I think you guys are focusing too much on % of income.

Money goes a long way in Australia. Sure, eating out is not cheap in many places, and certain things like electronics are expensive. But buying food is so cheap. Eating out is reasonable if you know good places to go. Even in the big city.

But for the same level of expenditure you're probably more comfy in Australia (bigger living space, for example).

I'm a grad. If I get an average grad-level income, I'll pay about 18-20% of that in tax. Net of tax I might pay 35-40% as rent (but this is heavier as a % now because this is only a starting salary - I expect salary to grow faster than rent). Also if I stay closer to the city where I would work, it's less transport costs so it roughly evens out (and the hours spent travelling).

What I can save, after including some other non-core expenses like leisure, is substantially more than what I'd get in gross pay in Malaysia - and this is the first job out of school. Salary growth outlook is good (probably better than Malaysia or at least on par).

Imagine I take these savings, and down the line buy some Malaysian property.

I'm not convinced Singapore's salary is so very high that it can compete with Australia - depends on industry and some luck (with getting that type of position). Even still, I am far more optimistic about SG pay levels than Singaporeans themselves... but I can't comment as I haven't received offers there myself.

Yes, with the fairly recent (past few years or couple decades) growth in the Malaysian student population in Australia, we have become slightly more known - but still, many people are not aware of us and I can't blame them.

I prefer to deal directly with the employer. Don't really see the point of recruiters.

Trust me, if I sent 2000, they were all quality. I was desperate. Of course it's true that only a small fraction of the 2000 will be even considered, and that my heart wasn't in all of them. But you do what you have to do. Need to be creative when you have no visa.

19% only

so u mean buying an apartment/flat? or small house in suburbs

my rent will be, I think, 35%-40% of after tax income. but no way i can afford to buy anything haha

Hopefully I'm past the point of finding a grad job.

I think by now I'm an expert at it.

Yes, in the end it is just that two or three applications that get the offer. But if I had not mass applied in the way I did, I would not have gotten these results. You could argue that it's just a few companies of a specific sector or area that gave me interviews, but it's a 3 month process and I couldn't have known that until now (that the positive outcomes were narrowly within the same sector), especially when I was getting rejected by "target companies".

Type A: Advertised program, with lengthy application questions

Type B: Subtle ad, app supplemented by cover and supporting docs, and industry contacts and knowledge

Type C: Not advertised, found by pure determination and luck, app is same as B

None of these involved recruiters. While A is easily found, it takes a long time to prepare for. B and C are extremely hard to find, and require hours of searching and network building, but are relatively easy to apply for. My most successful outcomes have been from B and C, I failed all of A.

If your circumstances are tricky, it's up to you the make opportunities happen. There's no shortage of talent in my industry. I already consider myself a top student with more experience than others and better English, but not having a visa really set me back. I'm glad I didn't give up.

You're on O&G which is prob almost 50% or 100% on top of an average starting pay!



I didn't read the full changes, and of course they are progressing more changes as time goes on

but at the surface the initial announcements didn't seem like big cuts. small dents. of course some people will take a hit. but maybe becoming more competitive is good as long as income equality is still kept in focus

not what I've seen! they seem to holiday a lot, not just near and poor like Asia, but Europe and North America too

then again I'm surrounded by uni students, they're not the same as the average unemployed person

Please please please don't change SOL next 2 years pls

i can dream lor

my profession is relatively conservative and doesn't get blamed for outsourcing jobs in the news

though it does attract a lot of international students - who mostly can't stay anyway, so they end up doing Master's = win for universities

their problem, not mine!

although my profession is notorious for insane exams. 15 of them in fact, each one harder than the next or so it goes. doing a master's is a sneaky way to pass a few exams faster and with higher probability.

i would too, if it weren't so bloody expensive. in my profession doing a master's doesn't normally hurt your chances of finding a job but i didn't fancy my odds so much. master's would be the natural way to go but not if i got a job first.

also they extended the length of the master's (quite silly) making it even more expensive

Some good points.

I believe Australia has superior work culture. This varies of course. You may get a good boss and a good team in Malaysia.

A lot of students could use a good kick though. Don't pay uni fees until they earn a high salary of 50+k pa (many grads earn well in excess of that), and even then it's only 4% pa. Previously (and it still is for the moment) interest free student debt. Yet they complain about fee deregulation. Or complain about how crappy their unis are doing. Well of course they're doing bad, you don't pay them money!

Of course not every uni student is ungrateful and wastes public money on drugs. Australia is still a productive economy, somewhat. It just needs less of these jerks.

If the fees go higher I think we might see a boom in universities in the UK, Europe. And to some extent the US.

Europe is cheap now. The UK and Europe in general are more prestigious for the booming Asian middle class than Australia. Why pay so much to go to Australia when it doesn't quite compare (unless you can migrate).

