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This post is a little negative, sorry for diverging from my normally cheery posts.
I’ve been in Australia for a week now (Perth in Western Australia). The one thing that’s been made clear is the job market here for geology graduates, even with post graduate qualifications like me, is dire. If you’re a geology graduate planning on making the trip to Australia with the hope of getting a job, cancel your plans. Or at least postpone them for 6-9 months. After a solid week of plugging away looking for a job, knocking on doors, hitting up recruitment companies and applying for jobs online, I’ve had absolutely zero positive feedback.
The only work that is going seems to be going is for senior geos with 3-5+ years experience in mining. If you’ve got years of experience in mining, as long as it’s got nothing to do with nickle, then by all means make the trip to Aussie, and you’ll have your pick of jobs.
I’ve probably chosen the absolutely worst time to move country in order to get a job. Firstly, being a student for so long made me forget that people don’t tend to employ people this late in the year. With only 6ish weeks until christmas, there’s little to no chance for a graduate like me to get a reasonable position. The other thing that’s causing me and many others so much trouble are the deepening financial problems that are affecting the globe. The mining industry seems to run on credit, and since there’s little easy credit around, there’s very few new jobs.
So I’m resigned to keep on plugging away at the market. Using the shot gun approach. Hopefully something will come up. If I haven’t found anything in the next 3 weeks, I’m simply going to go home. It’s absolutely pointless trying to find work in December. Sigh.
Just another one of life’s adventures. I wonder if I’ll learn anything from this one : ) (Had to have one smiley face, or the whole post would just be a depressing mess).
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Good Luck, Chris!
Jobs are always scarce when a commodity boom busts. Happened to me in late 70’s. You’ll have to look ‘outside the box’, perhaps in water management, which is a big thing there right now.
that’s a fairly optimistic post considering what you’re going through … I wish you luck
Dear Chris,
I will be heading over to Western Australia mid 2009 to try my luck at the mining industry.
I recommend you head over to Kalgoolie and apply for a basic job to get your foot in the door. What you need in on site experience, otherwise mining companies may view you as a liability because of your lack of experience out there. You also need to prove to them that you can handle the isolation and heat that go along with the job.
Get out their and have a go! Don’t be too picky about what you do. You’ll meet the right people in the mines, get networking and open the right doors.
I hope my advise is helpful.
Please let me know how you get on.
Thanks Greg,
I’m trying very hard to make my networks work for me, and I may have a couple of leads that’ll see something in the next week or so. I’m seriously up for almost anything.
I think things will be much better in 6-9 months. Hopefully the market will have recovered from this spinning hangover and gotten back to “normal”, and there’ll be some credit floating around for geo companies.
Good luck! I am already scared for when I graduate in April. Hopefully you are right that the market will rebound, but I am prepping my customer service skills just in case.