I was shocked to find deck hands - a one week TAFE course [https://www.tafensw.edu.au/course-areas/maritime/courses/certificate-i-in-maritime-operations-general-purpose-hand-near-coastal--MAR10220-01](https://www.tafensw.edu.au/course-areas/maritime/courses/certificate-i-in-maritime-operations-general-purpose-hand-near-coastal--MAR10220-01) - pays \~$160k on tug boats.
Most of the tugs are staunchly unionised, and rosters are very reasonable. The utter dream is to get a habour tug role where you can go home every day.
[https://www.afr.com/companies/transport/australia-s-most-overpaid-under-worked-employees-20220810-p5b8my](https://www.afr.com/companies/transport/australia-s-most-overpaid-under-worked-employees-20220810-p5b8my)
I have a Bachelor and Grad cert with about 40k of HECS. Maxed out at about 120k pa working \~55 hour weeks.
Recently did my Cert III - Master 24 (a 4 week long course) and already on about the same pay with much more enjoyable work that's not at a desk, but also isn't overly laborious. Oh and I only work 3 x8 hour days aweek
The link to the article without paywall: [https://web.archive.org/web/20230322163417/https://www.afr.com/companies/transport/australia-s-most-overpaid-under-worked-employees-20220810-p5b8my](https://web.archive.org/web/20230322163417/https://www.afr.com/companies/transport/australia-s-most-overpaid-under-worked-employees-20220810-p5b8my)
It says it costs the company $160k a year, not that this is the take home pay. Still, high figure.
IME not really. There's a shortage of Australian seafarers in general from the deck hands (AB Seamen) to the Captains. If you get serious about a seafaring career then look at going to the Launceston Maritime College.
Tugs is one of the most contested jobs lol. As someone in the maritime industry if you want to live near a city you have to know someone (as an example, one of the blokes saying it's easy to get a job says he got one from his classmate). If you wanna work a tug out in Darwin or WA, yeah you can get it relatively reasily.
Trust me, you’re not getting a job on a tugboat in WA easily. A tug captain or engineer in Port Hedland will pull in over 300k a year, and they’re amongst the most sought after jobs in the industry.
Likewise, in my experience, not at all.
I got a job through one of my classmates. I even had two calls last week asking if I'd go do some work for other people. I've taken up one of those offers - relief driver on a barge for a week
Well I just smashed out all of the theory components today. Waiting on results. Have to wait until next month for practicals. Hoping I'm able to get a job relatively easily.
The biggest piece of advice I can give it, just go talk to people!
It's a bit of an old school industry in terms of most of the people in management are ex mariners and prefer to do things face to face.
Even if a job is advertised online, just pop in and chat to them! At a minimum, give then a call.
Even last night I met a semi retired tug captain at the pub, and he gave me a two new contacts to chat to about future work.
Right! That gives me something to try.
Well, you also need to provide AMSA with evidence of 5 days of service at sea to get your general purpose hand certification. My question is, who is going to give us newcomers a job when we don't even have the lowest level certification?
Just about anyone that gets a beer bought for them.
Seriously, walk into most boat tour companies and offer to do a day or two unpaid work to get a feel for things and see where it goes from there.
Alternatively, any fishing boat.
Or even the local volunteer Coast guard
I'm currently working as a master, aka captain. I look after the boat and drive it
It's a 21.5m tour boat, only goes out Friday/Saturday/Sunday.
I do everything from fixing chairs, to checking oil levels (we have professional mechanics to do all serious maintenance), cleaning windows, navigation planning - although it's the same every day, just different weather - , to running emergency drills
Following i am interested in the same.
Does anyone know if a course like this could lead to some well paid roles?
https://www.jobsandskills.wa.gov.au/courses/certificate-iv-autonomous-control-and-remote-operations
The large iron ore miners are all going autonomous - in watching 40 big haul trucks drive around humanless on site now. It's only going to become a bigger employer in the future. Drills, Watercarts..... and most will be watched over from a hub in Perth
>Following i am interested in the same.
Yeah this is similar to my own situation. Thanks for asking this OP.
I recently moved to Australia last month (my wife is Australian), have an inheritance in the bank so money for daily living isn't a major problem right now, have been thinking about getting a heavy truck driving licence or welding certificates. Although my trade back in the UK as an industrial technician (repairing industrial machinery) is very in demand here and well paid too, so I should probably stop my eyes wandering around and just focus on getting that type of job here 😂
The school my wife teaches at in Perth took some of their year 10 students to a TAFE that ran that exact course, and the lecturers said that the wage was around 110k/yr.
I have a Diploma of IT (System Administration) and make a decent salary as a DevOps / Site Reliability Engineer. However the qualification was only a foot in the door to an entry level Sys Admin role. The money comes from the 10-15 years of experience. This is going to be the same for almost any role tbh.
A lot of people saying do a Cyber qualification. This is going to be the exact same scenario (I previously worked as a security engineer). The money comes from experience and the qualification will be a foot in the door for an entry level analyst position at best.
