Recent research from Curtin’s School of Management says skilled migrants often perform jobs that are below their skill level. Report author Dr. Amy Tianhas studied the link between underutilising skills and job satisfaction levels. She says when migrants can’t work in an equal role to their homeland they can feel they left out in the cold.
“Skilled migrants sometimes can have very a high level sense of job security level, but very low skill utilisation level, they don’t feel happy. They feel kind of trapped in the type of professions where their skills are underutilised, because they feel they are not doing what they ought to do. They don’t contribute to the level that they wish to.”
AMES Australia Counselling & Career Development Coordinator Margaret Davis says differences in working cultures - like job applications - can be an obstacle.
“They are very keen and expecting to find work and are quite shocked that it’s not the case. It’s usually not having the cultural awareness for the approach for job search. Resumes quite often are very lengthy, maybe not formatted correctly or have inappropriate information.”
A skills assessment can help highlight what experience an applicant has and make it more comprehensible to Australian employers. There are three general streams of assessing overseas qualifications and work experience in Australia.
VETASSESS
Many organisations assess overseas qualifications in Australia. Why you need your overseas qualification assessed will determine which organisation you need to contact. You may need your overseas qualification assessed for employment, study, or to migrate to Australia
RPL - RECOGNITION OF PRIOR LEARNING
RPL tools are run by education institutions or private providers. For example, the Queensland Government’s self-assessment tool helps to check qualifications prior to RPL.
OVERSEAS QUALIFICATION UNITS
Qualifications assessments are run through government Overseas Qualifications units. To find a suitable authority consult the Department of Training and Education in your state or territory.
