chrispeck

Did you google ptezone? I don't see them as a company, and their website appears to be nothing, but there is a blog post from someone blogging at that "ptezone" and they didn't appear to use the resources they are selling you. I suggest you do some research before spending your money.

I am guessing he meant IELTS as you also can't fail PTE by half a point, that's an IELTS thing.

You can sit the test as many times as you like, no result "invalidates another", they aren't submitted anywhere unless you tick that they want to be, and all you need to do is submit the test result that meets the requirements you are trying to meet. Good luck!

Seems to me your vocabulary is OK, but not great, but your spelling and grammar are bad, and that's letting you down. I think it's pretty clear where you need to focus your efforts. You may want to take a look at their score guide pdf on the Pearson website.

I think so George. The marks are out of 9, as a University educated native English speaker I got 9, 9, 9, 8.5, without any preparation. If you are relatively well educated and articulate you should be fine with IELTS, and as KristyJ said, while the PTE seems to give better results for lots of people, the format is not ideal due to more background noise, so unless you are struggling to get the right score with IELTS I would try IELTS first. Best of luck.

I haven't dealt with a case like this, but I think you are right, as you didn't receive a custodial sentence you should be fine. Be up front and honest about it. If you have to do a police check, then it will either come up, or maybe not given you were a minor? I wouldn't expect it to slow things down, it's a minor event, and the visa is a temporary visa, it's not like they are giving you PR or anything! See if you get someone else who has had a similar case to reply, and if they contradict me then go with their advice!

Nicely done! Congrats!

For those people requesting free reference materials/books, I totally understand, it's nice when stuff is free, but if your future in Australia is dependant on your English skills, you might want to invest some money in it. We regularly advise clients, if you have a path, grab it, before someone else does, or something else changes, and you find you don't have a path any more. It's your future that's at stake...

We attended a presentation from the guys who run the Pearson tests, they said they don't mark people down based on their accents unless it's hard to actually understand the person. It seems you are being marked down mostly due your pronunciation, so you maybe should look at some elocution lessons to try to fix that.

Hey Raul, Thank you for pointing that out. I think in our cases we have gotten away with it due to usually splitting our fees between the company and the employee when doing the whole process (SBS, Nom and 457). However, we need to make sure we aren't charging the employee when we are doing the nomination only, or the nomination fee itself when doing the whole process. Many thanks, you may have saved us and a future client some grief!

Raul is quite right, they will need to provide more than a letter. However, they can ask you to pay for the process, there's nothing wrong with that. We have had many people come to us when their employer said "find an agent and get them to lodge this", so in that sense the employee was sorting it out, but as an agent we can't do anything without the co-operation of the company. Assuming they went ahead it should take about 4 weeks to come through and then you can legally work for them. However, that's assuming their approval as a sponsor is still valid. Just because they sponsored people in the past doesn't mean they can still sponsor someone now. I think you need to speak to an agent, find out what's required, or go back to the employer and ask some more questions.

Thank for providing an alternative perspective Quoll. As a landlord myself I really don't care who rents my place, so long as they pay the rent, don't do damage, or if they do I will keep their bond. Students, babies, pets, adults, anyone could damage a property, so I ask my agent to vet the people for the kind of people they are, not whether they have pets, babies, or parties. If you look for pet friendly properties, in Melbourne city area there's 3,300 places for rent today, 36 are pet friendly. Given 2/3 of Australian homes have pets, that doesn't leave many options for pet owners looking to rent. Personally I would far rather pay an extra pet bond and be honest, so I hope some of the discussed legislation around the "no pets" policy will come into effect and sort the problem out.

The inspections seem to be common here. From what I can see they usually come to inspect at 3 and/or 6 months. Because we made sure everything was clean when the last inspection happened we didn't have any of the ones that were scheduled in the lease agreement after that one. I think the problem with the pet bond is plenty of landlords just don't want the hassle of pets (as if pets are worse than bad tenants), so they will choose a non pet owner over a pet owner. We haven't wanted to take that risk when we find a place we like. I have a feeling we will only declare the cats when we buy a house!

Holy **** 80 points?! They should snap you up! I think the caveat they have "Must have experience in the Science industry. Must have experience in the complete product life cycle." might be slowing the process down. When I looked at this for someone else I thought that was a very vague definition, I couldn't even work out what a "science industry" was using a google search (I can guess, but definitions are usually tighter than guesswork). It would mean they'd need to assess your work, the nature of your industry, and whether you had experience of the complete product life cycle... I'd still call them though...

I think a couple of weeks to process seems reasonable, assuming it's available from when you inspect it. I know some letting agents are pretty damned active, so they want everything chop chop. I think real estate is most active around January, so there's lots of properties, but a fair amount of competition. There's less available in winter but less competition. So I think that's good for you. If you get desperate bear in mind you can offer more than the rent listed, e.g. it says $430 and you offer $440 or $450. In terms of cats, that's a tough one. All advice I have been given is don't declare you have them. In fact, sign a form stating you don't (most seem to want that). Bizarrely everyone seems to have cats & dogs, but nobody seems to be allowed to have them. It seems to be a bit of a farce. Some people have said they sign an extra clause, declare the cats, and pay an extra bond (a pet bond). But doing that may mean you get refused. PS The main problem with declaring you don't have them is having to take a day off and go for a scenic drive with the cats whenever they want to do an inspection - usually every 3 months at first!! See if you get a second opinion on pets....