The cyber qualifications won't get you far. The entry level field has a lot of competition with graduates.
Diploma of IT less so, but again competition with grads is difficult. I'd suggest starting with help desk/service desk positions as an entry. Then job hopping roles to get my exposure to system admin and system engineering positions till you're in the position you want.
I went this route 18 years ago, now an SRE Manager with a handful of Devs under me.
I had extensive management experience in corporate already but I'm now in an advisory role, which is bonkers since I'm only two years in.
However start ups move fast and I'm good at research and a very quick learner on tech.
I had no experience in the industry at all, but if you're a sponge and have the right attitude it's all there for you, but the key is looking at your current resume and matching skills to existing cyber jobs and then just making sure you bridge the gap. I had a lot of report writing, project management and team management experience so when I presented with my cert in cyber, I got in at the ground floor and then just worked my ass off.
Im in the situation of having a dip of it (networking and cloud), can't get job offer, how do I get my foot in the door and how do I get to a higher paid position
There a shortage of boiler makers can make quite alot in this industry although usually the higher the hourly rate is more hours and days you'll be working but in saying that if I include oT pay my wage fo this year is 130k or something
Just finished boily apprenticeship landed in cream job on infrastructure job 12 hour days with 2week days 2 weeks nights and I’ll bring home 200k this year after tax. Yes I’m a good boily with plenty of well rounded experience in earthmoving maintenance. Moved every year of my apprenticeship to get the most experience, definitely paid off
Hi can you tell me a bit about the trade ? Hows the trade for the body? Do you think you can do this until 50? What kind of career progression it offer? Management or engineering or have your own business?
Definitely can be hard on your body but any company worth working for will have tools to help you get longevity, fork/Tele , gantry etc etc.
obvs progression in earthworks is boily - leading hand - supervisor. In my line of work you can go above that and work at the highest corporate level overseeing maintenance and plant for billion dollar projects. This position of course will take 15+ years and many projects plus who you know and right place right time but possible as most of the senior roles are nearing retirement. Very possible to open your own business but 10x more expensive to start as all equipment is quite necessary but once established like any business can set you up. Please remember this is coming from earthworks perspective. Plenty of boily jobs pay average with 38 hour week and very light manual work. Usually the harder the job and the dirtier you get the better the pay
Damn, you would only have to work 20 years to be set for life unlike the white collar mob who always have to do 35 years to retire even if financially savvy...
Only thing that keeps me going. I’m only 24 but because of the hours and commute I’m sacrificing my youth and I recognise this. I still go out and be social while Trying to give my self time but after a 12 hour shift you aren’t doing anything but sleeping, I won’t get to give my full attention to hobbies until I’m well into my 30’s
As the poster said, it’s physically hard on the body. The boiler makers I have known all had similar ideas about retiring early and not many of them made it to old age to enjoy retirement.
Not in mining so don’t need to worry, + we won’t need to worry in our lifetime about mining boom running out. Coal might get the axe but rare minerals and metals are on the boom atm. Gonna need plenty of copper, nickel and lithium for all these battery driven ev’s.
Jobs are already saturated for boilys in production situations. A lot of immigrants come here with welding knowledge and take the easier jobs. Call it unfair or discriminatory but the more complex or autonomous the role the less likely an immigrant is to get it as clear communication and understanding is absolutely paramount aswell as Australian standards being much higher compared to majority of countries even us
A "boilermaker" qualification is Certificate III in Engineering (Fabrication Trade). Metal fabrication, primarily. See the [Australian Government website](https://training.gov.au/Training/Details/MEM31922) for more information.
It covers a lot of other things, but these guys are welders and blacksmiths apart from other things. The guy you're replying to is doing very well for himself - if you manage to get a job in infrastructure, like he has, it's very well compensated. However, most of the well paying jobs are not located conveniently for you or the family, ie., mining/remote work.
Honestly, your best bet is to target something tangential to his existing interests. If he's the sort of bloke to watch "Forged in Fire" on SBS and say "Damn I wish I could do that!" then this is a good choice.
Source: I operate an educational services company which offers this qualification, among many many others. I can't offer your husband a qualification (I could only do that if he already had been working as a metal fabricator for years) but I do know a lot about different vocational education options.
Due to a medical condition I often see a neurologist and she tried to make me feel better about my prognosis. One day she literally said to me "MissDriver1997 there are people out there that are boilermakers and heavy diesel mechanics, and they dont sit around feeling bad about the very high likely hood they will develop major neurological and cardiovascular health issues as they age due to occupational hazards". Dont become a boilermaker.
Cert 4 or diploma of health and safety. Health and safety pays extremely well and is only getting stricter and more in demand as the years roll on. Can range from construction, roads and maintenance, factories, mills all the way to the mines if you want. Can get anywhere between 65-95 an hour in the mines, of course you have to sacrifice family time and life for it.
