have got the job. I am lucky because my experience in the UK was a mix of HR, training and admin so I was able to adapt my resume to suit different jobs. If you only have one skill set such as HR in my experience it makes it very difficult as a new migrant. I have moved into training as it is much less competitive than HR. The current contract role I am working on was advertised by 2 recruitment agencies and they were struggling to find someone. When the recruitment agent got my resume, she nearly wet her pants, knowing I was a good fit and of course in these tough times all the recruitment agencies are fighting over the same temp roles for commission. When I went for the interview, the employer offered me the job straight away in the interview. I started the job at the end of November and in Adelaide you can usually forget finding a job in Nov, Dec, Jan as the place practically shuts down. There are always exceptions to the rule. As I said I am giving this advice on my experiences on the Adelaide and HR job market. Other cities may be different and offer different opportunities and experiences.

Apparently I have a strong accent, I never realised until I came to live in Australia! I often get comments about my accent and the way I pronounce words and Aussies take the p*ss out of me, but it doesn't bother me in the slightest and in my case it is usually because they know I wont get offended and because they like me. Only this week my accent sparked a whole discussion in the lunch room about the tv program Keeping up Appearances and Mrs Bucket!!!! I have not found it to be a problem in the workplace at all, sometimes the english accent can help. One interview I went to the HR Manager had lived over here for years and years and came out as a teenager, but just wanted to talk to me about Coronation Street, I just went along with it and guess what I got the job!

It is a bit of a minefield, even something simple like annual leave or sick leave is different here. The way you accrue leave is different, the types of leave available are different, the attitude to taking annual leave or sick leave is very different, the legislation between states is different, the way it is calculated is different, between awards and agreements it is different - quite frankly your head can explode just working out leave!!!:arghh:

With regards the salary, you say you can not afford to reduce your salary by much, but why will what you earn in Australia make a difference to what you earn in the UK, or am I missing something?

Hi Carolyn I totally understand where you are coming from about sounding bitter when you are not, HR in Australia is VERY different here and I can relate to much of your posting above. I would say Adelaide is about 30 years behind the UK in terms of HR/recruitment, it used to shock/appall me but now I just smile and take it all in my stride. I too enjoy living in Adelaide/Australia, we have been here just over 6 years now and we have a good life here, but if you get me on the subject of HR in Australia I could talk till the cows come home!!! You can't talk to an Aussie about it because unless they have an understanding of anything else, this is normal to them and this is their country and you have to respect this is how things are done, you might not agree with some of the things and I have been vocal in the past about things, but there are consequences for this and you have to understand that. I have a pom friend who made contact with me via the poms in adelaide website as she was a HR professional in the UK and noticed I came from a HR background and we became friends via the website. When we met for the first time in Adelaide I explained to her the realities of HR in Adelaide and how it all works and I think I talked non-stop for about 2 hours!!! I did leave the lunch thinking she probably thinks I am mad and I will never hear from her again ha ha. Well I did and we are good friends. She has been my god send and me hers because we can talk about HR/recruitment (along with other things) and we can relate to what each other is saying. Regards Jessica

There is another thread running on HR jobs and I thought I would just put the link on in case people had not spotted it... http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/jobs-careers/151072-human-resource-adviser-recruitment-consultant-anyone-there.html

Hi Kez Logic would tell you that if your job is on a skills shortage list then that would be the case, but it is often not, due to many factors. I am a regular poster on poms in adelaide and started a thread recently on this. I know you are not considering Adelaide, but thought it might be worth having a look at the posting...... http://www.pomsinadelaide.com/forum/jobs-careers/37844-sa-migration-website-no-guarantee-employment.html I will follow up on your other questions when I have a bit more time.

I could talk about HR in Adelaide/Australia from now until Christmas ha ha!!! I can only speak from experience of the Adelaide HR experience but I personally find HR does not have the credibility over here that it did in the UK, some of the attitudes and approaches are very different. It may be a different approach in Melbourne or Sydney. The HR job market in Adelaide tends to fall into the following categories - graduates are employed who have little if any practical experience but they can be 'shaped' to conform and don't know any different and people that slot into HR because they know someone or they have been at a company for a long time. There are differences such as superannuation, work cover and awards and agreements and I can understand (having lived here 6 years and having now worked here in HR, recruitment and training) why poms would be overlooked for HR positions until they have Aussie experience. As an example for 2 HR positions I was interviewed for I had to complete a test. One was looking through a contract and spotting 10 mistakes and offering suggestions for what the answer should be and another was interpreting the company's agreement to answer a set of questions. I feel unless you understood the Australian legislation and ways of working over here you would struggle. In Adelaide they can make you jump through hoops as there is plenty of competition for the jobs.

But doesn't he have WA experience working there from January to October?

I am based in Adelaide and there has certainly been a downturn in HR/Recruitment roles here. A lot of the big companies have reduced their HR numbers due to projects not going ahead etc so there are a lot of people chasing the jobs that have local knowledge and Australian experience. I worked as a HR Officer in the UK and it took me a long time to secure a HR position in Adelaide. I personally found after undertaking Australian qualifications in HR/Training and gaining Australian work experience in related areas things started to progress.

I like the Australian version of 'Who do you think you are', as you would imagine there are a lot of convict and migrant stories and their ancestors coming out and facing incredible hardships.

I agree! We tend to record most programs so skip through the ad breaks and reduces the viewing time by loads! We always allow ages before and after the program when we set the recorder. I always say the tv guide is just that 'a guide', the times and programs can change so much.

What level is the qualification? A Diploma qualification is the standard requirement for practitioners to register with health funds who provide rebates for remedial massage treatments. A lot of people will not go to a massage therapist if they are not able to claim a refund from their health fund provider. However, if you are offering massage services at a beauty salon or spa then the health fund rebate would usually not be an issue. Perhaps you could look into coming as an international student and studying massage therapy.

We enjoy a lot of the Aussie programs, some of our favourites are Packed to the Rafters, Rake, Underbelly series, Off Spring, Seachange (watched it on dvd), Househusbands, East West 101, East of Everything. We enjoy the Aussie sense of humour and quirkiness! Our favourite Aussie film has to be The Castle, which is constantly quoted in the workplaces we have worked at.

We have been in Adelaide 6 years and are happy we made the move. I came to Australia on my own on a working holiday visa back in 1996/97 and loved the place and felt the country had a lot to offer. 10 years later my partner and I migrated and settled in Adelaide. We sold our car, home and all our furniture and arrived with no jobs, nowhere to live and just our suitcases with mainly clothes in and got on with starting a new life. My partner had never visited Australia until we migrated, he works in IT and his career has really took off. He took to Australia like a duck to water and absolutely loves the place. I have had a few ups and downs mainly to do with work/jobs but still enjoy living here and don't regret making the move at all. We have a good life here and we still pinch ourselves that we are fortunate to live in Australia. Your attitude and approach to starting a new life (in my opinion) goes a long way. Peoples expectations are different, so everyone will have a different experience and opinion of life in Australia. It is not easy starting a new life from scratch, some will flourish and some will flounder.

I have been in Adelaide 6 years now (from the UK) and HR is a difficult field to get into, although not impossible as I managed it. The Adelaide job market has slowed down considerably over the last 12 months. I do a lot of contract/project work in HR/recruitment/training and contracts are getting harder to find and there are plenty of people fighting for the roles who have Australian work experience, local knowledge and contacts who you will be competing against.