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  Some help tips for applying for jobs in Australia
Message Publié : 18 Mars 2004 13:51 
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Resume tips

The following information is given not as a guide to writing a Resume,but rather of MODIFYING an existing Curriculum Vitae with the Australian job market in mind – tips on what employers could be looking for, and some samples of how resumes and covering letters presented in Australia are laid out.

I’ve just chosen one of the most common styles.

(Towards the end there's now a newer section a propos de 'Dressing correctly for interviews')

Summary of tips to be presented:

* Some special extras to your interests category to suit the Australian situation.
* Resume grammar & spelling, even capitalisation of nouns/names. Vitally important. Make more than a mistake or two and it won’t matter that you’re French and English is only your 2nd language. Your email or letter will likely just end up in the trash bin.

I’ve seen how employers can be so ruthless with this and how few applicants end up making it to the interview stage sometimes.
Just like turning up in jeans to an interview for most industies would end your chances before you sit down, the same with your punctuation and spelling (and the same goes for Aussies).

* Always check, re check and check again your punctuation, capitalisation, sentence structure (particularly if you’ve gone back and changed certain things – make sure the change is compatible with the rest of the sentence.

Covering letters: How to make yourself seem more attractive to the prospective Australian employer.
* Don’t underestimate the power of the ‘likeability’ factor.
* Even prepare some arguments in the event that you are thought to be over-qualified for certain positions you may apply for. (I've even had this happen to me, without a university education)

Procedure tips:

So, assuming your French Resume is already complete and up to date, you now need to go over it with a critical eye and not only check your grammar and spelling, but also look for traps: things which are acceptable in French but not in English.

So for a start, here is a bit of a checklist for the Resume, on what to look for when searching for errors/correcting mistakes in your work.

* Read through the whole thing and check for punctuation. Double space after full stops, etc.

* Check your grammar.

* Start scanning again for format, starting with your name.
The format in Australia should always be with your 1st & 2nd name, THEN your last name (NOT surname first).

Dates: Format should be either, ie May 22, 2004 or 22nd May, 2004.
Not just 22 May 2004 – doesn’t look quite right. Date of birth is ok to be
2-05-72, but don't write abbreviated dates on the Covering Letter.

Whether you call your Resume a Resume or Curriculum Vitae is up to you. I see many professional & academic ones written as Curriculum Vitae, & other industries (for example hospitality, part time work) as Resume.

Interests: In Australia, the land of sports players (& plenty of keen sports watches) my husband advises that it’s a good idea to mention your interest or participation in a particular team sport (even if you happen to hate sport)
He says the solid reasoning behind this is that employers are looking for ‘team players’ and they will more easily believe you will fit into a team situation if you have played sport.

Now here’s a small simple sample example.

Resume (or Curriculum Vitae)

Name: i.e., John Paul Smith
Address, etc.
Date of Birth:
Nationality:
(Marital Status is not essential)

Phone: 999 9999
Email jpsmith@hotmail.com

Education Profile
(all your education & training, etc)

Languages: i.e., fluency in English (or fluent English is also correct)
If you’re NOT fluent in English of course you’re going to be found out, so it’s better to write something like “good grounding in English” or state how many years experience in English or other languages that you have. (At least then you haven’t said you’re perfect and they can make what they will of what you’ve written, probably reading between the lines that your English is a bit better than it is.

Employment History - pretty standard. Includes all the full time, part time and casual work you’ve had with the dates/years, etc.

Extra tip: On my resume I add in an extra category called “Recent activities” - could be useful for those who may have been doing Work Experience stages, volunteer work, or working on projects which would be good to include to show how dedicated you are.