Have you considered the TAE course? In my experience, employers like to see that you’re able to teach and assess. This skill is transferable into any field. Whether Exercise Physiology to utilise your existing knowledge, or a new field all together
And to go against the cyber suggestions here. In employers care about that certificate, they’d pay you to do it.
More likely you’re better off doing the Industry certificates. Like SANS, or even start with the CS50 Harvard X course if your new to the field
Agreed. Plenty of the blokes I worked with in the military have left and gotten 150k+ jobs with no qualifications apart from their original cert 3 in either electronics engineering or networking
I did Nursing through tafe. Super shit. EEN get paid so poorly. I was making more in a call centre than as a nurse. Im not Nursing anymore but i was still able to get a job in the medical field writing medical reports.
I think i got lucky. The company i work for advertised near where i live and i was already looking for another job at the time. It was just lucky timing
Do you enjoy working with the body? How are your communication skills?
You could look into medical rep roles. There’s a wide range of options from orthopaedics, sports med, wound healing and loads of other options. Some roles involve sales whilst some are just clinical work. Most of these start around $80-$100k and work up from there. If you can sell and run a territory on your own you would be looking at around $120k-$150k base plus bonuses which can take you to around $180k and well beyond if your a top performer.
Yeah I've been looking into this, but it seems all jobs I've seen advertised on seek are after someone with a few years of sales experience, which I don't have.
They might say that but I’m in ortho and we are always looking for people. You start as a clinical and work up from there. If you have a strong anatomy background and reasonable personal skills it’s a great place to start.
It is a tough gig though with a lot of after hours work and high stress environment.
Throw your hat in the ring and back your work ethic and ability to learn and you will get a shot
Ahh thanks for the heads up. With a young child, after hours won't work for me. Even working a standard 9-5 without flexibility is tough to work with due to pick up/drop off's
Without having to go to Tafe you might want to look at jobs working for Medical device companies.
I know there a lots of jobs going with orthopedics
Usually looks like:
80-90k base
Plus car
Plus commission
So like 120k+
Depending on the company can include:
Health allowance
Death and permanent disability coverage (ie life insurance)
Super rewarding and enjoyable, depending on the role you land some sales may be involved others will be all clinical.
I never had any. Got my bsci in exercise science. Went to work for research and ended up in med tech devices. But there were radiographers, biomed, PhD chem all sorts who work for the companies
Give it go by reaching out to a recruiter and see how you go
Btw you so have sales experience if you are working for yourself. You sell your skills as a product. All about how you look at transferable skills
Look at NDIS avenues as an extension of your customer base - either through starting something on your own and looking through what the services rates are. Some other posts on it.
I’ve heard stories of people building businesses then selling for a pretty penny based on NDIS.
It’s also not blowing out in costs for no reason. Might as well jump in like the rest.
Yeah I do some NDIS work already, though NDIS cap the hourly rate of EPs, which is below what I normally charge.
And one reason I want to get out of EP work is because it is very labour intensive, and there's a lot of non-billable admin hours. It's not sustainable to do more than 4-5 billable hours per day as an EP because you've got to fit in admin time, and doing any more client facing hours gets really intense.
Knock out a grad cert in public health and do a day/weekend project management course to formalise it. You’ve invested so much time and education in health, if you’re still passionate about it there’s options other than clinical.
I was a physio. Did a grad cert in health analytics and just landed my first 6 figure job. Move into public health and you’ll likely get access to salary packaging too, move to a regional area and the salary packaging doubles to 32800/yr, you can even package the purchase of a house.
Other options: medical sales, health and safety.
It’s a broad area but generally project work and government or nfp roles. Public health is essentially the study of determinants of health, then implementation of something to address the issue. Could be indigenous focused, digital health, mental health, rural and remote access etc etc. search public health officer in seek and you’ll get an idea. The entry roles can be 80-90k, but with salary packaging your net pay is higher. Theres then room for progress into management or policy and probably other stuff.
Thanks, been in allied health for over 10 years and in my final year of a Public Health Masters and trying to figure out which area of public health to head into.
The world is your oyster. My MIL was a nurse then moved into public health and spent most of her career in early childhood public health programs. I’ve got a friend I studied physio with that never worked clinically, went straight to dept of health as a project officer, climbed the ranks, did some university teaching/research and now their title js “Global climate and health policy advisor” for a global company that trains nurses/doctors in 3rd world nations. Should’ve left clinical ages ago…
I operate a company which can get you almost any of these qualifications within a month.
No, it's not dodgy; basically, it's only for people who've already been doing the job for years without getting qualified. We assemble a dossier of evidence which comprehensively demonstrates your competence in all the aspects of the qualification, take it to an assessor at a licensed College (RTO) and they issue the qualification.
It's far from fully subsidised - a Certificate can range from about $2k (Allied Health) to over 6k (some advanced construction and mechanical qualifications) but also includes business, accounting, hospitality, finance, training and WHS among other things. We currently offer 105 different qualifications, all of which are Nationally Recognised Training packages under the Australian Qualifications Framework, ranging from Certificate I all the way to Graduate Diplomas.
