Top 10 skills you should consider developing before moving to Australia as a student

Skills, skills, skills! These are very important along with your study. Many students after they arrive here, work hard for $5 to $10 an hour to earn their living expenses. Guys, you all can do much better; do not work for pea nuts when you deserve the best; your student work experience should become a life skill.

If you work in a Desi Restaurant for $10 an hour, the work do not fetch you any valuable experience instead reaping benefits to the owner of the restaurant. It does not improve your communication skill nor enhance your knowledge on any important thing.

 After I moved to Australia, my brother was interested to study in Australia when he was in second year of Master of Business Administration. I advised him to work part time to get some work experience. This is to just make him understand the work culture.

He followed my advice, achieved his first job. He used to work night shifts for one of the US companies by attending classes in the morning. After his successful completion of his study, he moved to Australia as a student. The experience he had was very useful to get job in Australia and the hard work he did, helped him to manage his time very well here.

During my time as a student, there were not many opportunities because Australia was not a favourite place for many. Recently, the change in the rules have brought many immigrants to Australia and opened the door for more opportunities:

If you can achieve confidence in one or more of the below skills, then you can earn part time income easily.

1. Typing:

Typewriters are outdated but not the typing. I say this is a life skill if you want to work in an office environment.

 I learnt this skill during my college days, that’s the best skill I have ever learnt.

In my first job interview, typing was one of my tests during the interview process.

There were couple of them who were rejected just because they did not succeeded in typing test. Even now, I do lot of report writing as part of my work; I type as I think; it helps me to finish my reporting faster than anyone else.

There are many jobs available to undertake data entry work; if you own this skill; you may be the preferred candidate for the role.

2. Home Tuitions:

 This is one of the skills that helps you and also helps the students who is in need of you. The tuition institutes like Kumon, Pre-Uni charges from $130 per subject per month excluding administration charges. The subject is taught only once a week for an hour or so. You can do your maths the hourly rate paid to each tutor. The above charges are for primary school students. 

 So, when you decided to study in Australia, please improve your skills in it by teaching kids in your home country and gain experience as a tutor. This helps to build confidence and work smart when you are here.

3. Sewing:

 If you are interested in sewing or stitching, then give a thought of improving your skills on it. When I requested to make alterations to one of my dresses, they asked me to pay $40. The blouse stitching or Punjabi suite stitching charges are minimum of $40 for each piece (this is without any design on them, just a plain sewing). You can imagine how expensive it is. If you have interest, better try to learn this skill and work part time when you are in your country. This again fetch you good money by collaborating with a fashion boutique or advertise yourself on gumtree or Facebook.

4. Beauty treatments:

 This is another skill that you can work from home, get your certification on basic things like eyebrow threading, facials and applying hair colour. The charges for just eyebrow threading starts from $10 for 15 – 20 minutes work. Try to do search on google or Facebook groups, this shows the price list of beauty treatments in Australia.

5. Driving:

Try to learn driving; this helps you to work as an Uber Driver. This can help you to make at least $300 for 8-10 hours and may be more depending on orders.

6. Freelancing:

This is the best job if you are good at writing, working on spreadsheets, data entry or assisting someone in bookkeeping etc. There are many freelancing websites that helps you to list your skills and gain work.

If you have a plan to study overseas, then plan ahead and achieve some clients of your interest by working for freelance websites. This helps you to work from anywhere in the world. In fact, this helps you to secure a better job as you already gain experience in certain area. This provides you some confidence and some income that you can make with ease even after you moved to Australia.

7. Cooking:

 If you are good at cooking authentic food, then this skill will help you earn extra dollars. Many full time working men and women with kids, students and working visa holders may not have time to cook food on daily basis. They are your target customers, once you get good review for your food, word of mouth is enough to fetch you more orders.

8. Photography:

Are you good at photography? This might become a good option to earn some dollars in your free time. There are many parties held over the weekend. We have paid $350 recently to a photographer for 3.5 hours towards a birthday party.

 So you can imagine, if you get review of your services, word of mouth is enough. Now-a-days, there is trend for baby shoot, pregnancy shoots and many more.

9. Party Decorator or kids Entertainer:

 If you like fun and playing with kids or decorating the party themes. Then this helps you a lot in Australia. We paid $250 to a kid’s entertainer for 3 hours for our second daughter’s first birthday party. This is another area where you can gain some experience while you are in your country.

10. Swim instructor:

 You can work as a swim instructor for kids; this requires you to get some certification before you actually open enrolment for kids.  

Did you observe? I am telling to do the above while you are studying in your country. There is a reason behind it, after you move here, you do not have enough time to learn these skills and practice. Moreover they are expensive here to learn. Further, you get practice of managing work and study while you are in your country.  In fact, these are great opportunities to enhance your potential skills. Try to use your time more efficiently while you can.

There might be competition in the above areas too, but it creates a way to analyse your strengths and weaknesses.

It is same like securing a job; there are many out there with degrees in hand, what difference can you make matters to the company. The same rules applies to the above.

Let me know if you have secured job with any of the above skills.