1) What do you recommend in the scenario where one lands in Australia without a job lined up, and then (for whatever reason) cannot find an acceptable one? (This may be very unlikely, but having backup plans for emotionally salient crises is an important component of committing to major plans for certain types of decision makers.)
2) The website you linked for hospitality jobs is not working. Can you list some more examples of job types besides bartending and receptionist work? (In particular, I would find this possibility more appealing if there were jobs listed that didn’t involve spending a lot of time on my lousy feet or using telephones.)
3) Is there any hidden pitfall associated with leaving partway through, either temporarily (home for Christmas) or permanently (don’t like it there after and wanna go back)?
4) If you really, really like it there, is there a good way to stay?
5) Regarding subsidized room and board, I strongly value being able to cook for myself, which means I need to have, equip, stock, and find time to use a decent kitchen. Would this value collide with the perks you mention?
2) The website you linked for hospitality jobs is not working. Can you list some more examples of job types besides bartending and receptionist work? (In particular, I would find this possibility more appealing if there were jobs listed that didn’t involve spending a lot of time on my lousy feet or using telephones.)
What’s not working about the link? It loads up for me. Perhaps you have a Bayesian ad filter installed that’s blocking it because it’s all job ads? Just so you know, there will be a lot more jobs on it in 2-3 months. This is probably the hardest month of the year to find a positon in the outback since the tourist season is at a low point and employers are keeping on only their best workers while not hiring new ones.
As I search my mind, it seems like a lot of jobs in the remote parts of Australia actually would involve standing sometimes but you could probably find one that didn’t. However, most of the jobs that I can think of which involve only sitting, involve sitting at a desk… where you would at least occasionally be answering a phone.
If you can think of a job class that exists in the US which is normally too low-paying to consider doing but meets your other requirements, it’s probably a good paying job in the Australian outback.
3) Is there any hidden pitfall associated with leaving partway through, either temporarily (home for Christmas) or permanently (don’t like it there after and wanna go back)?
You certainly don’t have to stay a full year. No one will ask you to sign a long-term contract or expect you to work longer than you want. Because I had no experience and had to be trained, my employer asked me to stay for at least 6 weeks but that was their entire expectation. If you’re good at your job and your boss likes you, you could leave and come back. Several co-workers of mine took month-long vacations occasionally and would then later came back to work their same job again.
5) Regarding subsidized room and board, I strongly value being able to cook for myself, which means I need to have, equip, stock, and find time to use a decent kitchen. Would this value collide with the perks you mention?
I couldn’t imagine passing up the 3 chef-prepared meals per day. They were so good and and so convient. But when my co-workers didn’t like a meal, they would go in the kitchen and make themselves something else. If you were flexible about when you wanted to use the kitchen, you could probably have it to yourself a few hours a day at most places like where I worked. You’d just need to learn when the chef had their breaks during the day.
If you can think of a job class that exists in the US which is normally too low-paying to consider doing but meets your other requirements, it’s probably a good paying job in the Australian outback.
The one I had in mind was cashiering of some sort—I sold zoo tickets for a summer once, and sat down all day, generally taking only a handful of internal phone calls. Can you think of anything like that? (Also, you mention chefs, which traditionally involves standing but can often be done partially sitting if they let me have a chair in the kitchen—are those jobs as easy to get as the others you mention?)
The chef is the highest paid staff position at most outback resorts and I would not expect you to get that job. Even places staffed entirely by foreign workers tend to hire a natural-born Australian citizen with decades of professional experience as their chef.
To find other positions, I recommend you search online. Even though I might be the only American who’s written about this, there are lots of Europeans that write about their own experiences in different jobs in Australia or even people who have written whole guides similar to mine (in theory). I didn’t find one myself after searching awhile. Most guides I did find were out-of-date, had no details, or were transparent come-ons for selling me a service… but there must be some good writing about working in Australia somewhere online. If you find any, please share it with everyone here since at least a couple people are seriously considering doing this.
4) If you really, really like it there, is there a good way to stay?
Find someone who really really likes you and marry them? The bulk of easy permanent residency visas go to migrants with skills Australia has decided it needs more of; followed by refugee and humanitarian visas—if you have either of those going for you it should practically be a rubber-stamp residency application.
To be more specific about the permanency residency visas, these days Australia is mostly looking for engineers, computer scientists, and the like. If you’d come last year you could have gotten in by being a hairdresser or chef.
Oh and the marrying? I know it was intended partly as a joke, but the immigration people are very suspicious of people trying to claim residency that way. Be prepared to jump through lots of hoops to prove that it’s not a scam to be allowed to stay in the country.
Do note that being an American (fellow first-worlder) and having already been in the country for some time won’t set off as many alarm bells as the typical case. But yes, an obvious sham marriage wouldn’t work. I would expect that a rationalist would be more than capable of deceiving the officials in this case.
