jon83

Congrats on your successful remark, happy to hear that and yes, that gives me more confidence it might be successful :-) @wrussel: Does the IELTS alternatives also award Skilled Migration points

Thanks for the advice guys. I called up my local centre today and had a chat with them. They were pretty confident it wouldn't make a difference if I applied for a re-marking of the test. They said in 10 years nobody had gotten a better grade from complaining at their centre. But they were nice and they actually had a look at my papers and I was able to get some feedback. They had a look at the marking notes and they said the grammar and text cohesion was an 8, but that the task realisation probably was lacking a little bit. It sounded a bit strange to me because I tried to do exactly what they asked for and I read the text carefully, but I will have a look into the IELTS requirements for the written part before I decide whether or not I will request a re-marking. It's gonna cost me about £70, but a new test is £250 and I have to wait at least 4 weeks before I can do it... so if I'm still feeling confident after reading the requirements I think i will go for the re-marking. I appreciate your feedback and I will keep you updated if I go for the remarking :-)

Hi guys, I recently did the IELTS test and I got an overall band score of 8.5. Unfortunately I only got a 7.5 on my writing part of the test, which came as a big shock to me. I'm comfortable expressing myself in writing and I felt I did a good job on the writing part of the test. I have a feeling the 7.5 grade is due to my handwriting (I'm a left hander!) and if that's the case I think it's a bit unfair because that doesn't say anything about my English. I had prepared a lot for the test, as I'm not a native speaker, but there's no way I can improve my hand-writing, so there is no use in me preparing even more and doing the test again. I had already prepared as much as I could for the test. What do you guys recommend doing? Should I request a re-marking of the test and can it help? I needed 8.0 in all parts of the test to get my 60 points for a PR. I got 8.5 in listening, 9.0 in reading and 8.5 in speaking, so a 7.5 in writing doesn't really make sense to me.

Sometimes I get the impression here that there are more people moving from Oz, than to! Anyway, best of luck on your move back :-)

It's an important decision and you need to reflect on why you're not happy in Oz. Will it really be any different back in the UK? Except that you'll be starting all over again?

I agree it seems strange to import 457s when there's a lot of qualified locals without a job. Seems like companies are abusing the system in order to get cheaper labour. On the other hand, salaries in Australia are very high and for that to be sustainable you need to be more productive than the competition. And for the record, the same goes for Norway where I'm from...

Not a good situation in other words. The situation here in Norway is the same the oil & gas industry. I have feeling Australia is just further ahead in the same process of cuts and a poor job market. They have slashed more than 10,000 oil & gas related jobs here the last 12 months, and that's a lot for a small country like Norway.

Good point regarding statistics. I'm hoping your statistics are right. My field (ICT) is also projected a 16% increase according to those estimates. But at the same time I have the impression a lot of people are struggling to find jobs at the moment. Especially people fresh out of uni. What's your field?

I came over this article today: http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/03/australias-historical-low-skills-shortages/ It's an interesting read, and it looks like there's not much of a skill shortage in Australia nowadays. Rather the opposite. Not good news for people who are interested in migrating I'd say. In best case it means salaries will be under pressure, and in worst case finding a job will be a real challenge.

Thanks for clarifying. I guess from an employer's point of view that is a good thing, especially if you can get good quality developers at that rate.

What's the problem with .NET? Too many .NET devs? Last time I checked .NET was still a very relevant technology. Very interesting thread and I wish the OP good luck in landing a job.

KrissKross, feel free to hit me up with a PM if you have any questions regarding life in Brisbane. Would love to hear your plans on how to get there as well.

My impression is that the Brisbane market is not as good as Melbourne and Sydney. I lived in Brisbane for a year (2013-2014), where I was stationed through my Norwegian employer. At that time, the Brisbane marked was tough, as the mining industry was struggling. I'm back in Norway now, but miss Brisbane and would like to move back. So I'm also interested in hearing how the market is now. I really liked Brisbane and the climate is great, except that it gets very humid from November to February. The city itself is nice, and it's got that small town feeling, even though it's a relatively big city.