This past weekend we drove out to the Blue Mountains with some missionary couples we have gotten to know. One of these couples has a tie to Fruitland. Their last name is Finch and they are from Utah. Alan Finch in Fruitland is Elder Finch’s cousin. It always amazes me how small the world is; we seem to be able to find people everywhere we go who have some sort of tie to someone else we know.
Anyway, getting back to the Blue Mountains…Mountains is what the Aussies call them, but really, they are just hills compared to the western US. However, the area we went to was beautiful. There were some pretty big gorges, but the highest spot in the mountains is only 1,200 feet above sea level, so comparatively speaking, the mountains aren’t very high! We rode a tram/train thing down to the bottom of the gorge. They used to mine coal there. Boy, talk about a dangerous job. It’s a jungle (literally) down there.
At the top part of the mountain is a formation they call ‘The Three Sisters’. The Aboriginal dream-time legend has it that three sisters, 'Meehni', 'Wimlah' and Gunnedoo' lived in the Jamison Valley and were members of the Katoomba tribe. These beautiful young ladies had fallen in love with three brothers from the Nepean tribe, yet tribal law forbade them to marry. The brothers were not happy to accept this law and so decided to use force to capture the three sisters, but this caused a major tribal battle. As the lives of the three sisters were seriously in danger, a witchdoctor from the Katoomba tribe took it upon himself to turn the three sisters into stone to protect them from any harm. While he had intended to reverse the spell when the battle was over, the witchdoctor himself was killed. As only he could reverse the spell to return the ladies to their former beauty, the sisters remain in their rock formation.
The area around The Three Sisters and the mine (a very big area) used to be the home of two different aboriginal tribes. I can’t imagine how they managed to survive there. The vegetation is so dense that you would need a machete to be able to get anywhere. I doubt many people went ‘walkabout’ in that area of Australia!
The waterfall reminded me of waterfalls in Yellowstone Park for some reason.
We are still working to figure out how getting a job in Australia REALLY works. It’s kind of interesting. Virtually every job, especially lower end, minimum wage kinds of jobs, are found by going through a recruiting agency. The US equivalent to this would be a temp agency. The difference between these agencies and US temp services is that in Australia, the recruiting agencies aren’t out of the picture as soon as the person gets hired. The big recruitment companies (also called Labour Hire companies) have relationships with the big businesses here. The recruitment companies kind of specialize in the types of companies they recruit for; for example, some recruitment companies just recruit for warehouses, or packing plants, restaurants, etc. Then when a business needs workers for a job, especially a short-term job, they go to these agencies. The business may need 20 people for a job lasting from a few days up to a few months. The business may pay $50 an hour per person for the job. The recruiting company sends the business the number of people they need and the business, in turn, pays the recruiting company $50 an hour for each person. They don’t pay the worker. The worker gets paid by the recruiting company, not the business they are actually working for. The recruiting company pays the employee, pays the AU retirement system, and takes a cut of the money for providing the services. So, even though the company is paying $50 an hour for the job, the worker only gets about $25 an hour because the other $25 goes to retirement and to the recruiting company. The employee then pays tax on the $25 an hour he actually gets paid.
It is nearly impossible to get a job over here by just applying directly to a company. Very few companies actually have an HR department that hires directly for their company. People who go in person to a company to turn in a resume get sent away and referred to the recruitment company. Almost all legitimate businesses go through these recruitment companies. It saves the business from having to deal with the retirement system, which is hugely complicated, plus they don’t have to deal with interviewing and such. If the job is a high end type of job, requiring a university education, and it's for long term, the recruiting companies are only part of the picture for 3 to 6 months, once the company has decided the employee is one they want to keep, they issue a formal acceptance letter and once the employee signs that, the recruiting company is not part of the deal. This system makes it nearly impossible for a person to just go out and apply for a job, there's so much involved with the recruiting company being in the middle of the process. It must pay off financially in the end or these big businesses wouldn't do it, but it sure makes it more difficult for people trying to get a job because they have to impress a recruiting company interviewer enough that their resume gets thrown in the ‘approved’ pile (with a ton of other people with the same skills) and then has to hope that when a job opening comes up that their resume will be one of the few top resumes to get re-interviewed for the job. It’s crazy. When you add visa issues into the mix it gets even more difficult. I feel bad for our students who have come from China or wherever, to try to improve their lives and they run into these huge stumbling blocks. More on that at another time.