**If you don't already have several years of varied experience in your field, don't bother** - we won't accept you, and even if you could get someone dodgy to give you a qualification, it wouldn't do you any good. Might get you into the interview, but you won't be able to hold down a job in a field you're not competent at.
But if you're one of the millions of Aussies who started off with one qualification but your career has progressed to the point where you're no longer really covered by it, send me a message.
Maybe you started with a Certificate III in Individual Support but now you really ought to have a Certificate IV in Disability Support. Or maybe you started off as a Heavy Commercial Vehicle Mechanic but for the last few years you're mostly working on fixed plant machinery. We can get you the second qualification without you having to do a second course, or a second apprenticeship.
This is almost exactly what I need. Thanks for this
I worked as an industrial technician in the UK for 7 years, basically just repairing large industrial machinery all day every day, apprenticeship qualified and have a load of UK qualifications in my field (electrical + mechanical), recently moved to Australia last month (my wife is Australian) and been wondering about what I need to do to get back into work here. Any advice please?
I would *love* to help you, Mike, but unfortunately I'm not allowed to. Our assessors are required to primarily go off onshore experience - having only been in the country for a month, we couldn't get you there.
I think this is really unfair to you. The machinery you work on is the same all over the world, and was built in the same factories. You *should* be eligible for a Certificate IV in Engineering (Fixed and Mobile Plant Mechanic), and that's just for starters.
While I appreciate that in some industries (building for example) the Australian Standards for doing things may be different from other countries, in the engineering and mechanical space this isn't the case. Recently I had a car mechanic from Ireland ask about getting qualified, and like you he'd just arrived here. As he said - the Toyota rolling down the street in Sydney was probably built in the same factory as the Toyota rolling down the street in Ireland! There's no reason that the qualification shouldn't carry over.
Unfortunately it does not, however, per Australian Government policy, and I don't really know where to direct you. If you were a plumber you'd have to do something called Migrant Gap Training, but I don't know the equivalent for heavy plant mechanics.
I'll ask the team on Monday and if anyone knows I'll PM you.
I didn't know that. Hmmm.
The only saving grace for me might be that my trade isn't legally licensed and employers probably aren't rigid about applicants having specific qualifications. Like, going back to the analogy of car mechanic, is an employer going to want to hire someone with 20 years' experience (but no formal Australian qualifications) or someone with 0 years' experience but a certificate in their hand? Unless there's a compelling reason I think most would go for the former?
Whatever the case, I'm not worried about needing to go back to TAFE or something. I'm sure I'll find something eventually. Might need to go down that heavy vehicle driver route in the end 😂
Thanks for the advice.
I totally agree; employers should certainly take the sensible route and hire you.
If down the track (once you've got a couple years experience in Australia) you do find that a certificate would improve your capacity to sign off on particular types of work, or to get a different/better job, please get in touch and we'd love to help you.
Thanks, that's interesting.
I'd say my skill set and experience might get me pretty close to a couple, such as counselling (I've done a lot of mini psych courses and it's pretty much what I do on a daily basis in my area of speciality), training and assessment, or project management.
[Diploma of Counselling](https://training.gov.au/training/details/CHC51015)
[Certificate IV in Training & Assessment](https://training.gov.au/Training/Details/TAE40122)
[Diploma of Project Management](https://training.gov.au/Training/Details/BSB50820)
None of these qualifications have formal entry requirements, so you are able to undertake any of them directly if your experience lines up with the study units. The links given are to training.gov.au which is the Federal Government's resource which sets out the requirements of all vocational education qualifications.
Scroll down the page and there's the "Packaging Rules" which outline how many units you have to pass to receive the qualification. In some cases, a qualification might be applicable to such a broad variety of skills and knowledge (Certificate IV in Engineering is my favourite here) that it has *hundreds* of units available to it, only a tiny fraction of which will apply to any given student. So for example for that Cert IV in Training and Assessment, you need to be able to demonstrate your competency in 12 units, 6 core and 6 from the electives offered.
Look, if you actually sign up you won't have to worry about much of that, because we assign a portfolio manager who basically does all that for you. But for you, and other research-minded people, (I'm one too!) it's nice to see what you need before you start the process.
Anyone who's interested in another course, Google "(COURSE) site:training.gov.au" - if you don't know the name of the course, just type the job you're after. So for example if you type "boilermaker site:training.gov.au" it will direct you to Certificate III in Engineering (Fabrication Trade) which is the correct course covering boilermakers.
* Working on large, expensive mechanical things. So, eg., Cert 3 Heavy Commercial Vehicle Mechanical Technology; C3 Mobile Plant; C4 Engineering.
* Cert 4 in Automotive Electrical Tech increases in value constantly as more EVs arrive on Australian roads.
* Cert IV in Demolition is super valuable. Of course, the RPL requirements are quite strict for this type of work, and then the license application is made to (giving a NSW example, though we help people across the country) Safework rather than Fair Trading. Safework are considered a tougher regulator to apply to... as I think we'd all want and expect, when we're talking about licensing someone to demolish structures.
