If your profession is not on the preferred skills list, it can
be tough to find a job here because you'll be competing with
Aussies, residents with PR, and graduates of Aussie Uni's.
Due to a few revisions made re. the critieria for Work Visa
sponsorship, it is no longer easy to get hold of an employer who
will willingly sponsor a foreigner with no PR. That is,
unless you have skills that are on a priority list.
Have you sought out a Migration Agent to find out if you can
apply for PR whilst in Singapore? It might be a better option
to obtain PR first, then come over to find employment, otherwise,
you might end up wasting precious money and getting
nowhere.
As to your cousins' unhelpfulness, if you weren't close to them
before you wanted to network because you intend to move here, their
seeming refusal to be helpful can be understandable. I'm not
saying excusable, but understandable. You're right that
everyone's self-centered and rightfully so - they are protecting
their own interests, but then, so are you, wanting to network for
your own interest. That's human nature. That's
life.
Being a migrant myself, the possible explanation I can think of
is that sometimes, because the PR doesn't come easy and can be a
really tedious process, the thought of possibly assisting someone
through this process can be off-putting.
Or, it could be that living here, they understand the situation
very well and thus perhaps think that you are not being very
realistic in your goal and they foresee that the chances of failing
is high, and they don't want to be emotionally involved in an
endeavour that they feel will only lead to nought.
I don't know your cousins personally but I'm just suggesting
that this might be what's going through their minds. When
people see someone being very hopeful but very obviously heading
towards a full-on collision, and they realise that that person
might or might not appreciate practical advise, then they might
exercise the option of being reluctant bystanders. That could
be their psyche. The basic psychological response of, "If I
can't do anything to prevent the collision, then I won't get
involved and I will look away."
If you truly want to network with them, you can always come
over, establish yourself first, then after the dust has settled,
contact them again to meet up. Then your cousins might be
convinced that you really aren't going to make use of them and will
gladly maintain contact with you. Afterall, your cousins are
probably intelligent enough to not let themselves be made use of
so, prove your real intentions to them. If they still avoid
you at that stage, then I suggest that you look elsewhere for
networking.
As a migrant myself, I hope I have given you some insight into
this situation. Good luck!
Helo? If you haven't read my other posts, I am a migrant or else
I wouldn't bother raising the issue of unhelpful migrants. Getting
PR is the least of my problems because I already got the PR. I got
in under the skilled migrant. But that doesn't matter because
applying for jobs is a whole different ball game. Oz style is very
differnt from Singapore style. Have to go thru a lot of recruitment
firms, it is much tougher and competitive.
My cousin of all people should know that I am expecting help,
after all we are relatives. My relatives have all been ingrained
with the sense of helping each other. My uncles and aunties chip in
to take care of my ageing grandmother. We even chip up to
contribute clothes we don';t use for one of my uncles who is not as
fortunate as the rest of us. Unfortunately, one of my aunties, she
didn't raise this cousin with any sense of relative caringness,
because he was spoiled and he was sent to international boarding
school.
Well, they can be unhelpful but the moment I am there, I will
remember who there was kind to me and who there wasn't. Perhaps one
day, my cousin may accidentaly lock himself out of the shower and
in the icy cold Melbourne winter, I would be the last person to
help him in that case.
