# Irish Male with a honours and masters degree in Q.Surveying & construction management



## Geenerman (Jul 6, 2009)

*Irish Male with a honours and masters degree in Q.Surveying & construction management*

Hi all

I need some advice on where would be the best possible place to go to in Oz for some work.

As noted I have a honours degree in Q.S. and a masters in construction management. I have 1 year expierience in working as a Q.S. with main contractors. My main aim is to become a lecturer in construction but I feel that I need industrial expierience.

I am willing to work anywhere in Australia for work with a view to stay in Oz for at least five years!!

If you could help me out it would be greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards

Richard Murphy


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## Wanderer (Jun 16, 2007)

Your years experience wasn't here was it Murph? - New Vogue Apartments picture by gan1948 - Photobucket
Couldn't resist with your name and Murphy's Law and all that [ I've got some Irish blood too, even an ancestral home apparently and distant link to D of W].
But welcome to the forum and in all seriousness you need to look at the immigration situation first - Department of Immigration & Citizenship .

And before you even move on to the normal first step of having qualifications approved, have a read of our sticky thread #4 in Visas and immigration section re priorities for applications and a few posts in that section have some relevant info too.
Sticky #6 in the section also has links to the immi site and various sections but re qualifications just enter via the Visas etc. heading and then > workers > professional and others [reference to SOL at top and it's a list of categories along with points you can get and a reference to the appropriate qualifications assessing organisation, web site/contact details at rear of listings]
If you continue on with > options > outside Oz > you'll see the differnt visas and for a 175/176 have a lokk under eligibility and you find a points table.

Bearing in mind that quite a few various major construction projects have been put on hold or cancelled courtesy of economic situation and a few mines etc. closed up you may find the job scene fairly tight and any major construction that will be occurring will likely be about the capital cities, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth usually most busiest along with the Gold Coast, south of Brisbane.

You may want to also check whether you're eligible for a 476 visa or even a Working Holiday Visa if you're still 30 or younger as you'll certainly get the WHV a lot quicker, often within days and then still geting your qualifications approved you may even be able to get some short term project work initially.
If a company wants to keep you on, and you had the option of applying for a 176 visa via a state nomination, that would see you on a higher priority for processing.

It could mean some finessing re limitation of six months with the one employer with a WHV and then needing a quick trip abroad [NZ, Bali, Singapore etc.] to have the 176 granted but there's ways of all that happening.

Just leave the China experience out of your resume!


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## Geenerman (Jul 6, 2009)

*Thanks for all the info wanderer*

Well I already have the WHV. My qualifications are recognised all over the world. I have the years expierience in Ireland. I have not left for Oz yet but when I do I hope to start work with a construction firm and hope to get sponsorship!!

When would you think is the best time of the year to go to Oz to find work??


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## Wanderer (Jun 16, 2007)

Murphy, re:


> Well I already have the WHV. My qualifications are recognised all over the world.


Having the WHV is fine but as far as recognition of your qualifications, that may be quite so but for Australia and I expect many other countries there is an assessment process that has to be gone through for:

1. Being registered with the appropriate Australian professional organisation, probably a stand alone one for Quantity Surveyors I'd expect if you check the SOL on immi site.

There may be some firms where you can get work without being registered here depending on the nature of their work and/or duties you would have but I'd expect that to be very limited when it comes to anything related to construction of structures or buildings.
It'll certainly help your employment opportunities to be approved here and registered.

2. To eventually get a PR visa you'll likely need the points from qualification assessment.
The alternate would likely be a 457 visa [usually more for trades etc.] as an employer sponsored visa, a temporary residency one that can lead to PR but a longwinded path and employer requirements.

As to best time to come to find work, I'd on one hand say not anytime too soon because of the global economic situation but if you're going to come anyway, I'd say the earlier the better for from about October you'll have new graduates also looking for work.

In coming on a WHV if you're prepared to get your hands a bit dirtier in doing what in the WHV section is called specific [seasonal] work for 3 months, you'll be eligible if still under 31 to get a second WHV and that at least will give you a second year in which to find work in your field.

Then there's also New Zealand to get a WHV too, age permitting - Immigration New Zealand

Best of luck.


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## Geenerman (Jul 6, 2009)

*Thanks again Wanderer*

Well my age is 23 and I am looking to arrive in Oz at the end of December

I will look at all the info you have provided me with in greater detail

Cheers


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## reporterma (Aug 27, 2009)

Wanderer said:


> Your years experience wasn't here was it Murph? - New Vogue Apartments picture by gan1948 - Photobucket
> 
> Just leave the China experience out of your resume!


I am a Chinese civil engineer and has been recently granted a 175 visa. I would be wondering why you think China experience is such a disadvantage. Your reply would help me a lot with the job applications, I believe.


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## Wanderer (Jun 16, 2007)

Welcome to the forum reporterma and congratulations on getting the visa and I hope you find Australia to your liking.