Voluntary Community Activities
Australia has a huge network of volunteer organisations, and a huge population of people who volunteer their time (especially in the older generation) and for us it’s a very good idea to include what we do in the community. I see many job settings that are also often like a social community in themselves, rather than ‘just a job’ (and I guess it also shows your enthusiasm and looks good to highlight that you are not just concerned with money making)

Demonstrated Abilities
Where you get to tell about what you’re good at.
I.e., broken down into categories like “Organisational skills” “technical skills” “written and verbal communication skills” “technical skills” and “other skills”

With your previous jobs/employment , try to make their titles as gender neutral as possible - i.e., if you have listed jobs which in English only have a male gender, such as ‘delivery man’, change it to ‘delivery person’. ‘Person’ is much better, because for several years, it has been illegal in Australia to advertise for one gender over another, and all the language must be completely non-sexist, so the practice of ‘deliveryman, postman, odd jobs man, handyman’ - anything like that, has been totally forbidden.
Using no gender words could tell your prospective employer that you understand our 'Equal Opportunity Act'

Driver's Licence: Car (or whatever)
If your Driver’s Licence is without convictions/penalties, don’t write ‘clean driving licence’ (which means nothing to us) but rather ‘excellent driving record’ (or something to that effect)


Dernière édition par Kate le 26 Mars 2004 13:28, édité 6 fois.

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Message Publié : 18 Mars 2004 14:00 
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One of the last items usually is the ‘Hobbies and Interests’ (or 'Interests and Activities' which is probably fairly standard too).
If you have any weird ones in there, (like taxidermy in your spare time! :wink: ) I’d recommend removing them.
Take out any as well that might go against the rest of the image of yourself that you’re trying to present - i.e., a computer professional would be best off removing all references to computer games, which also could lower the appearance of your maturity level.
Add in some team sport interests, for extra effect. Maybe remove any sports you might have listed (unless you actually play in a team) that aren’t played much in Australia and which Aussies (at work at least) wouldn’t really care for, like Soccer (in Vic but maybe NSW is ok) , basketball, handball, softball, baseball - if you can’t gamble on it, it’s not quite so interesting to an Aussie in a work situation). Try to show an interest in Cricket, Aussie Rules, and horse racing.
More familiar sports like motor racing and tennis will fit in well too, though not quite as useful since they’re of much shorter duration.

SPORTS:
When writing about the sports you play, the verb endings are not always the same: par exemple:
Surfing, Kite Surfing, Wind Surfing, sky diving, cycling, hiking (Treking isn’t used much here) swimming, boating, snorkelling, diving, caving, fishing, canoeing, kayaking, jogging, running, racing, Horse Racing, Orienteering, Cricket, Gymnastics, Baseball, Football (don’t fall into the trap I’ve seen and write ‘footing’!)
Another major exception to the rule is Golf (people don’t say they’re going ‘golfing’ - it’s ‘to play golf’.

For somebody wanting to work in Melbourne (or anywhere in Victoria) I wonder if you could have any idea before you arrive, how important (et tres utile!) a liking for Aussie Rules Football could be! (The rivalry and gambling that goes on in offices between supporters of rival teams when it comes to Footy Tipping seems to them to be very essential to the ‘work life’ so at least show an understanding or initial interest in the game, if you can’t manage to present the image of a total fan!)

When I was working in the media, one of the departments I worked in was full of sport-mad Aussies, girls included, all except for one pauvre Philippe, the only Frenchman we ever had.
:cry: His colleagues tried to hard to make him understand the ‘Aussie sport way’.
Philippe had managed to find a liking and understanding of Aussie Rules, so he should have been fine, and fit in well with his other colleagues, but his problem (to them) was that he didn’t support one particular team above all others.
His motto was more ‘may the best team win’ when he was watching the game, but the others always insisted “no, no NO!” You pick a team, you stay loyal to that team forever (I have trouble with the idea of supporting one footy team for the rest of your life too) and even if they’re losing, you don’t give up. Some of them were so ‘one eyed’ as we say, that they almost weren’t interested in the game if their team wasn’t winning. Rugby fans I guess might have an understanding for these kind of sentiments.