Our workshops mostly teach interview skills and resume and cover letter writing. I can’t tell you the number of resumes I edit each week! Some people, most in fact, think that the longer their resume is the better. However, the hard and fast rule is one to two pages max. One guy last week sent me a 10 (ten) page resume!!! Needless to say, it got sent back for revision! A resume is the first step to getting an interview, so it’s pretty important that it’s well done. In our workshops we teach four two-hour classes on interview skills. Students come once a week for a month. During this time, they create their own ‘Me in 30 Seconds’ statement which is a very short way to introduce themselves highlighting their strengths. In another class they create power statements, one liners that start with, “I am… or I can… or I have…” highlighting traits they possess related to the job, the statement always gives examples and results. For example, someone might say, “I am efficient. For example, in my previous job I successfully kept all delinquent accounts under 5%. As a result, my company saved over $20,000 a year.” These power statements are ways to answer questions in interviews. We also do practice job interviews incorporating the above skills; teach how to ‘dress for success’, how to turn negatives into positives during interviews, etc. We have a wide range of abilities within our class demographics, some people struggle with English, some have very poor writing and speaking abilities, while others are highly qualified, well-spoken, and such, but are struggling to get a job because they have a foreign sounding name and many companies don’t want to hire foreigners. I never realized how protected from reality I was; I had very little understanding of the struggles immigrants face. I thought I knew a little bit, but I see it on a massive scale now.
We are still working to figure out how getting a job in Australia REALLY works. It’s kind of interesting. Virtually every job, especially lower end, minimum wage kinds of jobs, are found by going through a recruiting agency. The US equivalent to this would be a temp agency. The difference between these agencies and US temp services is that in Australia, the recruiting agencies aren’t out of the picture as soon as the person gets hired. The big recruitment companies (also called Labour Hire companies) have relationships with the big businesses here. The recruitment companies kind of specialize in the types of companies they recruit for; for example, some recruitment companies just recruit for warehouses, or packing plants, restaurants, etc. Then when a business needs workers for a job, especially a short-term job, they go to these agencies. The business may need 20 people for a job lasting from a few days up to a few months. The business may pay $50 an hour per person for the job. The recruiting company sends the business the number of people they need and the business, in turn, pays the recruiting company $50 an hour for each person. They don’t pay the worker. The worker gets paid by the recruiting company, not the business they are actually working for. The recruiting company pays the employee, pays the AU retirement system, and takes a cut of the money for providing the services. So, even though the company is paying $50 an hour for the job, the worker only gets about $25 an hour because the other $25 goes to retirement and to the recruiting company. The employee then pays tax on the $25 an hour he actually gets paid.
It is nearly impossible to get a job over here by just applying directly to a company. Very few companies actually have an HR department that hires directly for their company. People who go in person to a company to turn in a resume get sent away and referred to the recruitment company. Almost all legitimate businesses go through these recruitment companies. It saves the business from having to deal with the retirement system, which is hugely complicated, plus they don’t have to deal with interviewing and such. If the job is a high end type of job, requiring a university education, and it's for long term, the recruiting companies are only part of the picture for 3 to 6 months, once the company has decided the employee is one they want to keep, they issue a formal acceptance letter and once the employee signs that, the recruiting company is not part of the deal. This system makes it nearly impossible for a person to just go out and apply for a job, there's so much involved with the recruiting company being in the middle of the process. It must pay off financially in the end or these big businesses wouldn't do it, but it sure makes it more difficult for people trying to get a job because they have to impress a recruiting company interviewer enough that their resume gets thrown in the ‘approved’ pile (with a ton of other people with the same skills) and then has to hope that when a job opening comes up that their resume will be one of the few top resumes to get re-interviewed for the job. It’s crazy. When you add visa issues into the mix it gets even more difficult. I feel bad for our students who have come from China or wherever, to try to improve their lives and they run into these huge stumbling blocks. More on that at another time.