I think with the little Smilely face reporterma [or hope so], you may feel I was using the New Vogue apartments building pic as a means of emphasis on appropriate experience and not that experience in any one particular country per se and I was not especially listing China/the Chinese, just that's where the topple happened.

Asia in general is known to have its fair share of wet typhoon/monsoonial weather making for soggy soils and mud slides carrying whole apartment buildings away.

It would seem from the New Vogue situation, not sufficient thought went into foundations design or there had been much more wet weather than had ever been experienced to create in the location far greater ground fluidity or far weaker foundation capacity.

But if the former, it would not matter where it had happened, but still not a good recommendation for the engineers involved and if the latter, certainly something to be learnt from as to new design parameters for foundations or siting of buildings.

Either way, if I was a resident of the other apartment blocks I would have a certain level of unease and perhaps be considering alternate accommodation if that was possible.

But to your own applications and we have in english a saying 'every cloud has a silver lining' and perhaps there is an equivalent Chinese proverb that means even where there is something gloomy, there is perhaps some good also.
With the clouds, every farmer in a dry land such as Australia loves rain and even floods in some areas inland where the land is very very flat and floods are a way of bringing the country back to life.

Dorothea Mackellar's 'The Sunburnt Country' puts it so well, a love of England in the past and now embracing her new country.
Poets Australia - Dorothea Mackellar, My Country, Photos, Art, Music

And so certainly with experiences of your own it is possible to relate to the necessity of using best knowledge of foundation soil strengths, the New Vogue circumstances and an examination of how it did come about, any detailed knowledge you can gain yourself emphasising your understanding of the importance of foundations and their basis for any sound structure design.

And then of the structures themselves, the nature of successful projects in China, 'The three gorges dam is it?, on the Yellow river? [my own knowledge of China very limited] and yet I think we have had a current affairs TV article re there being some concerns over the design re strength for earthquakes and/or floods.
And then the remarkable building/Architecture for the Olympics buildings and again any insight into such structures would do you well.

So it'll really come down to making the most of your own experiences and obviously, some of the above is just background knowledge that it may be good to have.
For on getting to an interview, some interview techniques are not necessarily high on formality but more a chance to assess an interviewee as a person.

It'll already have been established that by qualifications and experience you should be capable of doing whatever the work will be for a position and then in an interview with senior engineering personnel, it may be just a side comment on significant structures, even the Great Wall, The Inner city, the dams, weather/earthquakes and if you have good knowledgeable engineering comments, that can do you no harm.

And nor will having good knowledge of Australia, the Sunburnt country for instance, our current long running drought, references to climate change the legislating for 20% renewable energy targets and governments desire for an Energy Trading Scheme [a very one sided debate onthat at the moment] and talk of Carbon [CO2] sequestation [ buying it!] and having had mining experience and knowledge of the often unknown extent of shear faults, I have great trouble with people claiming underground storage is a suitable answer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos
Sure we have a reasonably stable tuetonic plate but tremors still occur and even with an apparently stable storage zone, what guarantees are there that a time gas bomb is not being developed.

On the other hand our governments seem very loathe to use our Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme massive earthworks project as a learning to consider creating a Great Gulf Waters canals/Tunnels systems to take some of our own tropical season rainfall waters of the north down to southern storages where it could be put to great use.

Meanwhile there has been a few major desalination plants constructed or in progress and I expect there'll be more of the same and other water resources projects continuing as a growing population remains thirsty for water.

The Eureka Stockade is seen as something of a birth of workers rights and the Australian Idenity - http://www.culture.gov.au/articles/eurekastockade/ but it also has a link to what is Australias export strength, minerals, coal and mining - there still being gold mining in what is called the Golden Triangle of Victoria, a little to the north of Ballarat and some Chinese connection too for many Chinese first came to Australia for the Gold Rush of the 1850s.
The term 'Fair Dinkum' alleged somewhere I've read to have come from the Chinese.

But the reason I mention mining is that it entails massive ongoing infrastructure development in usually more remote locations and be it an Uranium Mine, Nuclear Radioactive Fuel Rods storage or as just recently announced, the government approval for a new offshore Gas project, there is always going to be significant projects about and having an attitude of being prepared to travel into climatically harsher regions would be good.

So that's just a few areas of knowledge I'd suggest and good luck with your endeavours.


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## mike (Jun 13, 2007)

December is probably a bad time to go to Australia and look for work. Most people are busy trying to finish things up for their holidays. If you need a part-time job for December you could find some kind of business that gets busy with Christmas orders.

January is also very quiet as many people go on holidays and things start to pick up again around Feb. My sister is an architect in Melbourne and I believe she is busy now. Her previous company though is having a tough time right now.


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## aussiedream (Jun 18, 2011)

*Work as an architect*

Hello all I m an architect from India and presently in Dubai about to finish my masters in design sustainabilty from british university in Dubai affiliated to Cardiff university uk I have 11 years of experience working in India Bahrain china hong kong and Dubai I would like to know what are the procedures for migration to australia and job opportunities
Reply soon 
Regards


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