A few days ago we looked at why it’s getting more difficult to get a job in Australia.
Then after I’d shown you that, I tormented you with why Australia is so great!
Now, here is the official almostadoctor guide to moving downunder.

The popular idea is to take ‘a year out’. Work for a few months here, travel for a few months there, work for a few more months here. And it’s a great idea! But I’m just not sure quite how feasible it is these days. Many of the places where I applied wouldn’t look at any applications of less than 12 months. Some people I know have got 6 months placements and do plan to do the travelling thing. But I was more into the idea of emigrating permanently, so this didn’t bother me too much. Just be aware when applying, you may want to make yourself available for 12 months (at least initially, once you’ve got the job, you could always quit early… (you didn’t hear that here).

Now, being medics, we are generally the organized, planning, goal setting types. And the problem with applying for a job in Australia and New Zealand, is that their schedule just doesn’t tie in with ours very well.

The ‘doctor year’ in the UK generally runs August to August, with perhaps a few exceptions here and there. In Australia it runs January to January, and in New Zealand, its November to November.
This means it’s difficult to get something to start in August. There are some positions, but not many. It’s like trying to get a 3 or 6-month job to start in April in the UK.
The different start date also means that you might not get any jobs or job offers until July or August – just weeks or days before your current UK job finishes.
So, rule number one:
1)    Do not panic!
Right about now (November/December) you friends (and maybe you too) will all be applying for various specialties, allover the place. People will be talking about it a lot. Deadlines. CVs. Portfolios. Audits. Interviews. Exams. It can get a bit stressful, if you are seemingly doing nothing whilst your peers are running at full speed competing against each other. So chill out. Your plan isn’t to apply right now. You aren’t competing against these people. But you can still use this time to prepare your CV and start firing out some emails. You’re going to be sending a lot of emails.

Don’t panic even if you haven’t got a job come next August. From August to Christmas, the job offers come in thick and fast. Many of my friends who had nothing lined up when their FY2 job finished subsequently secured something and moved out by November. And my inbox is flooded with job offers from all the agencies I signed up to almost every day at the moment.

Where to start?!
As we saw last week, it’s going to be competitive. So decide where you want to go. Or you can just go for the blanket approach and apply everywhere (this is what I did)…

• Write directly to the hospitals – Google them. Find who is in charge of admissions. Send them your CV and covering letter. Tell them when you’re available from and to. Be as flexible as possible. Tell them why you want to come to their country. Have you been before? Mention it. Have you worked at that hospital before (e.g. on elective) – then play up to it. Read up about the region / town / hospital. Say why you want to move to that region. Read up about the hospital / any job offers they have on their website. Say why you want to do that placement.
• I couldn’t find any kind of list of hospital details for Australia, but for New Zealand, there is this incredible website that lists all the regions and their application details. Its healthcareers.org.nz . Go to ‘I’m an RMO’ and then ‘Apply Now’ and you’ll get this amazing screen with a map of New Zealand, all the districts, and all the email addresses for who is in charge of admission for that district. Many of the hospitals have an online application system for their annual applications, which opens in June. Some of them link to that from here too (more on this later).

• Know the lingo. The systems for doctor training are similar to here, as they essentially based on an old-fashioned English system, but they’re not exactly the same. In Australia there are:
  • Interns – fresh out of medical school. Same as FY1s
  • RMO (Resident Medical Officer) – called RMO2 (FY2) and RMO3 depending on what year you are. Many places don’t offer RMO3 jobs
  • Registrar – yeah that’s right. No SHO. Straight from RMO to Registrar. Sometimes that means straight from FY2 equivalent to registrar. They kind of divide registrar into junior and senior registrars, and junior reg’s may not have the same rota (e.g. alone at nights) as seniors. But they might do. When I was applying I was encouraged to apply for registrar positions by the recruitment people. Some of my friends are working in rural NZ as the ‘Medical Registrar’ or ‘ED registrar’ and they are the most senior person on site on their night shift. If (like me) you think that’s scary, you might want to hold off applying for registrar jobs. In the end I applied for RMO and registrar positions in most of the hospitals I applied to
• Use Agencies. They get paid by the hospital to find you. They take a lot of the hard work out of all the visa applications and doctory registration bits (I’ll go into this next week), and they don’t pay you any less. Make friend with your agent. Call them up often. Pester them. Let them know how keen you are. Be their friend. Make their lives a misery so that they are so desperate to find you a job to get you off their back. I signed up for a lot of agencies. Some were more useful than others. Here’s a few to get you started:

Wavelength – They got me my job! Very friendly. Helpful with all the visa and paperwork stuff. Did take a while to find out if I’d actually got the job after the interview.

Vista – Based in the USA. Really helpful and persistent staff. They would call me up every week with an update, always readily available to chat, and very honest about what options they had (mostly stuff in Perth, not good for NZ). I wasn’t really interested in Perth, but got the impression that if I was, they could have got me something pretty quick.

Challis – send out lots of very promising looking emails with their offers (often several placements a week in various locations in Australia and NZ), but I found when I replied that they weren’t particularly helpful and nothing came of anything I put my name to.

International Medical Recruitment – when I spoke to them around November 2012 they said it was too early. Call back in spring.  When I spoke to them in March 2013 they said they didn’t have much on offer. Did get a lovely phone call from a rep one day, but basically said that I would be looking at jobs starting in Feb 2014.

So, after looking at the options, you basically have got three good avenues:

1. Through an agency
2. By writing to the hospital directly (for New Zealand, details on the Health Careers Website)
3. Through New Zealand’s nation recruitment scheme which opens in June, interviews in July, and offers in August. Details on the Health Careers Website.

The New Zealand National Recruitment scheme
All the regions offer all of their SHO and Registrar jobs to start in November to any applicant who applies through the Health Careers Website. So, literally, each hospital in NZ will require SHOs and Registrars in all their specialties. That’s a lot of jobs. And on that website you can see them all and apply to them. I applied maybe to 20 different jobs at various places and specialties.

I didn’t have anything lined up in June. I was getting worried. Then I got an interview for the job I got in Australia. And I also applied to New Zealand’s national recruitment scheme. I got the job in Australia, and accepted it. Then about 2 weeks later I had 4 interview offers from my applications to New Zealand. So it all came good. But it took until July.

In summary, my top tips are:

1. Don’t panic if you can’t get your dream job in Melbourne (everyone wants Melbourne) starting on the 8^th August (who wants to locum at home before they go away?) lined up by this Christmas (planned well in advance). Get your expectations in order. A few people will get something starting in August. A few more in October / November. If you really want to go, you’ll get something that starts in or before January somewhere in Australia or New Zealand.
2. Write to everyone you can find. Be persistent. Make sure they know your name and how keen you are.
3. Tailor your applications to the place / hospital / placement you are applying to. Read up about where you are going. If you don’t want to be in the outback, then don’t apply there and then get disappointed when you arrive. Your visa is often sponsored by your hospital and isn’t easily transferrable if you don’t like it when you get there.

Well, good luck guys! I’ll probably be competing against you all again next year if I decided to stay / or go to New Zealand, so please put in a good word for me!

Any questions, use the comments!

Part of the Moving to Australia series