Trying to give NZ a fair go...

[avgas]

Give them 6 months.......thats how long it takes to get a decent interveiw here.
Also if you are dealing with recruitment agencies screw sending them emails, just send scud missiles - i have had used car salesmen listen to me more than them.
Recruitment agencies are scum.

[Mom]

You have to start somewhere, you may have the paper qualifications but it doesnt mean you have proved your ability in that industry. Plenty of people come out of uni with grades but only last a little while in the job because they find its not what they want to do.

I pay guys what they are worth, and qualifications are worth nothing if your not up to doing the work. Simple. Do your time like everyone else.

I so agree with you!!

I struggle to understand how anyone can expect to walk right into a very well paid job immediately after gaining what ever qualification/degree they have. You need to take your time, and not be unrealistic, remember nobody owes you anything. How many weeks did you say you have been looking?I presume with your qualification you are not applying for a floor job in a factory that may only take a few weeks to secure.........be patient! Dont be desperate, if you need to earn in the meantime get a job pumping gas, or packing shelves, both very good sources of income for the lessor mortals out here.

[vifferman]

Meh.
Over the years, I would've applied for hundreds of jobs, and would've had maybe 40 interviews. I've been successful only three times. (I've had more jobs than that, but some of them weren't via the application/interview thing).
I've also recruited, interviewed and employed maybe 10 people.

You just have to patient, and stay positive.

My current job took over six years and maybe 25 or 30 interviews to land. Lots of rejections in between, and it was very hard.

The ironic thing was, in the end I decided I didn't give a stuff if I got the job or not, and was very relaxed in the interview, and I think that made a difference.

[vifferman]

You have to start somewhere, you may have the paper qualifications but it doesnt mean you have proved your ability in that industry. Plenty of people come out of uni with grades but only last a little while in the job because they find its not what they want to do.

I'd imagine the Gen Y'ers (or whatever we're up to) are in for some rude shocks. They all seem to think they're really important and should be paid shitloads.

I left university after nearly 6 years, and took the first job I could find: I worked as a farm labourer for 18 months. Then spent another year "on the farm", doing pretty much the same job but being paid fractionally more. ("Fractionally more" = Less than my wife got working part-time).
Then I worked in a lab for 9 years, the first 6 of which I thought I was going to go nuts from the monotony. But I had a young family to look after, and a mortgage to pay, so that's what I did.

[Grahameeboy]

Thats not right bro, i'm earning a huge wedge contracting

Does 'House Husband' pay that well then

[SPman]

Seems to be these days...(compared with 40 yrs ago..) BA = equivalent of leaving school in Form 5, MA = Form 6 with UE, and PhD = Bachelors degree.
- then you need the job experience.
Without spending years getting a piece of paper which is often, essentially meaningless, you don't even get the chance of a reply to an application.

Thank god I'm old - it all seemed less complicated, back in the '60's.

"Can you do the job?" "Shit yeah!" " You're on!"

[Macstar]

[QUOTE=vifferman;1292672]You just have to patient, and stay positive.

My current job took over six years and maybe 25 or 30 interviews to land. Lots of rejections in between, and it was very hard.
QUOTE]

Cheers. Good to hear others don't find it quite so easy either.

[QUOTE=vifferman;1292684]I'd imagine the Gen Y'ers (or whatever we're up to) are in for some rude shocks. They all seem to think they're really important and should be paid shitloads.[QUOTE]

I don't know what generation I am? Born in the early 80s. A big difference with recent graduates however is the debt we're walking out with. I am grateful that I receive an interest free student loan but a bit gutted that my education has cost me $60k to get this far...

Yes, I think 40k is low. IF older generations than me think the attitudes of younger people today are a bit off, well hey! How much did you (older generations) pay for tertiary education in the 60s? 70s? even the 80s?

I so agree with you!!

I struggle to understand how anyone can expect to walk right into a very well paid job immediately after gaining what ever qualification/degree they have. You need to take your time, and not be unrealistic, remember nobody owes you anything. How many weeks did you say you have been looking?I presume with your qualification you are not applying for a floor job in a factory that may only take a few weeks to secure.........be patient! Dont be desperate, if you need to earn in the meantime get a job pumping gas, or packing shelves, both very good sources of income for the lessor mortals out here.

Again, "Well paid" is quite a personal concept though 40k in my opinion is not "well paid". I do agree with you that a person needs to work their way up and be realistic.

Anyway, like I said, I'll be applying for a fair few more jobs before I give up here in NZ. And if I don't land something in a month or two then I'll have to either start flipping burgers or bail overseas!

My degree in International Business lends itself to working abroad, it's just that I would like to try and help NZ companies do well internationally as opposed to other foreign countries.

