How to help international students pass 4 rounds of job application in Australia

Preparing your CV early, anticipating interview situations and answering with detailed numbers is how Hoang Ha successfully applied for a job in Australia.

Bui Nhu Hoang Ha, 27, graduated from Deakin University and is currently a business data analyst at Bunnings Group, a large furniture retailer in Australia and New Zealand with more than 53,000 employees. Previously, she had sent out 100 job applications and was accepted by several other companies.

According to Ha, in Australia, businesses have two main recruitment rounds each year, the first round from January to March, the second round from June to September. The process usually has four rounds: submitting a CV, online testing, video interview and in-person interview.

To find a job, Ha goes to forums like LinkedIn, Seek, GradConnection, Glassdoor. In addition, she notes the employer's application deadline, creates a job application email, and checks it regularly to avoid missing messages.

When making a CV, Ha used the templates and tools provided by the school, in Ha’s case, Deakin University. Before that, she also attended job sharing sessions at the school and the club to learn how to prepare.

Ha believes that a CV should be limited to one page for the convenience of the reader, so it should use a font size of 10-11 with small line spacing. In addition, the sentences should be proactive, demonstrating leadership ability. She pays special attention to presenting data to describe the scale and efficiency of the work, thereby demonstrating her own experience.

“When I applied for a data analyst position, I wrote ‘processed 1.5 million Yelp data to build an 84% accurate model using Python’, instead of ‘used Python to process and visualize data from Yelp data’,” Ha said. If you don’t have any experience, Ha suggests that candidates write about academic projects they’ve done, talking about relevant experiences.

According to Ha, a candidate’s personal information page or portfolio is a plus point in the CV. Ha uses the Tableau application to describe the projects he has done visually. For technology or design, candidates can present using Github or Behance applications. More simply, use LinkedIn to update past jobs, achievements, and certificates.

Finally, Ha reread her CV several times to remove unnecessary words before clicking send.

She realized that the response time from the company is quite long, maybe up to a month, so she should stay relaxed. If she passes this round, the HR department will call to check the information, so the candidate must always pay attention to the phone.

Bui Nhu Hoang Ha at a company event. Photo: Character provided — Bui Nhu Hoang Ha at an event at Bunnings Group. Photo: *Character provided*

If she gets to the online test, Ha looks up some common questions online by searching: "Company name + online test for graduate jobs", then practices answering them. She often encounters questions about personality or how to handle conflicts at work, teamwork ability and time management.

According to her, some big tech companies like IBM, Auspost, Westpac use Revelian, a psychological test used in recruitment. Meanwhile, Canva and Thoughtworks use technical tests, requiring mastery of knowledge and hard skills. Big4 companies will have their own tests.

The video interview requires candidates to answer situational questions and demonstrate their understanding of the company culture. Each question has a maximum preparation time of 2 minutes and a response time of 4 minutes. For the situational questions, Hoang Ha prepared by researching and making a list of frequently asked questions online, then editing the sample answers with her own learning and working experiences. For the rest, Ha researched in advance the content such as the company's core values, vision, mission, and culture. When answering, she applied the STAR method (Situation - Task - Action - Result).

"That means I state the specific situation, the assigned work, how I performed the task and the results achieved," Ha shared.

The final interview round usually takes place in two forms: individual interview combined with group interview or individual interview combined with case study.

In the first form, candidates will join a group of 6-10 people to discuss a hypothetical situation. Experts observe how candidates communicate, work in groups, and solve problems. When faced with this situation, Ha always honestly shares her own views and boldly asks her questions.

“There’s no right or wrong answer here, they just want to see how you interact with people on the team,” Hoang Ha said. After that, the candidate will have a 1:1 interview with a senior employee. The questions are often repetitive, similar to the video interview round. Ha tries to highlight more details about her own experience, instead of giving general answers.

With the second method, the HR department usually sends the employee a problem, asking them to solve it within 2-3 hours and then present it. Then, continue with a 1:1 interview as above.

At Bunnings Group, Ha was interviewed in this way. She was asked to prepare a presentation for a client who wanted to build a website about organic food. Ha created a sample website, calculated the time and cost to implement, as well as the desired effect.

"The key to successfully applying for a job in Australia is to build your profile while still in school, through your final grades and projects. In addition, candidates need to build relationships, persistently apply, and improve their communication skills during interviews," Ha concluded.

Doan Hung

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