First Contact.

Ok, we have decided where we would like to go in Australia. Melbourne is our first choice. In early January 2008 we started to email employers and recruitment agencies that cover Victoria. We are concentrating our efforts on state institutions rather than private, but that is simply a matter of preference.

3rd January... exploratory emails sent to local health authorities and their agencies. They seem to operate in a similar way to NHS trusts in England. A trust is responsible for one or more hospitals, plus services such as clinics, hospices, community care, and the like. In addition to recruiting directly these trusts also employ a small number of agencies who act on behalf of their client to match staff with vacancies. From what I can gather the agencies are paid a reasonably substantial fee and there may be a little room for negotiation - for help with costs or arrival accommodation for a short period, airport pickup etc. It would seem that the more rural the position, the greater the room for bargaining. Given that some rural hospitals are offering 'immediate start' it looks likely that applications for such jobs could be fast-tracked.

We have also encountered agencies on the internet who advertise positions in certain trusts, where the trusts make no mention of said agency on their own websites. I could easily be wrong but it looks like these may be freelance agents who claim a finders fee or some other reward for forwarding applicants.

Our initial emails were sent to just a couple of agencies and a couple of trusts in the Melbourne metropolitan area. We had two fairly quick responses. One was from a trust - an 'out of office for the next 7 days' while the agency replied with an email containing about 20 pages of totally useful info.

To be fair to the trust that replied, it was early in the new year and presumably the office staff can take the holiday season off. And for those who did not reply, it could be the case that the contact details were out of date. I did notice a job ad that had not been updated since 2006. And another that was posted in April 2007, with a closing date for applications of April 2008. This is either laziness or a sign of high demand. I suspect the latter.

According to various reports in the Australian media there is a serious skills shortage which is so severe that it threatens to hamper the economy. Record numbers of school students are going straight into employment. The Rudd government has just announced a lot of extra skills training places. The internet is awash with adverts for skilled migrants and working backpackers. A recent recruiting trip by Australian health jobs interviewers ( in Europe) netted a total of about 30 health workers and was considered a success.

So at this point in the tale we are able to choose between 3 options.

1. Submit CV to agency, and await any job offers. This should be a formality given Marys skill set and qualifications in a specialist branch of nursing.

2. Schedule a phone call with a trust directly. We have been trying to do this for 17 days now, with no phone call as yet. The time difference means that Melbourne is 11 hours in front. We were asked to be available at 9pm UK time, which is 8 am Melbourne time. However, despite having been available as requested we have been given various excuses. 'Sorry, when are you available again?' or 'I don't start work until 10am' or 'Sorry, I'm not available on those days'. We have been waiting for 5 days for a reply to our most recent email. This is very frustrating, given the tone of the recruitment ads posted by trusts which urge NHS nurses to apply. At the moment I will put this down to a laid back attitude in high summer temperatures. In a similar vein, one agency that we rang which has a recent advert for nurses to emigrate to Melbourne told us, 'We don't cover Melbourne'. They did give us a phone number for another agency which does cover Melbourne. Unfortunately the freephone number cannot be dialled internationally. Not a great performance by an international nurses recruitment agency based in Melbourne.

3. UK interviews. In late January 2008, there will apparently be a round of interviews throughout the UK. The purpose is to recruit UK nurses for positions in Australia.

Of the three options we are drawn to communicating directly with the trusts. If this continues to prove difficult we will be approaching an agency. If there is no firm offer of a suitable position within the next week we will seek permission to attend UK interviews. Watch this space!