Relocating to Australia?!

[torkell]

So in relation to the ongoing saga I've been making various decisions. Some have obvious yes answers (get in touch with $WORK-1? Of course, they're practically right next door), some have obvious no answers (apply to $OUTFIT? No, terrible commute and I've got better options to try first), and some just appear out of nowhere and make one go "um.....".

This particular one is a message that dropped into my Linkedin inbox, from a fairly well-known company in the software development community, saying that some particular aspects of my profile had sparked their interest and they had some roles that might be of interest. I've had a look at their openings and they do indeed fit, and ordinarily it'd be a fairly obvious decision to follow it up.

Except... they're based in Australia.

On the one hand it's a great opportunity. But on the other hand... do I really want to relocate to Australia? Probably not, for many reasons... but then again, it could work out...

[Poll #2062879]

Comments

[rustica.livejournal.com]

Would they pay for you to go out for interview? If so, I'd say it was worth it. Companies that will a/ sponsor visas and b/ pay future staff's interview expenses are so rare (ime) that that alone would make me consider it.

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

Certainly worth looking into. If I were still in Blighty right now I'd certainly give them the time of day. Getting a visa (and then residence) is pretty straightforward if you have a highly-skilled job offer in hand.

Australia is a beautiful place, with some caveats (doesn't everywhere?). Some Aussies are lovely; some are less so (I've had a couple of encounters with larrikin types from my admittedly small sample set). The weather can get quite interesting; certainly noticeably warmer than in Blighty, but NSW & Vic are in the grip of a major heatwave right now, while Perth is flooding.

The big thing, really, is the variation in the population density. This means the vast majority of the jobs are where the people are, and that likely means you'd be living in or near one of the state capitals. They are big, big cities. Housing is reputedly expensive, though on the plus side they do at least know how to do public transport.

On the plus side, you'd be just a 3 hour flight from NZ :-)