Of course it's not free (with current deficits it will never be again) but it is pretty damn close. Interest free debt being repaid in a painfully slow way (how many years at 4% or 8% a year - this ain't a life insurance policy). Actual fee levels themselves being so generously low (or, international student fees being relatively high and grossly overvalued). Student payments and scholarships to help you out with whatever you need to get through the stress of being a lazy student.

I've been offered 2 jobs. Ready to be a taxpayer in Australia.

Lib govt didn't really change the migration numbers for skilled workers. Hope it stays the same next couple years and I'm set!

What's your situation? If you share then maybe I can be more helpful.

TY, I am very happy and it feels like 1 in 10 million.

Once you get to the final stages of any interview process, they will surely know everything. Before you get there, it's best to be honest to avoid disappointment later on (if you lie, you'll be fired; if you didn't tell them at first, you might find out that they won't hire you based on this new info).

At the majority of interviews I have had (especially those that were face to face rather than on the phone) I was asked about my residency status. One or two exceptions are when you have to fill in a massive application and they are already well aware of it. Indeed for those companies where I made it past the first couple of rounds, I may have been asked more than once by the same party. Though I have gone through a few interviews now, it still is not an easy question to answer and explain, and I sometimes get stumped in the slightest way, though luckily it hasn't affected me. Getting a phone call bright and early in the morning doesn't help.

This is something that's difficult to hide (my work experiences were all not in Australia - despite this I still sometimes got strange reactions when they heard I was not a local, although there are a lot of 'Malaysians' with Australian passports, basically foreigners who have lived overseas all their life but returned to their place of birth for uni, so you might be surprised). I chose not to hide it, I didn't want to waste my time and be disappointed later. You could argue hiding might give you more interview experience, or let you reach the final stage where you can sell yourself to the higher ups. But I also knew I would be wasting my efforts applying for jobs that almost certainly wouldn't hire me based on this fact alone. I also believed I should work for someone who would accept me.

You need to demonstrate initiative. I have been very aggressive. Turns out I may have tried too hard (the offers I received were all in the same broader sector or industry but in different specialties, though my interviews came from a few different industries). I was so desperate that a lot of jobs I applied for were ones I never wanted anyway. But I was particularly aggressive when it came to the industry or field I was targeting. In the process I realised more and more that it was what I wanted, and what suited me the most. Indeed, I ended up actually feeling more unattached r unattracted to those industries whose interviews I ultimately failed.

So that passion, which didn't exist before, came through for me. I didn't hold back at interviews, or with applications. Speaking to people in the industry also helped a lot, in terms of awareness and some inside knowledge which can impress the interviewers. On the bottom of course I also had top grades, lots of work experience, and decent performance in interviews. Basically I acted like a local, except I wasn't one. Nobody puts their nationality down. I think I might have when sending CVs to Hong Kong but in hindsight it seems silly.

I applied for such a broad range of positions, I have over 15 stock cover letters and even those may need to be edited from time to time. But ultimately for the industry I was targeting it probably only accounted for a third or less than half my applications. A local student, if lucky, might only need to make under 50 or 100 applications. In terms of offers I had a 0.3% success rate. In getting interviews between 1% and 2% (because I rejected some).

This post has been edited by LightningFist: May 31 2014, 12:38 AM

Basically I was a full-time job hunter. I did a little study of course, but job-searching took priority. No matter how good your marks are if you can't get an interview, they are completely useless. Fortunately I already had good marks. As I said, opportunities for grads in my field are so incredibly little, I was forced to branch out into really faraway industries. If you really want to stay, that is what you need to do. For every job application a local sends, you might need to send 10 or 20 times as many. Those foreigners that found jobs without sending out that many just got super lucky.

Since you did Accounting why didn't you get a PR earlier? It just looks so easy (people around me who have gotten PRs). I know Accounting produces more students than my field so you got more people to compete with, but at the same time there are way more jobs you are qualified to do than there are jobs my qualifications are for, at the grad level.

How come you don't have enough points? I have enough, or even more than enough, I just don't have Accounting.

Think also about the number of hours worked. It varies from case to case, but in general, you can't be working more hours in Australia than you did in Malaysia, unless it was a mega firm, or "that" industry, or in a busy period.

TY

No, it is bad enough to not have a visa. I did not ask them to.

I would not bother with a TR, if I had an Accounting degree. An Accounting degree is a golden ticket. Yes, it really is that easy. While there is a quota of course, if you apply properly and meet all the conditions it is only a matter of time and a bit of luck. The only people not getting through are those Chinese, Koreans, Europeans, South Asians, South Americans, and Middle Eastern people who have really bad English.

If you couldn't get all 8, you should have tried harder. Did you return to Malaysia at any point during your degree? Even if you only did once, the cost of that return flight would probably cover another IELTS attempt. Returning to Malaysia would also allow you to attempt IELTS at one-fifth the cost in Australia.

why

Which state?

Regional or non-regional?

Also you can't be sure what will be on NSW's list, or do you know?

Also do you know if actuary was ever on NSW's list?

Tomorrow is Monday, 2 June.

Are we gonna see the new (hopefully intact) SOL?

Fingers crossed.