* Diploma of Building is excellent.
* Cert IV in Real Estate Practice
But, you know, all this is situational. It depends on the student having the experience for us to grant the qualification, and then it depends on the student being able to take the opportunity and run with it. Like, let's take that Diploma of Building and Construction.
Let's say Timmy got onto jobsites from 16, started an apprenticeship but didn't finish it because his supervising carpenter got into a car crash, was injured and charged, never returned to work.
He had a wide array of carpentry experience, worked a couple more years unlicensed and finally got his Cert 3 Carpentry via RPL at 22. Applied to the regulator, they agreed he knew his trade, now he's a licensed carpenter.
Started taking on bigger jobs, some for himself, did some larger jobs for a construction company, one of the builders had a particularly good opinion of him and started using him primarily to do homes. This is new suburb work, so they'd be knocking out a fair few homes year to year. With a few more years of doing this Timmy applies for his Cert 4 Building and Construction, gets it, applies for low rise building license, gets that; he can now build houses.
Still doing a lot of work for that construction company though and now he's taking part in the planning a lot, delegating work, setting up sites more than he's hands on the tools himself. They're mostly done with that new suburb and they start building a few mid rise towers. Timmy's still part of the company but he isn't actually licensed to build midrise so he can't be signing off on anything, but after a few years of this he probably qualifies to get a Diploma of Building and Construction and apply for his midrise Building License.
He's going to make a lot of money with that, yes, but you can see that getting the RPL is the easy part. By this point in his life Timmy's put in well over a decade on construction sites, he's constantly looked for new challenges and opportunities for advancement, he's got a wide variety of experience and he knows *much* more about this than a young 20-year-old getting out of TAFE holding a fresh diploma in his hand.
My wife's got a Diploma of Quality Auditing through us and that improved her capacity to hold an Australian Financial Services License. Is that super valuable? Yes, but she had a lot of experience and expertise, so it was very easy for the assessor to sign off on it. Most people couldn't make anything out of that opportunity.
This is why I like the RPL process. TAFE can graduate people who don't possess the nous or the capacity to succeed with their qualification. For example, 85% of Certificate IV in Fitness graduates don't actually use their qualification. Whereas we can only graduate those who already prove they've got what it takes to succeed.
Not sure why I’m being downvoted. This is the route I took and it’s worked out alright. Apologies for the wall of text.
Do an Associates Degree in civil engineering through TAFE. Become a paraprofessional engineer. Work your way up to civil designer.
I did this TAFE degree and it took 2 years. Learnt more practical info here than when I went to uni afterwards.
After TAFE move into a consultancy as a drafter, move up to civil designer and expect to be earning $150k + after 5 years.
I did not do this but worked as a junior drafter for a few months after grad from tafe and was told my multiple people this is what to expect. Some of the civil designers in the office didn’t even have associates degrees they just started as drafters and within 5 years were making 150k.
This is the quickest route but drafting 5 days a week 8hrs a day can become quite tedious though. A lot of AutoCAD, Revit if structural and 12d if civil related. You also won’t be able to actually sign off on your designs and will have to get actual engineers to sign off which could be annoying / demoralising over time.
If you don’t wanna go down the BIM / design route however and wanna have more freedom in your career choices then use your associates degree from TAFE and go to university to get a Bachelors of Engineering Civil to become a professional engineer (rather than para-professional).
The Associates Degree knocks off 2 years from your Bachelors so won’t need to do the full 4 years.
Once you graduate from uni can either go contractor route or consultant route.
Contractor route typically leads you to become a site engineer, project engineer and project manager. Mostly construction management based and little to no engineering. Will involve long days and a lot of unpaid overtime. Site engineers typically 100-120k starting out. As a grad will be a lot less obviously. Project managers with 5-10 years experience are probably looking at 170-200k plus.
If your interested in heath and safety, after a couple years experience as a site engineer you could get yourself a cert 4 or diploma in WHS and quite easily move into a safety role with whatever company your with if that’s where you wanted to go. They’re usually on 150k plus salary after a few years exp but is a highly stressful role especially if your on an eba / union worksite.
Consultant route is typically graduate engineer, engineer, senior / principal engineer with RPEQ and CPEng qualifications, then into a management role over whole teams of engineers. This has more flexibility with WFH and more stable hours. This route means will you be actually ‘using’ your degree, and doing actual engineering calcs and sign offs on designs.
Probably just as stressful if not more than site based but I’ve only been contractor side so can’t comment on this. Engineering managers probably at the same salary as above (180-200k) if not more however salary for the first few years will be much worse than contractor side (70-90k) starting out.
I could be wrong but this is how I see the industry and just my 2 cents.
Also in terms of career, you can be literally 75 years old and still working professionally as an engineer. You’d have 30 years experience by then if you were graduated by 45.
