The Routine

Shoes half worn with untied laces, bag strapped to one arm, my other hand struggling to find the arm hole of my jacket sleeve and my free hand furiously pressing the pedestrian call button and wishing the lights change from green to red. My house was just after a traffic light on a major road in Merrylands and to catch the 907 bus to Parramatta every morning, I had to cross to the other side of the road. This meant sometimes I caught the bus just before it takes off and other times, the bus leaves while I’m stuck at a red light.

The Hustle Streak

While this is relatively true, this notion discredits the fact that you still have to put in a reasonable amount of effort to ensure that you maximise the opportunities you supposedly have. Thus, most of us in this category spend a lot of time passionately defending our “hustle” to our peers.

A job… then more Jobs

I applied to any and every job I was remotely skilled to do because I was fast running out of options and I needed to start saving up my fees for the next semester. Getting a job this time around was not to boost my ego, confidence or assuage my dignity, it was a primal necessity for survival in the coming months.

Finally, a Job?

The first few days in my new house was bizarre. Everyone was juggling school and work which meant I was usually by myself in the house till late at night when they got back. While this should have been comforting, it wasn’t. The silence was a constant reminder of my shortcomings and how so far out of control my life had gone.

Five Interview Tips for New Migrants

Analysing my performance and wedging out my weak points meant I had to be very objective and brutally honest with myself inorder to avoid repeating the same mistakes. As a new migrant searching for a job, you are usually at a slight disadvantage in that you don’t have local experience and your overseas education is probably not formally recognised. To make up for these, here’s a list of things you need to ace your interviews

Five Job Searching Tips for New Migrants

Getting a job after moving to a new country may prove to be more difficult than presumed. This may be due to lack of appropriate information or not being familiar with the procedures of searching and applying for your desired job. Here are a few tips to help smoothen the transition process.

Job Hunting and Desperate Times-II

The man who was to talk to us about the job was a local and he looked to be in his mid forties. He seemed older than his age and had a tired, worn look on his face. He sat and asked if we wanted coffee the and I ordered a one – flat-white with no sugar. While waiting for the coffee, he gave us a bit of background information to the job.

Job Hunting and Desperate Times-I

Between the smiles and my rigid availability, there was a slim to none chance of me getting the job. I went to school four days a week and this really affected my job search. Even if I did get a job, my availability wasn’t very flexible and this made a difficult situation even more difficult.