Our workshops mostly teach interview skills and resume and cover letter writing. I can’t tell you the number of resumes I edit each week! Some people, most in fact, think that the longer their resume is the better. However, the hard and fast rule is one to two pages max. One guy last week sent me a 10 (ten) page resume!!! Needless to say, it got sent back for revision! A resume is the first step to getting an interview, so it’s pretty important that it’s well done. In our workshops we teach four two-hour classes on interview skills. Students come once a week for a month. During this time, they create their own ‘Me in 30 Seconds’ statement which is a very short way to introduce themselves highlighting their strengths. In another class they create power statements, one liners that start with, “I am… or I can… or I have…” highlighting traits they possess related to the job, the statement always gives examples and results. For example, someone might say, “I am efficient. For example, in my previous job I successfully kept all delinquent accounts under 5%. As a result, my company saved over $20,000 a year.” These power statements are ways to answer questions in interviews. We also do practice job interviews incorporating the above skills; teach how to ‘dress for success’, how to turn negatives into positives during interviews, etc. We have a wide range of abilities within our class demographics, some people struggle with English, some have very poor writing and speaking abilities, while others are highly qualified, well-spoken, and such, but are struggling to get a job because they have a foreign sounding name and many companies don’t want to hire foreigners. I never realized how protected from reality I was; I had very little understanding of the struggles immigrants face. I thought I knew a little bit, but I see it on a massive scale now.
Grandkids:
Grandpa and I have three hours between two of our classes when we teach downtown, so we decided to use that time to explore downtown Sydney each week. We decided to start with the Botanic Gardens. It was kind of a long walk to get there, but big cities always have interesting things to see as you walk. One thing we saw was this homeless couple. They just live on the streets with their dog. It surprises me that they can sleep like this during the day with all the noise and all the people walking by.
As we walked along through the gardens we were surprised at the number of spiders we saw. There are lots and lots of spiders in Australia. Every morning when Grandpa and I walk we have to be careful of spider webs. The big spiders can jump a long way, so their webs are really, really big. One morning when we were walking I (accidentally) walked through a giant spider web that stretched clear across the sidewalk. The spider had made its web from the stop sign pole clear across the sidewalk and some grass to a big bush on the other side of the sidewalk. Their webs are really sticky and it’s kind of scary to walk through them and have them get all over your face and hair. So far though, every time we’ve walked through a web the spider has been gone so we haven’t had to deal with the spider! We learned that the big spiders are usually harmless. It’s the little spiders that are the most dangerous.
We went to a town called Katoomba on our way to the Blue Mountains. It was a cute little town with lots of little shops all along the main street. I took this picture at a bakery on the street. Have you ever sung the song ‘Hot Cross Buns’? This is a picture of hot cross buns! It reminded me of being in England.
After eating lunch in Katoomba we drove the rest of the way to the mountains. We rode a big tram from the top of the mountains down to the bottom. The bottom part of the mountain is a rain forest. Long ago people used to mine coal from these mountains. The tunnels are all blocked off now, so you can’t go inside, but you can look into the tunnels and see how dark and scary they were. I took a picture of a sign about the men and horses that used to haul the coal up out of the mines to the top of the mountain. It was a very dangerous job. The men and the work ponies got to be very good friends because they worked so hard together.
Grandpa and I hiked around the mountains a lot while we were there. This is a picture of one of the trails we went on.
As you know, rugby is the biggest sport over here, kind of like football is in America. I’m sending you a video to watch about a returned missionary from Australia who is a very famous rugby player. He started playing professionally when he was 16 when he was still in high school. When he was 19 he gave up a one million dollar rugby contract to go on a mission. He just returned home a couple of months ago. It’s been all over the Australian sports news since he returned. Everyone is wondering if he can come back and be as good as he was before he left. So far, it looks like he is. Here is a little video you can watch about him. If it doesn't work on the iPad, watch it on the computer.
Look who came walking into my kitchen the other night while I was fixing dinner:
No comments:
Post a Comment