Applying for work from another country

Applying from Punjab for work in Australia is not the same task as applying locally, and most of the difference is preparation you can do once and reuse for every application.

• Passport, and any current visa or grant notice
• Qualifications and transcripts, with certified translations where they are not in English
• Licences and tickets for the work you do, with their expiry dates
• A reference list with names, roles, current phone numbers and time zones
• Any English test result, with its issue date, since these expire

Keep them in one folder, named clearly. Half the delay in a remote hiring process is somebody waiting on a document that took three weeks to find.

This is the part most people learn too late. Whether a qualification earned in India is recognised in Australia depends entirely on the occupation, and there is no single answer. Some trades go through a skills assessment with a designated body, some professions are registered by a separate authority, and plenty of work needs no assessment at all.

Start from the occupation, not from the qualification. Your Career and the relevant assessing authority publish what is required for each, and the Department of Home Affairs pages set out where an assessment is part of a visa rather than part of a job.

Tell your referees before you list them, give them the time zone you are in, and ask them to expect a call at an hour that is awkward for them. A referee who is surprised by a call at 6am has cost you the job and will not know it.

• Agree the time in both time zones, in writing, with the date
• Test the connection from where you will actually sit, at that hour
• Have a phone number exchanged as a fallback before you need it
• Ask at the end what happens next and when, so silence later means something

Ask what the work actually is day to day, who you report to, what the roster is, and whether the role is employment or contracting. Every listing on IkkoPind declares that last one, and the difference is bigger than most people expect.

Get the offer in writing with the pay rate, the start date, the hours and who the employer legally is. Look up the minimum for that work on the Fair Work Ombudsman pay pages so you are agreeing to a number you have checked rather than a number you were given.