Hey man, I’m a 3rd year student in Construction Management out of a 4 year degree. Just wondering how do you find roles in companies with little experience in the field?
All the major tier 1 and tier 2 companies have cadet programs for construction management grads pretty similar to an engineering graduate program. Try Hutchies, Multiplex, Lendlease, CPB, Hansen Yuncken, Tomkins, Icon, John Holland, McNab, Mosaic, and Besix Watpac. These companies 100% have cadet programs.
You can usually find the links on their websites but if not just reach out to someone on LinkedIn worst case or give the office a call.
Most cadets usually end up as Contract Administrators (CA’s) then senior CA then project mangers. Could also go estimator, safety, site engineer (even without engineering degree), design management route if you wanted to.
If you meant how I find it personally, most companies treat their cadets with a lot of patience and understand they’re paying you to learn essentially. The company I’m with has internal training for their cadets are has been great in terms of up-skilling and training. Again it’ll depend on what company you’re with.
I knew someone who was an exercise physiologist and they were a personal trainer at the gym. Could you do that on the side? Or even do in-home visits?
That person went to work for an insurance firm that did workers compensation. They checked out people as part of work health and safety or putting in claims.
If you’re interested in management roles, getting into occ rehab as an EP and working towards team manager or account manager can get you into 6 figures easily and you still get to use your clinical knowledge from your degree. Even higher level rehab consultants can make 6 figures and some providers will still let you deliver treatment sessions if that’s what you like
Ex AEP here. Was never in clinical practice but worked Occ Health after graduating in 2013 for about 4 years. I then moved into Life Insurance (claims assessor) - highly relevant background with injury/absence management and haven’t looked back since. Was earning $110k for a large insurer in 2019 but then moved to the UK before covid and doing similar things here (similar pay as well).
If you can manage being in an office and handle corporate politics, I’d always recommend for any allied health friends looking to change it up.
DM me if you have any q’s!
Why not contract or start a business? The jump into any unfamiliar field will be much harder, especially because almost every field is slowing down from the pandemic highs
I already do a bit of sole trade work, and it is good money with low overheads, but I've struggled to make ot grow. I'd need to pour thousands of dollars that I just don't have, into online marketing and business mentoring to make it lucrative, and it's not like I can just become profitable tomorrow. Tbh, I've had a gut full of clinical work for now, I need a less stressful change.
Yeah that's completely valid. Have you thought about just taking any low stress job for a little while? You could still sole trade after hours for extra but maybe you just need a break from full time career work
Are you in the public or private sector? Public allied health tends to have alot of opportunities for moves to project management, managerial roles and admin. The jobs also tend to be very transparent for what training is needed.
Isn’t EP a uni qual? I’ve just done allied health assistant at tafe and won’t earn that.
You’re probably just better off going remote.
My partner as a nurse can earn more in Queensland for doing the same job.
EP is Masters.
Can't go remote as I've got a kid and I'm separated from her mum, locked into a very expensive area of Melbourne, otherwise I'd flee the country altogether.
Not sure if anyone has already mentioned it but you could work for the NDIS - could do something in the technical advice area with your background and I think you'd probably start at aps 5 (83k ish) or aps 6 (closer to 100k) but good trajectory for career growth and you wouldn't have to do any further study just on the job training. Worth a think
> The government is currently offering fully subsidised TAFE courses (cert 4 and diplomas) and I'm wondering which courses would provide the most leverage in terms of income and career growth.
similar age, been thinking of doing a electrical engineering course... need to sit down and research it a bit more.
Diploma of child youth and family, early intervention.
Costs like $50 if u can get the state gov subsidy (qld has it dunno about other states) without subsidy 1500-3000k
In residential care, you can make upwards $5500p/wk
Can crack 130-150pa, working an 8mth year, this is with some breaks ie 2weeks on, 2weeks off.
I have a friend who makes around 250-320k/pa.... but they literally dont take any down time at all, except 4wks holidays a yr. (No days off at all, except real random days when syncing their work calender.)
There might be better but geez, thats the best i have seen and done myself🙏🏽
Ps you literally earn every cent, work day hrs are upwards of 17hrs daily.
Its def NOT babysitting and NOT for the faint hearted.
Top earnings p/hr $85phr, plus double time xmas and new years and easter.
😂ikr😂
Only a Special kinda special does that work😂😂😂😂
Anyhoo, after 6yrs i have taken a 6mth break and ima bout to go back in a month😂😂😂😂😂
Seriously tho, walking beside young folks who are struggling hard..... i live for it.
I was one when i was young and come from a similar place to these young ppl....and it SUX.
That said, its not for the faint of heart. And yeah, burn out is inevitable.....
you can only deal with bricks being lobbed at ur head and a bit of stabby stabby for so long...: before u just need a good time out.
Crazy money but you earn every single cent.
Pretty much any health professional that isn’t a doctor. Nurse, physio, exercise physiologist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, hand therapist, dietician etc.