[carbacca]

heres my experiences out of uni

didnt have anything lined up when my course finished even though i had applied to a fair few larger firms, then i got offered a contract/student reserach role for 3 months with my lecturers startup company. pay was equivalent to something like $10 an hour but it was tax free cos its was a grant/scholarship in nature. that ran out of steam after 3 months, then was unemployed for 6 months. during that time i basically mass emailed and sent CV's to everything under the sun on seek and search4jobs that seemed even remotely related. wouldve sent at least 50 inquiries but was only interviewed for 3-4. got a lead in the papers which lead to a trade recruitment agency and through them got a job working as assembly worker in a factory. got pissed off and bored shitless after 6 months of that and abrubtly quit without anything lined up. unemployed for another 2 months and hit seek and search4jobs again. i didnt think 6 months experience assembly machines wouldve counted for anything so i was looking for graduate positions again, mass spammed about 50 places again and got 5 interviews. eventually narrowed down to two and one came to the table with an offer first so i took it and ran, which is where i am currently happily employed. pay is average to start with, got a moderate raise after 3 months. now currently working on making myself indispensible (its a newly created position) so i can blackmail my way into an even bigger raise.

what i learnt:
- play the numbers game. out of 100 applications, you will never hear from about 80 of them. 10 would give you a nice polite email saying no, 5 would actually call you to politely say no and you would get an interview with about 5 of them. your application "wont be processed further at this point" for about 3 of them which leaves you with a reasonably solid shot at 2 of the other
- dont hesitate to get yourself and your CV out there. even if the position advertised doesnt quite match, send a CV in anyway and they might have something more suitable. worst you can get is a rejection
- gotta start somewhere; i hated my factory assembly job but i learnt a few things from it. quitting a job dont carry the same stigma anymore so you have nothing to lose by going back to square one

[RantyDave]

If you want to earn a decent six-figure income in this country you have to generate that value yourself, directly.

Or go contracting.
Or work for the government.

Dave

[jafar]

I'm finding this interesting, my daughter is in her 2nd year @ vic doing 'international business' & a few other things. She is winding up a student debt that would choke a bull & has decided to stay in wellywood to keep working & save over the xmas break.
I had assumed that the degree's she is working towards would give her a better life once she had them , am I wrong with this assumption?

[marty]

A departing thought:

General Kiwi belief: "Brain drain is bad"
Stipulated in 99% of advertised jobs: "Minimum 2-3 years experience required".

this a general kiwi attitude across the board - you have to do hard time before you can move up. it is especially prevalent in aviation. i have 600hrs, multi IFR with 50hrs multi, an LAME (aviation engineering licence), some ATPL exams. I could go to africa flying for a kiwi outfit, but that's a single man's job. i'm less than 1/2 way to the minimums for AirNZ Link. i don't even meet the minimums for a skydive pilot at Taupo!

if i was in the UK, 300 of my 600hrs would be in an A320 or 737.

[Macstar]

I'm finding this interesting, my daughter is in her 2nd year @ vic doing 'international business' & a few other things. She is winding up a student debt that would choke a bull & has decided to stay in wellywood to keep working & save over the xmas break.
I had assumed that the degree's she is working towards would give her a better life once she had them , am I wrong with this assumption?

Four things:

1. Tertiary education providers lure students in with flashy promotions of glamarous careers and excellent incomes, thus leading to perhaps an unrealistic expectation of what really awaits a graduate.

2. On the international scene, they're are literally tens of thousands of business graduates looking for employment. The difference between these graduates and the typical Kiwi graduate is that they can speak 3 or 4 languages. Most Kiwis can't... (Oh, and internationally, a mere degree no longer counts... a masters degree is the new base point).

3. International Business is a relatively new field of study that ecelectically includes aspects of marketing, finance, international relations and law, trade, strategy and a few others. I suspect some employers don't truly know what an International Business degree is.

4. Unlike some university business courses (Finance and accounting, marketing, Supply Chain and Logistics), there is not a specific and matching career as such for international business. For example, you study accounting, you become an accountant. International Business could include a number of occupations such as business development, international trade, consulting, analysing etc. So when it comes to searching for a job, whilst the variety is greater - it's alittle more difficult...

Still internationally savy people is arguably what our country needs if it is to reverse its deteriorating economic downward spiral. We were selling meat and cheese in the 18th century and today.... we pretty much do the same.

[jafar]

Four things:

1. Tertiary education providers lure students in with flashy promotions of glamarous careers and excellent incomes, thus leading to perhaps an unrealistic expectation of what really awaits a graduate.

2. On the international scene, they're are literally tens of thousands of business graduates looking for employment. The difference between these graduates and the typical Kiwi graduate is that they can speak 3 or 4 languages. Most Kiwis can't... (Oh, and internationally, a mere degree no longer counts... a masters degree is the new base point).

3. International Business is a relatively new field of study that ecelectically includes aspects of marketing, finance, international relations and law, trade, strategy and a few others. I suspect some employers don't truly know what an International Business degree is.

4. Unlike some university business courses (Finance and accounting, marketing, Supply Chain and Logistics), there is not a specific and matching career as such for international business. For example, you study accounting, you become an accountant. International Business could include a number of occupations such as business development, international trade, consulting, analysing etc. So when it comes to searching for a job, whilst the variety is greater - it's alittle more difficult...

Still internationally savy people is arguably what our country needs if it is to reverse its deteriorating economic downward spiral. We were selling meat and cheese in the 18th century and today.... we pretty much do the same.

So what your saying is that international business is a catchall of a variety of occupations & is essentially treated as a 'jack of all trades but master of none' ? But if she had studied say law or accounting there would be jobs waiting for her??

[Macstar]

So what your saying is that international business is a catchall of a variety of occupations & is essentially treated as a 'jack of all trades but master of none' ? But if she had studied say law or accounting there would be jobs waiting for her??

Yeah, pretty much. You can do double majors at most universities so it might be good to mix IB with something like commercial law, finance or a language etc.

[jafar]

Yeah, pretty much. You can do double majors at most universities so it might be good to mix IB with something like commercial law, finance or a language etc.

Hmmm she has it mixed with Asian studies & Japanese. Mabey she should have done Motorcycle mechanics instead