Back to Sydney; on the house and job hunt

We left Surfers Paradise on the 09:22 bus to the airport which took us along the part of the coast we did not see on our way in. The views were lovely and the bus ride more comfortable than the one on the way in. We arrived at the airport and checked our bags in and obtained our boarding passes; we also treated ourselves to a Krispy Kreme doughnut – I went for a raspberry coconut doughnut and Nicola a strawberries and cream filled doughnut.

We took off at just gone 12:00 due to a few delays and the flight was smooth. The only thing worth mentioning was that the parents behind us had named their baby Jagger; interesting choice of name. We landed at 14:40 Sydney time (an hour ahead of QLD time) and caught the skytrain into Central Station. We had not booked a hostel but we had looked online and there was one called Nomads near Central Station that said online that it had private rooms available. Within a five minute walk from Central Station we found the hostel and checked in - $150 for two nights.

The cost of accommodation across Australia is extraordinarily high, especially considering the standard of hotel/hostel/motel you get for your money. The main outgoing of ours over the last 7 weeks has been accommodation. If you consider that we pay on average around $75 - $80 a night you can see how quickly our money gets spent. That is why we decided to look for an apartment/house share for a month or two. We worked out that if we lived in a hostel and paid $75 a night, and worked say 30 hours a week at $20 an hour, after tax and superannuation (a whopping 39% tax of your income) we would be making around $400 profit a month (we also factored in food at $100 a week). Not ideal really considering if we spent 6 months working we would make a combined profit of just under $5000 – or around two months travel money. So the plan this week is to find a flat to rent for a month and move in ideally before December, that way we’ll have a place for Christmas and an address we can have stuff sent to. We are thinking of maybe renting a place for two to three months depending on how the job hunt/work life treats us. If we don’t find anything it’ll obviously be less but if we find something we enjoy/make decent money from then we’ll stay for the 6 months our visas allow.

The next but equally important item on our agenda is to find jobs – and the sooner the better. We have sent off a few CVs or resumes out here) to job adverts in our fields but so far no joy. Embarrassingly, I even applied for jobs in McDonalds and my self-esteem took several blows after not one, not two but seven rejections! Being told that there were more suitable applicants for a crew member position (i.e. flipping big macs) was pretty mortifying, especially considering the majority of the staff we have come across so far are either spotty 16 year olds or have a very basic grasp of English. We have been told, and have read through recruitment agencies, that Australian firms favour locals, fair enough to some extent I guess. So if the job comes down to you and an Australian, the Australian will get it. They are pretty protectionist with their work force out here. Some jobs will advertise Permanent Residents or Citizens Only so all graduate scheme jobs were out of the window,  some even entry level roles in supermarkets and generic office jobs say the same thing. So far, we have found that Australia is awash with jobs if you want to pick fruit, or do manual labour, but if you don’t then the jobs are not so easy to come by especially if you want something rather more specific i.e. paralegal or medical laboratory scientist. Nevertheless, our hostel had a work agency style contact which we signed up to and she gave us the number of a temping agency and she assured us that we should be able to find temp work within a couple of days. If there is a grain of truth in that, which I seriously hope there is, we would be able to move into our own flat and remain in the black whilst looking for jobs more suited to us (i.e. paralegal and medical laboratory scientist). Fingers crossed by the end of the week we’ll have a flat/house share lined up as well as a job to tie us over until something more suitable comes along.