Hey all,
I want to spend up to a year living and working in Australia and after reading all the available (often conflicting) information online, I'm hoping someone is generous enough to provide their input.
My plan is to spend the next couple of years working in different countries around SE Asia and Oceania, for a year each, starting with Australia. I'm a Programmer/Analyst and I'm hoping to continue building my career in that capacity in the form of short-term contracts. My first question is whether this is even feasible? I feel this is going to be very hard to do, but it's what I want to do while I'm still young.
I think I have pretty solid experience working 3 years in the industry, but have no contacts in Australia; so my job search is limited to online resources. When I'm searching for contract jobs online, the postings are mostly written by recruiters. From what I gather, recruiters (and clients) don't want to deal with visa sponsorship for contractors if there is local, capable talent already available. On top of that, I have no current plans to permanently migrate. This brings up a couple questions:
* Should I head over on the Work and Holiday Visa (Subclass 462) and then try to find work or apply at home and wait for a hire? - I could either be in the country burning up the duration of my visa looking for work, but at least being physically in the country ... Or I could be waiting who knows how long for a job offer across the pond. (I really want this ASAP)
* Is it more effective to rely on recruiters for work considering that I'm a foreigner looking for short-term work? I've had bad experiences in the past using recruiters when looking for my first job, but I think contract work is often (if not, always) passed to recruiters.
Thanks for the help