Florian Accounting Reports On Work Experience Challenges After Migrating To Australia

April 27, 2012 - PRLog -- Florian Accounting’s training and internship programs for the accountancy sector realizes that migrants not only need to overcome such a huge obstacle, but also that most people who move overseas don’t have a strong support network locally, as their loving families are often thousands of miles away.

Migrating to Australia is a difficult task especially when your past experience and qualifications from overseas are no longer applicable. Just ask Kajal, a young 25-year-old Accountant from Andhra Pradesh, India. She has strong experience working in a medium sized IT company that lists its customers as some household Fortune 500 companies. She is particularly proud of her membership of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). All this came to nothing when she decided to migrate to Australia with her husband, a technical engineer working on airliners. While her husband was quickly able to find a job due to the global nature of jet aircraft maintenance, Kajal was not so lucky.

Whenever Kajal was looking for a job, she found it difficult to get even a phone call from interviewers. She would send out dozens of resumes and not receive any response. She asked a local friend why this could be. Her friend looked at her resume and noted that the format was a little unusual. There was a photo at the front and it showed a lot of personal details. It seemed like an application form rather than a sales document. Another problem was that the experience, despite being strong, was not in Australia.

For Kajal, she could update the format of the resume, but how on earth was she going to get local work experience if employers only want people with local work experience? It was so frustrating and disheartening. Kajal was faced with a choice: either use the lack of local experience as an excuse to quit; or find another way to get the local work experience. She decided on the latter and was determined to overcome the local work experience deficiency.

Kajal started with volunteer work experience. This was a promising start, she thought. She found a role in a warehouse distributor in an industrial precinct. The task was only data entry and admin related. After a short stint, she added this voluntary experience on her resume. She applied for jobs but did not have any luck. The role did not have any accounting experience, so even though the reference was from a good company, it was only admin related.

Kajal was disappointed and depressed as she felt like she was not adding value. Her life in Australia was going nowhere and she started regretting coming here in the first place. Even her husband started noticing a drop in her positive attitude. He was concerned because he was working longer hours being in strong demand as airline workers were striking. He was the one who subtly put the idea of moving to Australia in Kajal’s head. All they wanted to do was to have a better life together and bring up their children in a healthier environment. He was determined to help her. He searched online and found some accounting internships offered. He visited the offices with Kajal, even sacrificing his busy schedule as it was important to improve his wife’s frame of mind. Finally they chose Florian Accounting because of the central location and total package inclusions such as Excel training, MYOB training and resume modification service.

Florian Accounting offered accounting training as well as internships in the accounting field. Kajal was a bit hesitant at first on the training because of her strong work experience, but she was pleasantly surprised that she could learn all the differences in techniques and processes that were done by Australian accounting firms. The BAS and GST was also highly important to be across. This helped her get an understanding of the local work procedures, business rules and culture. The internship was working on real data already completed in the past by Florian staff. It was useful experience as it was done under the supervision of Florian staff and it helped Kajal to cement the accounting training she completed.

Kajal’s stronger foundation in local accounting practices as well as local intern experience renewed her confidence. She walked out of the Florian Accounting training and internship program as a different person. Not only did she start receiving calls from prospective employers, she also attended interviews soon after. It happened so fast that she even had to rush in her interview preparation.

In the end the local training and internship, coupled with a solid overseas background helped her get an Assistant Accountant role in a mid tier law firm in the CBD. Kajal is very thankful for Florian Accounting and would recommend this course for anyone in a similar predicament. It was Florian that helped her overcome such a negative period in her life. Kajal no longer has regrets for taking the big step in moving to a strange new world and has strong hopes for her future, and also the future of her children.


ENDS

Florian Accounting has been trading since 2009 and has offices in Sydney and Brisbane. For more information contact Florian Accounting on 02 8889 4111 or email info@floriancorp.com.au.

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