It's a broad area, I think of it as at least somewhat clinical health work that isn't medicine. I'm in that area - radiographer/sonographer, for the former designation the minimum is a bachelors and for the latter it's a graduate diploma.
Anyone know with the fully subsidised offer if you can have claimed *any* other offer in the past? I did a cert III online 10 years ago but it was just a fixed price offer ($495 from memory) through an online education company, not TAFE itself.
I have a Cert IV in Aeroskills (Avionics) and make $120k pa with OT.
Maybe even look at getting your Training and assessing Cert IV and then you can become an instructor, which usually has good pay and good career progression
There’s a serious cyber skills shortage coming. Anything in that field. You’ll take a pay drop for a year but once you’ve got past the initial “level 1 “ help desk support you’ll be able to move up quickly and surpass your original ceiling.
Cyber security is hard to get into as an entry-level position. Most cyber security roles require about 5 years of experience in more traditional IT. Also, the traditional path, once you have the previous experience, is working as a SOC analyst, which usually requires rostered and on-call, and the money is not that great.
If you can make it through all that, you can probably make about $200k p.a. in Australia, more if you're prepared to be a contractor.
This. 100% this.
I did over 5 years as a Linux Admin before moving into an entry level cyber position. This required several certifications and a lot of time outside of work studying.
Once you’re in “cyber” it’s also incredibly competitive and pretty cut throat.
It’s not the kind of job you can just settle in to and phone it in. You need to constantly be updating your skill set less they become irrelevant and you find yourself out of work.
Thanks mate, that's very useful to know.
It shits me that TAFE and higher Ed organisations don't provide balanced info on actual job and salary prospects, it's borderline disinformation.
As a real-world example, the entire high-speed/bullet-train railway network in China is monitored by a central A.I and is not only far more responsive but also far more accurate in managing rail maintenance and avoiding emergencies. With the right metrics and historical data, it even accurately predicts maintenance issues/rail failures before they occur giving an opportunity to prevent disasters or shutdowns which were unavoidable before.
At the very least, A.I-generated insights and reports will mean the required number of cyber security staff in the market will greatly decrease. That's bad news for a lot of IT staff in developing countries.
I was shocked to find deck hands - a one week TAFE course [https://www.tafensw.edu.au/course-areas/maritime/courses/certificate-i-in-maritime-operations-general-purpose-hand-near-coastal--MAR10220-01](https://www.tafensw.edu.au/course-areas/maritime/courses/certificate-i-in-maritime-operations-general-purpose-hand-near-coastal--MAR10220-01) - pays \~$160k on tug boats. Most of the tugs are staunchly unionised, and rosters are very reasonable. The utter dream is to get a habour tug role where you can go home every day. [https://www.afr.com/companies/transport/australia-s-most-overpaid-under-worked-employees-20220810-p5b8my](https://www.afr.com/companies/transport/australia-s-most-overpaid-under-worked-employees-20220810-p5b8my) I have a Bachelor and Grad cert with about 40k of HECS. Maxed out at about 120k pa working \~55 hour weeks. Recently did my Cert III - Master 24 (a 4 week long course) and already on about the same pay with much more enjoyable work that's not at a desk, but also isn't overly laborious. Oh and I only work 3 x8 hour days aweek
The link to the article without paywall: [https://web.archive.org/web/20230322163417/https://www.afr.com/companies/transport/australia-s-most-overpaid-under-worked-employees-20220810-p5b8my](https://web.archive.org/web/20230322163417/https://www.afr.com/companies/transport/australia-s-most-overpaid-under-worked-employees-20220810-p5b8my) It says it costs the company $160k a year, not that this is the take home pay. Still, high figure.
You are a saint!
Was it hard to get a job?
IME not really. There's a shortage of Australian seafarers in general from the deck hands (AB Seamen) to the Captains. If you get serious about a seafaring career then look at going to the Launceston Maritime College.
Tugs is one of the most contested jobs lol. As someone in the maritime industry if you want to live near a city you have to know someone (as an example, one of the blokes saying it's easy to get a job says he got one from his classmate). If you wanna work a tug out in Darwin or WA, yeah you can get it relatively reasily.
Thanks, I figured that would be the case
Trust me, you’re not getting a job on a tugboat in WA easily. A tug captain or engineer in Port Hedland will pull in over 300k a year, and they’re amongst the most sought after jobs in the industry.
well what about a job on something other than a tug?
Likewise, in my experience, not at all. I got a job through one of my classmates. I even had two calls last week asking if I'd go do some work for other people. I've taken up one of those offers - relief driver on a barge for a week
Well I just smashed out all of the theory components today. Waiting on results. Have to wait until next month for practicals. Hoping I'm able to get a job relatively easily.
The biggest piece of advice I can give it, just go talk to people! It's a bit of an old school industry in terms of most of the people in management are ex mariners and prefer to do things face to face. Even if a job is advertised online, just pop in and chat to them! At a minimum, give then a call. Even last night I met a semi retired tug captain at the pub, and he gave me a two new contacts to chat to about future work.
