Each year, the department runs special targeted events in designated overseas markets to
enable Australian employers to meet and to assess the calibre of people who they may be
interested in sponsoring.
What an employer can be assured of if they attend one of these events, is that they will
see people who are pre-screened by the department.
So, we will know and they can be confident that these people have the qualifications, the
English language ability and the work experience that those employers are looking for.
We've gone through the full gamut advertising ourselves and we use recruitment agencies a
considerable amount and that's a very costly approach for us to take.
With this particular event, this has allowed me to have access to lots and lots of high
quality candidates without the time and the expense of going through recruiters.
These events are very, very targeted now, because the Department of Immigration do send
out invitations to people who've got the sort of skills that we are looking to fill.
So, we are very supportive of these events because we get far better results from them.
We are participating in this event because it gives us access to people who have already
expressed an interest in coming to work in Australia and we have jobs available for them
so it's, again, a sensible thing for us to do.
We know people want to come and we can help them.
Usually the format of the events is such that people who come in will be brought in in a
very controlled way.
They will be, they will speak to the department first to get a thorough briefing on what
their visa requirements and what their options are.
They are then streamed, if you like, past Australian employers and they usually have a
couple of hours to go and talk to the employers that they choose or a state or territory
government.
What this means is that, if you are an employer, you can expect, say in the London
context, to potentially see somewhere around about 800 to a thousand people in a
particular day.
I found the event to be excellent.
Yesterday was a particularly busy day and one thing I have learnt is not to come here by
myself in future, but on a positive note, I would certainly participate in the event
again and look, we have seen some fantastic people come through and a lot of interest.
The event that we have had in the last two days here has been fantastic.
We've had a far better response than we thought.
We have a lot of work to do when we get home to try to go through the applications that
we have, but we're very supportive of these events and we'll continue to come in future.