Dernière édition par Kate le 18 Mars 2004 14:45, édité 2 fois.

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  Part 2: Covering Letters
Message Publié : 18 Mars 2004 14:31 
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Covering letter:

You can address it to The Personnel Manager (which I guess you would have to do in an email to ensure you reached the correct person) and then as Dear Sir/Madam (unless you know the name or sex of the Personnel Manager or Officer).
Writing like this in Australia is just about the only time you will ever use the more formal ‘Sir/Madam’ title. It’s rarely used in speaking, and most people start off immediately on a first name basis with their boss (unless he/she is in a position of great power and 40 years older than you, but in most cases it won’t happen. It’s just not a formal country, once you pass the ‘official letters’ point.)

When your letter is done, go right back and prepare to go through it very carefully.

* Check for punctuation. Double space after full stops, etc.

* Check your grammar. If you decide to change words in a sentence, check to see that the other words in the sentence still agree. It’s likely you’ll may need to make adjustments to other words as well in that sentence.

* Check, re check and triple check for capitalisation throughout the covering letter. This is just as important as the grammar, and will definitely affect the overall look and standard of your letter.

* You need to be on the lookout again for the French/English traps.

Just as we Aussies get confused when we see dates and days of the week written in French without initial capitals, and have to stop ourselves from thinking a mistake has been made, you need to concentrate on the reverse.
ALL PROPER NOUNS IN ENGLISH MUST START WITH A CAPITAL.
You must also be consistent throughout, as if you fix some of the proper nouns but miss others, it still won’t look right. If in doubt, it’s better to use a capital rather than leave it un-capitalised (within reason - don’t go capitalising absolutely everything in your attempt to be uniform)

With your resume and covering letter, this relates to things like:
days of the week, months of the year,
titles of people, job titles, degree titles/names, university and school names, names of countries, names of languages.

NOUNS
Some examples of words which should be capitalised: English, French, Engineering, Engineer,
University. Names of sports - general sports like swimming I don’t capitalise, but specific ones like Rugby, Football, etc I would. Some interests which are nouns or a science will also be written with an initial capital - i.e., Astronomy, Photography, Web Design (or Web Development)

Other possible tricks:

DATES
Years should be written in the following format: 1 year, 1 1/2 years, 2 years. 1 month, 2 months, 2 1/2 months.
‘Computer software’ is always singular (no such thing as softwares even if there are several. If there is more than one, write something like “several software programmes” and when listing the specific names of them, capitalise the first letters.

Extra tips for the covering letter:

Likeability factor: You’ve written your covering letter, but how do you maintain some formality yet still try to come across as approachable and likeable at the same time? I really think it’s an advantage to do this, given the social nature of many Australian organisations at work as well as play.
How you do it is up to you – you should have an advantage here – I guess French aren’t known the world over as charming for nothing! Another advantage for you is that I believe members of the Australian working population still often have a very hard time trying to ‘sell themselves’ and their good qualities to an unknown outsider, fearing that they may sound a bit ‘conceited’ if they talk about their own good points..
You want to convey a pleasant manner, someone who is versatile and fits in well with everyone, and has interests that they may have - take hints from the type of business you’re targeting)

I once thought the likeability factor didn’t have that much to do with getting a job, until I really saw it functioning.

Ok, you’re on site, have applied for a job, and you’re up against the other employees.
No doubt all who make it to the interview stage will have been determined by the employer as having the qualifications and ability to do the job.
So who gets it?

In the scenarios I’ve seen in action, it goes to the one who the boss finds some kind of ‘kinship’ or good feeling with, or who the bos/ses determine would ‘fit in well’ with the others in the department, in a team environment.

I saw many times while working in the advertising industry, 20ish aged girls go up against middle aged women, trying for one part time position, where I was sure the young, more efficient looking girl would get it, but no, it went to the middle aged one who I thought age would be against, as the trend in Australia, as no doubt many places, is for young workers, not the ones only a decade or so from thinking about retirement.