Hmm, I think when I last spoke to them they said about 4 weeks, although the website says longer, and it does vary for occupations. I would follow up with them. Give them a call, no harm in that.

Hey guys, So, I just thought I would give some input into this from a migration agent point of view. We have had lots of clients doing the English tests, and our feeling based on those cases is that 80% to 90% of people are getting better results with PTE. A few get worse results, go figure. My personal opinion, sheer conjecture, is IELTS used to control the show (as the only test accepted), so they knew they could fail people and those people would just have to come back. I think the PTE guys are trying to steal some of the market share, so they are giving out better results, so that the public and agents recommend them to other people. Ultimately the reason doesn't matter, only the outcome. I don't think one test is easier than the other, but I have only sat the IELTS test myself so I don't know from personal experience. I sat IELTS once, didn't prepare (other than through a lifetime of speaking & writing!), and got 9, 9, 9, 8.5. PS We are mostly dealing with non-native English speakers, so I can't say the same results apply for native speakers.

Hey Scotto, Wise words from everyone else, it is a no brainer, if you can get the 189 grab it with both hands. The 457 is a riskier path, and has various drawbacks. The 189 will also give you more freedom, you can live & work wherever you like. If you don't like the job just quit. If you are on a 457 it's much more restrictive. Our policy is always to look for skilled migration (189) first, and only if the client doesn't qualify do we look at a 457. I have sent you a PM, if you want more professional advice (although so far the "non-professional" advice has been bang on!).

Hey Jason, I sent you a PM. Happy to give your case a look over and give you a second opinion.

I don't think you need work experience for Accounting either, but on the other hand that's why everybody is using it is a pathway, and now you need 70 points because of the competition.

Just backing up the comments for the WHV. With full work rights, it's an excellent tool to find a job, and to do a trial period with a company. In our experience if you go in looking for sponsorship that's a hard sell, but if you work for a few months on a WHV and build relationships it can flips it around to the company thinking they don't want to lose you. That's the theory anyway!

If you can find another sponsor and lodge before your 457 expires then you will get a bridging visa to stay on. I know it's a push given the time left, but worth a shot?

There's a number of sales jobs on CSOL, and there's also marketing specialist on CSOL. Assuming you can find an occupation which is a good enough fit, you still need a sponsor, and I think that will be tough to find from the UK. Coming down on a working holiday visa might allow you to spend some time networking and see if you can line something up.

I only have a little of experience with Albury, I passed it twice driving from Melbourne to Sydney & back. The first time was at night, and we laughed that there were four turnoffs for Albury...we wondered what was so special about Albury that they were giving us so many chances to exit the highway to see it?! The second time it was daytime & we pulled off to check out the reservoir. I know it sounds silly, but after hours driving through countryside with no lakes (or other distinguishing features), a big body of water seemed exciting. So, the reservoir/lake was quite impressive, nicely nestled in hills, and with the impressive murray river coming out of it. I have to say, without having spent much time there, I could see why people might find Albury a nice home, theres's something oddly nice about it. It's big enough to be a town, and has some character due to the local geography.

So, I have only been in Melbourne 6 months after living 2 years in Adelaide. Adelaide was way too quiet for me, and although the heat & blue sky was good at first, i ended up pining for clouds, and the consecutive hot days were an issue, other than being in a pool, in summer it's just too damned hot to do anything. Even the beach I couldn't deal with for more than an hour before I thought i was cooked. Being positive, late evenings in Autumn and spring, when the temperature drops to 25 or so were lovely. However, on this point about the city density, I totally agree. We have taken drives around the countryside near Melbourne (in about a 150km radius), and it amazes me just how few other towns/cities there are, and indeed how dark the landscape is at night (you just don't see the kind of density of occupation as the UK). If you check out the biggest cities/towns in Victoria, it goes Melbourne 3.7m, Geelong 143k, Ballarat 85k, by the time you get to the 7th biggest at Sunbury it's 35k. It's the same in South Australia, there's Adelaide at 1.1m, then Mt Gambier at 25k. Western Australia is Perth 1.1m, Rockingham 60k. Have pity on NT, it's Darwin 70k, Alice Springs 25k!! And bear in mind, that for these big cities, they are a long way apart. Adelaide to Melbourne is 750km, and Melbourne to Sydney is 850km. Getting your head around the scale of Australia is a challenge I think. I guess we forget, the UK is tiny (and therefore packed), and has been settled with permanent towns for over 2,000 years. On the other hand, that's one of the reasons I came to Australia, as a Scot I can't begin to cope with the south of England, it's just too densely populated for me. I wanted a bit more space...and there sure is more space in Australia!