Conor, the music enthusiast and Irish artist behind Escaping The Mainstream – one of this year’s best travel blogs for working holiday visas – gives working holiday visa advice on finding jobs online, exploring Australia’s coral reefs and other lessons learned during his two working holiday visa stints in ‘Oz’.
Q: Why did you pick this country?
A: I had traveled in South East Asia for a couple of months in 2010 and knew I wanted to get back and live there for a bit, maybe teaching English. To do so, I’d need to save up some cash. Australia seemed like the perfect place as it was so close and wages are so high there.
Also, at that point in Ireland we were in the depths of our recession, with literally tens of thousands of people leaving every week to find work in Australia. By all accounts at the time, you’d swear the streets of Oz were paved with gold, where someone like me, with zero qualifications, could make an insane amount of money and live in an amazing country, where the sun shines everyday, and everyone lives on the beach.
Q: What was the hardest part of the visa process?
A: If you are a resident of an eligible country, the visa process for an Australian Working Holiday Visa is pretty straight forward. I applied through a travel agent, but you can easily do it yourself.
However, when I applied for my second visa I was put under investigation by the immigration department. As part of gaining your second working holiday visa in Australia, you must complete three months of farm work in rural Australia. It had been nearly two years since I had completed my farm work and the immigration officer assigned to me didn’t believe me. I had all the evidence I needed and was eventually cleared. The most frustrating art of this was the fact I had to pay $420 just to apply for the visa, which you don’t get back if you are refused. This is totally unfair, but it’s typical of the rules of the WHV so you’ll quickly get used to it.
Q: What kind of work did you do during your visa?
A: For the most part I worked in hospitality while I was in Australia. This ranged from my first job in an awful country tavern in rural Western Australia to a four star resort in Tasmania. Aside from that, I spent a couple of months working at a window blind factory in Adelaide.
I also spent quite a long time trying to complete my required regional work to apply for my second year visa. To do so, I WWOOF’ed for a bit, tried to find work at a working hostel and then lucked out completely by completing my days on a resort in the Northern Territory.
Q: How did you find this work?
One of the best ways to find hospitality and farm work is online. Two websites, Gumtree and Seek, have literally thousands of jobs posted every day across Australia. Gumtree is probably the better of the two, as employers know it is popular with seasonal workers and as such, the jobs cater more to that crowd.
The best thing I ever did for finding hospo work in Australia was post an advert on Gumtree advertising myself as available for work. Unfortunately, I only did this in my last six months there, as I had seen so many similar ads and never believed they would work. Within four days of posting my ad, I had a job a fancy restaurant in Melbourne, while turning down plenty more. That’s also how I got the job at the four star resort in Tasmania.
Otherwise, of course, going door to door helps loads. If your looking for resort work, I’d just email every resort in your part of Australia looking for a job. And if you have any friends or family already working there, hit them up for a job. The Australians put a great deal of faith in personal recommendations.
Q: What was your favorite job, and why?
My favorite job was easily working at a small bakery in the resort town of Coral Bay, Western Australia. The money wasn’t great but I lived in a beat up old caravan two minutes from an incredible beach. Coral Bay is also home to a stretch of Ningaloo Reef, just 100m off the coastline.
The reef is less famous than the Great Barrier of course, but absolutely stunning (many would say its better than the Great Barrier Reef) and home to massive Oceanic Manta Rays, numerous shark species and sea turtles, amongst others. When I wasn’t working, I’d usually hang out on the beach or go snorkeling on the reef.
The bakery was also a pretty cool place to work itself, with a great crew and all the meat pies and cakes you could ask for. Coral Bay only has a population of about 300 and we had the best coffee and baked goods in town, so it was a great way to meet everyone very quickly.
Next post: Conor answers a second round of questions about his working holiday in Australia…
Check out Escaping The Mainstream for tips on how to get a second year visa without doing farm work, and the best ways to find hospitality jobs in Australia. You can also find Escaping The Mainstream on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
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Photos courtesy of Escaping The Mainstream.