But after knowing the new employees a while, I began to see the pattern – they were all people who fitted in well with our office social schedule! You might not think this is important, but even though our department didn’t have a lot of contact outside work with the general public, the way the journalists at our newspaper did, we had social events on a regular basis at and away from work on a regular basis. Work BBQ’s, boardroom drinks, movie nights, Christmas dinners (up to 5 of those every Xmas!), promotional activities, and social dinners with champagne. These were seen as very important to the work life.
The young people might have cost a bit less to hire, but they weren’t seen that they would fit in as well with the older workers, and there was probably also the issue that being young, they might find a full time job and leave, but the women with children were seen as ‘safer’ workers who’d be content to work only part time (even though some of them later became full time workers anyway).

So, that's all for now. If there are those of you already employed here who have some tips you'd like to share, things you found important to know when first applying for jobs here from a French perspective, feel free to join in the post and share them.

Kate :D

PS Si je pouvais vous dire aussi, si quelqu'un a besoin d'aide avec leur CVs/Resumes, je suis disponible.
Je suis comme une correctrice professionnel (en Anglais seulement).

Il y aura juste un ou deux conditions:

1: You would have to get the CV a un standard raisonnable en premier, en suivant les tuyaux.
2: Le service serait gratuit, mais je peut demande qu'on me donner quelque chose en echange: quelques petit 'stickers' de drapeau francais, un carte postale francais ou un autre petit chose comme je collectionner mais je ne peut pas les trouver en Australie :cry:

Kate


Dernière édition par Kate le 19 Mars 2004 15:06, édité 2 fois.

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Message Publié : 18 Mars 2004 14:32 
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A great piece of useful work, dear Kate. I just wish to add that the word résumé retains its accents in English to distinguish it from the verb to resume.


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Message Publié : 18 Mars 2004 14:37 
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Jean-Marie Violette a écrit :
A great piece of useful work, dear Kate. I just wish to add that the word résumé retains its accents in English to distinguish it from the verb to resume.


Merci Jean-Marie.
It's annoying not to be able to use accents on my computer keyboard, and at the moment even if I paste in from Word, it still won't work.
Do you know any way around this?

Kate


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Message Publié : 18 Mars 2004 14:51 
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Keep ALT down and type 130 to obtain é. Voilà!


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  Encore des accents ....
Message Publié : 18 Mars 2004 16:10 
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Kate,

Toujours les fameux accents :

alt + 133 = à
alt + 130 = é
alt + 138 = è
alt + 136 = ê
alt + 147 = ô
alt + 141 = ì

cela prend du temps au début mais on s'y habitue

Jez

:mrgreen:


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Message Publié : 19 Mars 2004 06:26 
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Wow Kate, quel beau travail :wink:
Merci, ca peut vraiment aider les job seekers...

Choopy


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Message Publié : 19 Mars 2004 18:34 
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idem!
Thank you very much Kate!
..thanks to u we ll have all of us a wonderful resume! :D

pierre


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  Re: Encore des accents ....
Message Publié : 19 Mars 2004 19:01 
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JeZ a écrit :
Kate,

Toujours les fameux accents :

alt + 133 = à
alt + 130 = é
alt + 138 = è
alt + 136 = ê
alt + 147 = ô
alt + 141 = ì

cela prend du temps au début mais on s'y habitue

Jez

:mrgreen:


Tu peux essayer aussi la combinaison de lettre : <CRTL> + accent (' `) puis la lettre... ca marche sur la plus part des editeurs de text et c'est plus rapide que de rentrer le code ASCII !


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Message Publié : 19 Mars 2004 20:08 
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Well done kate... very impressive work !
Thank you so much for this massive contribution... :D


PS : i turned your message into a "post-it"... parce que ça le vaut bien !!!


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Message Publié : 20 Mars 2004 14:05 
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Localisation : >Une aussie que vit a Ballarat, 100 km N-O de Melbourne
Je vous en prie.

