Applying for your first job in Australia after migrating or completing education?
After spending hours finding jobs and submitting applications, you may receive a phone call from the recruiter.
After an initial discussion, the recruiter tells “Sorry, your application won’t be put forward as you don’t have local experience.”
You may not expect this response. After all, the recruiter called. Didn’t he? And now when you’re back to the drawing board, you will have several questions in your mind.
How is it possible to gain local experience without a job and a job without local experience? Feels like a catch-22 situation. Isn’t it?
And what is local experience? To answer your question from a recruiter’s point of view, local experience is knowledge of Australian work practices and culture. The recruiter is assessing your culture-fit within an organisation.
Without any experience in Australia, here’s how you can tackle this situation:
5 super smart ways to handle the ‘local experience’ question:
1. Surprise the recruiter with a question:
Next time when a recruiter gives you the lack of local experience reason, ask following question:
For eg: “Thank you for the call. Despite knowing, I don’t have local experience, you called. So there’s something about my skills and experience that appealed to you. Could I please request you to take look at my resume as it matches the job description perfectly?”
2. Be upfront about lack of local experience:
Address the lack of local experience concern in the cover letter. Explain your ability to quickly learn and adapt to new culture.
For eg: “You might ask “Do I have local experience?” My answer is “no.”
Whilst I completely respect your and the employer’s concern about lack of local experience, I’d like to draw your attention to skills and expertise that I have honed in last 10 years; generated and expanded business; captured customers in a highly competitive market; implemented marketing ideas and campaigns; delivered strong customer support. These transferrable skills transcend the boundaries of countries. I am fully aware of the steep learning curve ahead of me and let me assure you that I am more than ready to learn and grow.”
3. Talk about your global experience:
Many migrants have worked in global corporations with people from diverse backgrounds and travelled internationally. Explain how this experience has prepared you to work in Australia.
For eg: “Indian IT professionals are making their mark all across the world in leading IT companies with their intelligence, reliability, dedication, and above all the ability to adapt to new working environment, I’m NO different. Last 5 years I have worked in one of the fortune 500 company, ABCDEF, in their one of the largest and busiest development centre based at Bengaluru. This experience has immensely increased my confidence to excel and fuel my career growth in Australian IT industry. I am confident that I would be one of the valuable player in your company as I was with my previous company.
4. Build your network:
It is a widely accepted view that over 80% of the jobs are unadvertised. Focus on building professional network to find hidden job opportunities. One of the easiest way to build your network from scratch is attending industry related meet-ups.
5. Volunteer:
Australia employers value volunteering activities on resume. Undertake volunteering to learn about Australian work culture, gain local experience and build valuable network. To find out more about volunteering opportunities,
