Field Note Nº 004 · Work
My first job in Australia — with zero local experience
"Sorry mate, we're looking for someone with local experience." If you've heard this sentence, welcome to the club — we have jackets. It's the great chicken-and-egg of migrant life: you need local experience to get a job, and a job to get local experience. Here's how I actually broke that loop.
01. I stopped being "too qualified" for my own good
My ego wanted a job matching my degree from day one. My bank balance wanted rent paid. The bank balance was right. My first Australian job was nothing glamorous — but it gave me the three magic things: local references, local payslips, and the confidence of understanding how Aussie workplaces actually run. Think of the first job as a paid orientation course, not your career ceiling.
02. The resume needed surgery, not translation
My Indian CV was three pages of achievements, percentages and a formal photo. Australian resumes are different animals: one to two pages, no photo, no date of birth, and every line answering "what did you actually do?" I rewrote mine to be short, punchy and tailored to each job — and suddenly phones started ringing. Also: get an Australian-format cover letter ready, even a short one. Half the applicants skip it, which is exactly why you shouldn't.
03. Walking in beats clicking apply
For casual and retail work, online applications disappear into a black hole of hundreds. What worked for me: freshly printed resumes, decent clothes, and physically walking into places at quiet hours, asking for the manager, smiling, and handing over the paper. Old school? Completely. Effective? My first two jobs came exactly this way. Australians respect the effort of showing up.
04. Tell literally everyone you're looking
The flatmate's cousin's manager — that's a real hiring pipeline here. So much of Australian hiring happens through "do you know anyone?" conversations. Your temple, gurudwara, mosque, cricket club, uni society, even the aunty at the Indian store — these are networks. There's no shame in it; there's a job in it.
05. Know your rights from day one
Australia has proper minimum wages, penalty rates for weekends, and superannuation your employer must pay on top. If someone offers suspiciously low "cash in hand", they're not doing you a favour — they're underpaying you and putting you at risk. Learn the basics from the official Fair Work website; it's written for humans and it will save you from being taken advantage of.
Personal experience, not career or legal advice — check your visa's work conditions and the official Fair Work resources for current rules.
forty resumes later — Anand 🤝