Finding your first job in Australia

Get three things sorted first

Before you apply for anything, have these ready:

1. A Tax File Number. Without one, your employer is required to withhold tax at the top rate, and you will be chasing a refund for a year.
2. An Australian bank account, because wages are paid by bank transfer.
3. An Australian phone number. Employers call. A number from home makes you look temporary.

Write an Australian resume

This is where most newcomers lose interviews without knowing it. Australian resume conventions are different from much of the world.

Leave out the photo, your date of birth, your marital status, your nationality, your religion and your full home address. Employers here do not expect them, and in a country with strict anti discrimination rules, including them makes a hiring manager uncomfortable rather than impressed.

Put in a short summary at the top, your recent work history in reverse order with what you actually achieved, your skills, and your right to work. If you have work rights, say so plainly near the top, for example "full working rights" or the visa you hold. Recruiters filter hard on this and will skip an application that leaves it ambiguous.

Keep it to two pages. Australian employers prefer plain, specific and short over long and decorative.

References matter here. Two contactable referees is standard, and employers do call them. If all your references are overseas, make sure they can be reached by email and note the time zone. An Australian referee, even from a short casual job, is worth a lot.

A note on qualifications

If you trained overseas, some professions require your qualification to be formally recognised before you can work in them, particularly in health, teaching, engineering, and the licensed trades. This can take time and it is worth starting early rather than discovering it after you arrive. The relevant assessing authority differs by profession.

Where to actually look

• Seek is the biggest job board in Australia and where most advertised roles land.
• Indeed and Jora aggregate widely and are worth setting alerts on.
• LinkedIn matters for professional and office roles, less so for hospitality and trades.
• Walking in still works for cafes, restaurants and shops. A printed resume, mid afternoon between the lunch and dinner rush, politely asking for the manager, gets results that online applications do not.
• Community groups and word of mouth fill an enormous amount of casual work before it is ever advertised. This is the channel most newcomers underuse, and it is the one where knowing people pays off directly.

Nyvo has a jobs board alongside the community feed, because so much early work comes through people rather than platforms.

Casual, part time and full time

Casual means no guaranteed hours and no paid annual or sick leave. To compensate, casual roles pay a higher hourly rate called casual loading. Many newcomers start here because it is the easiest to get.

Part time and full time have set hours, paid leave and notice periods. They are harder to land first but far more stable.

Know what you are owed

Australia has a legal minimum wage, and most industries also have an award that sets minimum pay for that type of work, often above the national minimum. Rates are higher for evenings, weekends and public holidays in many awards. The Fair Work Commission reviews the national minimum wage every year on 1 July, so check the current figure on the Fair Work Ombudsman website rather than trusting an old number.

You are also entitled to:

• Superannuation, paid by your employer on top of your wage into a retirement fund. It is not taken out of your pay.
• Payslips, within one working day of being paid.
• A safe workplace, and the same protections as any other worker regardless of your visa.

Being underpaid is not something you have to accept, and your visa status does not remove these rights. The Fair Work Ombudsman handles complaints and you can contact them without involving your employer first. If someone offers you cash in hand with no payslip and no superannuation, that is a warning sign, not a favour.

Check your visa conditions

Most temporary visas carry conditions on how much you can work, and some restrict how long you can stay with one employer. These conditions are specific to your visa and they change, so check yours directly through VEVO or the Department of Home Affairs rather than relying on what a friend tells you. Working outside your conditions can put your visa at risk.

It gets easier

The first job is the hardest, because you have no local history. The second is much easier, because you have an Australian reference, an Australian payslip and someone who can vouch for you. Take something reasonable early, then move.