Nursing + Immigration in Australia: An Unprofessional Account🦘

G’day! Good evening～ I'm Alice. After graduating in '21 and taking the PTE 4 times before I finally got my registration, I threw myself into sending out résumés and job hunting (don't ask me why it took so many attempts).

Getting started is always the hardest part. The résumé and cover letter alone took me several days. For the résumé I went by Google + Xiaohongshu + advice from friends. The sites I mainly used were Seek and Indeed: type in keywords and a location and a ton of jobs come up. As a new grad I didn't get into a grad program, but I wasn't picky about jobs. Since I don't drive, though, I did still pick places not too far from home with easy public transport! Basically I applied once to every aged care home, clinic and hospital I could. After about 1-2 weeks of job seeking I finally got a reply～ An aged care chain near my place invited me to an interview. I was lucky to find lots of questions on Xiaohongshu (supposedly the ones aged care chains always ask, and sure enough they did!!), and the interview went fairly smoothly. After that I handed in some paperwork and went to a physio for a simple medical check (mostly to see whether I had any old injuries and so on). Finally we set a start date and off to work I went～

The first official day of work is a lot like placement: a colleague takes you around and tells you what the routine is, what to do when, how to do the paperwork, how to request from the pharmacy when a resident runs out of medication, and so on. Of course that's not all you do. You're also in charge of all the AINs, the outlet for every family member who needs to vent (?), the after-hours allocation team, and so on and so on. At my aged care home the nurse-to-patient ratio on the day/afternoon shift was 1:45, and on nights it was 1:everyone. Naturally the pressure is huge at first and it feels like you'll never get everything done. This is when time management and task prioritising, plus finding a way of working that suits you, become really important. You need to know what can be handed over to the next person and what absolutely has to be done as soon as possible. Nursing is a 24-hour job. Some things aren't that urgent and can wait. Never push yourself so hard that you burn out; that would defeat the whole purpose～ About six months into the job, Australia started really opening the floodgates on immigration (while I was still daydreaming), but I started looking for my next job, and in the end I picked an ED offer over a gastro one, while also getting ready to move interstate! After the move, still daydreaming, I finally woke up and started preparing my skill assessment. In mid-October I finally threw myself into the big 189 pool. Because of my age I only had 65 points, so I honestly wasn't very confident I'd get picked. I have to thank the Department of Home Affairs for picking me in December and giving me a big Christmas present～ Of course, the wait was very long too. In May '23 I got an email asking for more documents, and superstitious as I am, I wrote the department a feedback form. I call it my visa-hurrying trick (no idea if it works, I'm just superstitious hahaha). In mid-July my PR was finally granted ><

A lot of people ask me whether a grad program matters. A grad program is great because it's a hospital job where you get formal training: what you learned on placement gets used directly in clinical practice, and the knowledge from your textbooks properly connects with real life. But! You're competing with local students, and even with students who are already ENs or have work experience, so the competition is pretty fierce. I only got one interview, at a private hospital, though of course I also have friends who got into grad programs without a hitch. What I want to say is that there's no such thing as a good or bad RN. Starting from a different place than someone else doesn't mean you can't end up where they are in the future. There are lots of opportunities as long as you're willing to go for them and step out of your comfort zone. BTW, I did both the skill assessment and the 189 DIY. If anyone needs help, leave a comment and let me know; I can still talk about it while it's fresh in my memory^^

Recently my phone popped up a notification telling me I've been in Australia for 2500 days. I really feel pretty proud of myself for lasting 2500 days in a place like this. I used to be someone without much of a goal, but I feel I've achieved quite a lot in my 7 years in Australia, and the biggest so far is of course getting my PR granted. My writing isn't great, and these 4 short posts only scratch the surface. Lately, talking with my friends about Australia's big upcoming policy changes, we keep saying how lucky we were, especially one friend who worked at it even longer than I did and finally made it through～ Immigration does take luck, but we also worked really hard (contributing to their economy during Australia's toughest times) to finish our studies and find jobs. To those of you still working at it, I hope you never give up on your goals. You don't keep going because you see hope; it's because you keep going that hope comes to embrace you♡