Overseas experience will only get you so far, writes Jim Bright.
Mary, from Victoria, writes in on the topic of local and international qualifications and experience. She says: "My husband specialised in HR and industrial relations in the US for many years, where no qualification or certificate was needed. What about in Australia?"
Mary's inquiry raises the more vexed issue of skilled migrants finding work in Australia. The short answer is that you do not need a qualification specifically in human resources to work in that occupation.
However, it is increasingly the case that most large employers will want degree-educated candidates for HR positions and preferably those with degrees in a directly relevant area such as, well, human resources, but also psychology, organisational behaviour and management.
Employers like it if you have a degree that contains subjects specifically relevant to their work, so candidates with an engineering degree who have taken management courses as a part of it, can be attractive candidates.
Having said that, the reality is there are very few jobs that explicitly require a specific qualification to do them. We get a misleading picture and mistakenly believe that most do because we tend to think of occupations more than jobs. Occupations can often (but certainly not always) be linked to particular training courses, for instance doctor, lawyer, accountant, carpenter or plumber.
The Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) identifies occupations with skill levels. It classifies managerial human resource roles as requiring skill level 1, which is defined as a degree or at least five years of experience.
At the other end of the skill scale, dog walkers are classified as skill level 4 (AQF Certificate 2 or 3, or one year's experience), just above a dominatrix who may require an AQF Certificate 1 or "on the job training may be required".
I am not aware of a Certificate 1 in Domination and, to be fair, ANZSCO does point out that the skill levels are "typical" and not definitive. So we need to avoid a rather rigid, qualifications-focused approach to jobs and emphasise the work experience pathway.
Alas, this may not provide a great remedy for Mary's husband, because presumably much of his recent experience was gained overseas and, depending upon the nature of his work, a lot of his knowledge may relate to laws, rules and regulations that are irrelevant in the Australian context.
This means he may have to pitch his broad experience in the field along with a track record or rapidly getting on top of relevant HR policy. It comes as a shock to many skilled migrants that local employers are often not impressed by overseas experience.
My colleague, Ailis Logan, who runs a company called Tribus Lingua that specialises in helping skilled migrants, jokingly suggested that after reading Bill Gates' resume, some local employers would follow up with: "Yes but what have you done in Australia?"
Mary's husband should emphasise his expertise in the processes of HR and his ability to learn rapidly any new rules or procedures. One way he can demonstrate his commitment to continuous learning would be to enrol part-time in a course in HR.
As an experienced student he should have a great chance of gaining entry into either a degree course, or courses that lead in that direction.
Jim Bright is professor of career education and development at ACU National and a partner at Bright and Associates, a career management consultancy. He has written several best-selling books about job hunting. Email your problems to Jim at brightside@jimbright.com.