Mon mari m'as dit ce matin que he hopes that I haven't given away ALL the Aussie job secrets, sinon he says he could see the Australian unemployment level rising....and the French one decreasing.

I just told him the motto is "Que la meilleur gagne!" and that I could think of worse fates than being surrounded by Frenchies :mrgreen:

Kate

PS I just wish I could get one of these accent methods to work (thanks for the help) but neither of them will on my computer so I'm still stuck sans accents :?


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Message Publié : 21 Mars 2004 00:56 
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These useful tips should help more than one to get out of a can of worms !
Bravo Kate

Kate a écrit :
I could think of worse fates than being surrounded by Frenchies


Thanks a million !!! :mrgreen:

Chutney


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  Bons plan
Message Publié : 21 Mars 2004 03:20 
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Merci pour ces conseils... c'est vrai que tout ça est bien utile, et on reconnaît bien les aussies là dedans (surtout pour le "footy").
Me revoilà en France depuis 8 mois... je suis en plein stage de fin d'études en Corse (ça pourrait être pire), mais fermement décidée à revenir dans le coin de Sydney en espérant trouver un boulot.
Je suis en recherche dans la comm événementielle... alors si l'un de vous a un bon plan, je suis preneuse!!!

Bonne continuation à vous,
Céline


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  correct clothing style for interviews
Message Publié : 26 Mars 2004 13:20 
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Localisation : >Une aussie que vit a Ballarat, 100 km N-O de Melbourne
Dressing for interviews

Ok, so from what you have seen so far, Australians are less formal when it comes to forms of address, BUT they are not like that when it comes to interviews. When dressing for interviews, you will still need to look your formal best, in just about every occupation.

For guys:
Go quite formal for the interview.
For example black shoes, Long sleeved white (or very pale shirt if you haven't got a business-like white one, but only as a last resort, as I think white is really best)
Always wear a tie, even if it's hot. You would really look out of place at most interviews if you have the nice shirt, but no tie. Make sure it's a normal, quite plain one though, of course (nothing too bright that will attract too much attention, and especially not as you see some Aussies wearing once they've got the job - cartoon characters on ties and such.)

Dark suit style trousers are what the Australian etiquette books I've come across have all strongly recommended. You could possibly get away with grey quite well though if the cut is very nice.

And unless it's tropical weather, you should have the jacket too, even if you take it off during the interview.

The books also say that the long sleeved shirt should stay, even if the weather is quite warm (they also say you can push your sleeves up a bit during the interview if this is the case, and this should send good signals to your future boss that you are ready to get down to work (one of those body language things - but they insist it works and my husband has tried it).

For women: I think women can get away with being a little more casual, and using more colour these days at interviews.
It used to be that dresses and straight skirts in plain colours (or slightly pin striped) were the way to go for women, and trousers were 'out', but now it's quite different, and you could easily dress stylishly in trouser and jacket suit with business shirt as a man would, but with just a bit more feminine style.
The idea is to look businesslike (especially for an executive job) but still retaining femininity. Nice make-up, but not too bright (again, just common sense).

For less executive and formal jobs:
Still dress fairly formally, but a bit more colour and style is allowable (depends on the job).
In any case, denim is definitely always out, and especially jeans or jean type trousers (I've seen people fail the interview as soon as they walk in the door for trying to dress like this).

For some interviews in Australia, the employer will just try to make the interview fairly informal, and ask casual and friendly questions to try and break the ice first (but still asking all the usual questions and trying to work out if you are 'the one' so you shouldn't let them put you too at ease).
Other interviewers will be more formal right from the start, and some interviews may have several people on a kind of judging panel, with all of them having their chance to ask questions (which of course you won't know about until you get there).
Then, first impressions really do count for so much, as you must try to make a good impression on all of them, and the position will likely seem more intimidating.

Kate


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