That's an excellent summary. I guess it's more of the grass is always greener on the other side? Or... ?

From what I saw it's roughly RM8k for the agency fees. The rest are fees charged directly by DIAC, ACS, Wisma Putra etc.

RM8k is not a lot of money to save my time. Never tried DIY though so for some people it may be worth it.

Haha you should offer your services then. Too bad I'm not really on the lookout for an Aussie PR.

Since the skilled migration visa is by invitation only now, I don't think that you'd be so inexperienced when you get it that you'll have to resort to working at gas stations or Chinatown restaurants to survive.

You need to gain Australian work experience in a professional field obviously, but putting waiter in a chinatown restaurant in your resume might not help much

Interesting article on Australia and a possible slowdown in the near future. I want to hope that this won't affect jobs much but...

As China Slows, Australia Feels the Pain - BW

I submitted late 2011 and got approval in ~7 months. Most are slower than this. Some are faster. It's a lot harder to get PR nowadays though.

What's a decision ready visa? Not familiar with it.

Not sure what I'm going to do with the PR yet. I have 5 years to decide what to do

Yes I agree here, and I personally know a few people who moved to Australia only to not get jobs that they want and some are back here. Many people mati2 want to go to Australia and think moving to Australia is easy but reality bites.

I personally have had my PR for awhile but haven't even looked for jobs yet. Hopefully the economy improves before my PR lapses...

http://www.realestate.com.au will give you an idea of how much you'll pay for rent depending on where you are.

http://www.coles.com.au/Shop-Online.aspx will give you an idea of what you need to pay for groceries etc.

http://www.131500.com.au/ is Sydney's public transport info to find out monthly pass prices, how long it takes to go from your work to home etc.

Sydney is expensive, do a bit of homework because only you know what you spend every month and what you consider to be a minimum.

My standard when I was in Sydney was Coles and Woolworth. What I'm indirectly trying to tell thomasthai is that he needs to do his own research first and identify his own standards, not just expect to be spoonfed. Way too much spoonfeeding on LYN...

Sorry I don't agree on the english name part. Someone looking for a job goes through several stages

1. resume filtering
2. interview
3. get hired

Getting a western name will possibly get you past #1 but if the people truly want an Aussie looking/sounding fella then you'll fail #2 no matter what. I've had this discussion with my eastern european friends about racism in the UK and the best way to get around the racism bit is networking, not changing your name to look western.

Networking will skip #1 (most of the time) and put you in a better light for #2 (because you were recommended by someone the hiring manager knows). Unfortunately networking will also mean that you have to be physically in Australia

I'm not saying that racism/name filtering won't happen, I'm saying that putting a different name won't help you in these cases. As you mentioned you'll be filtered out if the company doesn't want you anyway. I don't want to work for a company if they're already being racist enough to reject me based on my name.

There are other ways to differentiate yourself. Putting a local Aussie number will help, it makes it easier for recruiters to call you. I've actually received calls even if to tell me I've been rejected eg. most recently from Macquarie Telecom.

Correct grammar, good communications and targeted resume + cover letters will help too. How many people actually do these things?

Can't do much when you first graduate, at that point you need to network either through your seniors or by taking internships/summer jobs. My first job was through my summer internship.

I do agree with trashing CVs longer than 2 pages as well, I do that and I've been a hiring manager for years. You either need to impress me with a concise resume or if you have a sparkling personality Again it's part of a targeted CV + cover, it's what makes you stand out among the sea of 3-10 page CVs.

And no question about it, luck plays a huge part in most job searches.

Good points.

Let's segment the job market a bit, there's the obvious blue collar jobs, the likes of plumbers and electricians. These are skilled labors that's hard to replicate and will always be in demand.

Then there's the blue collar factory work, focused on manufacturing. As the labor costs in China and the rest of southeast Asia start to go up, countries who've outsourced will start to insource again to pacify the citizens of the US and Europe. I don't think this will stop anytime soon.

The low end information worker will continue to be offshored in general but there's a lot of out of work people in the US today that can do the job at similar rates. The bad thing is that a lot of this work is starting to get automated so even this segment is endangered.

What won't be outsourced are those that either create new ideas or have immediate touch points with the public. The former is similar to the developers, architects, etc while the latter could be consultants, doctors, lawyers etc.

Unfortunately I don't see where Australia fits in the last case. New York, London, Hong Kong, Singapore will continue to be the finance capitals while Silicon Valley, Beijing, Mumbai will be the startup hubs of the world for things like IT. I'm a bit down on the prospects of a good, high paying job in Australia now that the mining boom is pretty much over. Not even sure what I'd do with my PR because in a decade or so when my kids are ready for college, Australia may not even be a good choice anymore...

I agree with you, and I don't even live in Australia to be able to see the problems.

Yet people still want to migrate and live there. It's a case of the grass is always greener...

Not really, you don't see a whole lot of people trying to migrate away from the US despite the sucky economy there for example, at least they're trying to make it work.

I do wonder about this as well, I've never lived in Australia but have spent a long time in the US. My english is excellent and I certainly spent time socializing with a lot of the locals so I had no problems integrating, getting promotions, job offers etc. But I have seen other Malaysians who don't do so, can't cope with the language, culture or socializing bit and end up mostly within their own communities.

I know people can be biased, but I believe a lot of it is biased against culture, not simply skin color.

That's a depressing thought for some people, that you can make more money in salaries in Malaysia compared to Australia. I've always dreamed of higher salaries with a better standard of living

I'm also surprised by the negativity on the work culture in Malaysia, did all of you only work in chinaman companies? The past 3 companies I've worked for in Malaysia have all been excellent in both working culture and work life balance. I was able to leave at 6ish pretty much every day, my colleagues around the world respected my family time and I had decent vacation time etc. It's certainly not all bad in Malaysia either.

I've worked in a not so bad chinaman company, but I do know that these companies exist. Like I've stated before, previously the English exploited us, now our own countrymen exploit us. The sad thing is that even MNC branches in Malaysia are run like chinaman companies, without regard to global standards etc. I'm not saying that there are no chinaman type companies in Australia, fortunately for workers there they have much more protection and avenues to air their complaints. It's time for Malaysian employers and employees to grow up and be more mature.