You can not automatically get a work-visa through marriage. There are options available for family of an Australian resident, but you still have to apply, and there are caps in place. Read more on the immigration website
However—there are options to extend your holiday-visa for a second year, at which point you can then apply for sponsored work-visa, after which you’ve been around long enough to apply for residency. Again—the above website covers the gamut of what you can do. I suggest more research there :)
Questions:
1) What do you recommend in the scenario where one lands in Australia without a job lined up, and then (for whatever reason) cannot find an acceptable one? (This may be very unlikely, but having backup plans for emotionally salient crises is an important component of committing to major plans for certain types of decision makers.)
2) The website you linked for hospitality jobs is not working. Can you list some more examples of job types besides bartending and receptionist work? (In particular, I would find this possibility more appealing if there were jobs listed that didn’t involve spending a lot of time on my lousy feet or using telephones.)
3) Is there any hidden pitfall associated with leaving partway through, either temporarily (home for Christmas) or permanently (don’t like it there after and wanna go back)?
4) If you really, really like it there, is there a good way to stay?
5) Regarding subsidized room and board, I strongly value being able to cook for myself, which means I need to have, equip, stock, and find time to use a decent kitchen. Would this value collide with the perks you mention?
2) The website you linked for hospitality jobs is not working. Can you list some more examples of job types besides bartending and receptionist work? (In particular, I would find this possibility more appealing if there were jobs listed that didn’t involve spending a lot of time on my lousy feet or using telephones.)
What’s not working about the link? It loads up for me. Perhaps you have a Bayesian ad filter installed that’s blocking it because it’s all job ads? Just so you know, there will be a lot more jobs on it in 2-3 months. This is probably the hardest month of the year to find a positon in the outback since the tourist season is at a low point and employers are keeping on only their best workers while not hiring new ones.
As I search my mind, it seems like a lot of jobs in the remote parts of Australia actually would involve standing sometimes but you could probably find one that didn’t. However, most of the jobs that I can think of which involve only sitting, involve sitting at a desk… where you would at least occasionally be answering a phone.
If you can think of a job class that exists in the US which is normally too low-paying to consider doing but meets your other requirements, it’s probably a good paying job in the Australian outback.
You certainly don’t have to stay a full year. No one will ask you to sign a long-term contract or expect you to work longer than you want. Because I had no experience and had to be trained, my employer asked me to stay for at least 6 weeks but that was their entire expectation. If you’re good at your job and your boss likes you, you could leave and come back. Several co-workers of mine took month-long vacations occasionally and would then later came back to work their same job again.
I couldn’t imagine passing up the 3 chef-prepared meals per day. They were so good and and so convient. But when my co-workers didn’t like a meal, they would go in the kitchen and make themselves something else. If you were flexible about when you wanted to use the kitchen, you could probably have it to yourself a few hours a day at most places like where I worked. You’d just need to learn when the chef had their breaks during the day.
The one I had in mind was cashiering of some sort—I sold zoo tickets for a summer once, and sat down all day, generally taking only a handful of internal phone calls. Can you think of anything like that? (Also, you mention chefs, which traditionally involves standing but can often be done partially sitting if they let me have a chair in the kitchen—are those jobs as easy to get as the others you mention?)
The chef is the highest paid staff position at most outback resorts and I would not expect you to get that job. Even places staffed entirely by foreign workers tend to hire a natural-born Australian citizen with decades of professional experience as their chef.
To find other positions, I recommend you search online. Even though I might be the only American who’s written about this, there are lots of Europeans that write about their own experiences in different jobs in Australia or even people who have written whole guides similar to mine (in theory). I didn’t find one myself after searching awhile. Most guides I did find were out-of-date, had no details, or were transparent come-ons for selling me a service… but there must be some good writing about working in Australia somewhere online. If you find any, please share it with everyone here since at least a couple people are seriously considering doing this.
Find someone who really really likes you and marry them? The bulk of easy permanent residency visas go to migrants with skills Australia has decided it needs more of; followed by refugee and humanitarian visas—if you have either of those going for you it should practically be a rubber-stamp residency application.
To be more specific about the permanency residency visas, these days Australia is mostly looking for engineers, computer scientists, and the like. If you’d come last year you could have gotten in by being a hairdresser or chef.
Oh and the marrying? I know it was intended partly as a joke, but the immigration people are very suspicious of people trying to claim residency that way. Be prepared to jump through lots of hoops to prove that it’s not a scam to be allowed to stay in the country.
Do note that being an American (fellow first-worlder) and having already been in the country for some time won’t set off as many alarm bells as the typical case. But yes, an obvious sham marriage wouldn’t work. I would expect that a rationalist would be more than capable of deceiving the officials in this case.
You can not automatically get a work-visa through marriage. There are options available for family of an Australian resident, but you still have to apply, and there are caps in place. Read more on the immigration website
However—there are options to extend your holiday-visa for a second year, at which point you can then apply for sponsored work-visa, after which you’ve been around long enough to apply for residency. Again—the above website covers the gamut of what you can do. I suggest more research there :)
1) I’ve heard that if you go the US Embassy and beg you can get a free flight back.
Do you have any data to back up that claim? :)