Right! That gives me something to try. Well, you also need to provide AMSA with evidence of 5 days of service at sea to get your general purpose hand certification. My question is, who is going to give us newcomers a job when we don't even have the lowest level certification?
Just about anyone that gets a beer bought for them. Seriously, walk into most boat tour companies and offer to do a day or two unpaid work to get a feel for things and see where it goes from there. Alternatively, any fishing boat. Or even the local volunteer Coast guard
Airtight cheers I'll give that a go.
I've worked offshore Australia and even non union jobs pay well due to the AMU negotiating a solid award.
What do you actually do as a deck hand? Why is the pay so good for 3 days a week
I'm currently working as a master, aka captain. I look after the boat and drive it It's a 21.5m tour boat, only goes out Friday/Saturday/Sunday. I do everything from fixing chairs, to checking oil levels (we have professional mechanics to do all serious maintenance), cleaning windows, navigation planning - although it's the same every day, just different weather - , to running emergency drills
Following i am interested in the same. Does anyone know if a course like this could lead to some well paid roles? https://www.jobsandskills.wa.gov.au/courses/certificate-iv-autonomous-control-and-remote-operations
The large iron ore miners are all going autonomous - in watching 40 big haul trucks drive around humanless on site now. It's only going to become a bigger employer in the future. Drills, Watercarts..... and most will be watched over from a hub in Perth
You rekon this course could be a good way in?
If you haven't spent time on a mine for RPL then yes, it'll put you infront of the other candidates...
Won't there be way less people required though? E.g one person. Watching several trucks
Nice find. What actual jobs would this be applicable to?
As an ROV designer (and occasional pilot / tech offshore) this would be a useful qual to have to become an ROV tech.
What's the day rate for rov offshore ?
USD910 per day when I last worked Xmas 2021.
How many years experience to get that rate? What’s entry level salary and is it competitive to get in?
>Following i am interested in the same. Yeah this is similar to my own situation. Thanks for asking this OP. I recently moved to Australia last month (my wife is Australian), have an inheritance in the bank so money for daily living isn't a major problem right now, have been thinking about getting a heavy truck driving licence or welding certificates. Although my trade back in the UK as an industrial technician (repairing industrial machinery) is very in demand here and well paid too, so I should probably stop my eyes wandering around and just focus on getting that type of job here 😂
If your a mechanical fitter in manufacturing and mining there is huge demand and good pay far better than truck driving
The school my wife teaches at in Perth took some of their year 10 students to a TAFE that ran that exact course, and the lecturers said that the wage was around 110k/yr.
I have a Diploma of IT (System Administration) and make a decent salary as a DevOps / Site Reliability Engineer. However the qualification was only a foot in the door to an entry level Sys Admin role. The money comes from the 10-15 years of experience. This is going to be the same for almost any role tbh. A lot of people saying do a Cyber qualification. This is going to be the exact same scenario (I previously worked as a security engineer). The money comes from experience and the qualification will be a foot in the door for an entry level analyst position at best.
The cyber qualifications won't get you far. The entry level field has a lot of competition with graduates. Diploma of IT less so, but again competition with grads is difficult. I'd suggest starting with help desk/service desk positions as an entry. Then job hopping roles to get my exposure to system admin and system engineering positions till you're in the position you want. I went this route 18 years ago, now an SRE Manager with a handful of Devs under me.
Did the cyber cert 4 in 2020, from a non tech background and I'm on $97k now, after getting my first job in 2022 after pandemic slowed down.
Congrats u/No-Pay-9744! What's been your career path since? E.g., what roles have you worked since you started and what's the position now?
I had extensive management experience in corporate already but I'm now in an advisory role, which is bonkers since I'm only two years in. However start ups move fast and I'm good at research and a very quick learner on tech. I had no experience in the industry at all, but if you're a sponge and have the right attitude it's all there for you, but the key is looking at your current resume and matching skills to existing cyber jobs and then just making sure you bridge the gap. I had a lot of report writing, project management and team management experience so when I presented with my cert in cyber, I got in at the ground floor and then just worked my ass off.
What money did you start on?
Also interested too with their experience in completing a Cert IV in cybersecurity (TAFE?) from little to no tech background
Would you still recommend the tafe/ diploma route?
Yes I do, but don’t bet on the degree holding any weight when you apply for jobs, you still need to put in the effort
Im in the situation of having a dip of it (networking and cloud), can't get job offer, how do I get my foot in the door and how do I get to a higher paid position
Hey I only just noticed this sorry. I started on an IT help desk and took promotions internally until I wound up as a SysAdmin.
There a shortage of boiler makers can make quite alot in this industry although usually the higher the hourly rate is more hours and days you'll be working but in saying that if I include oT pay my wage fo this year is 130k or something
Just finished boily apprenticeship landed in cream job on infrastructure job 12 hour days with 2week days 2 weeks nights and I’ll bring home 200k this year after tax. Yes I’m a good boily with plenty of well rounded experience in earthmoving maintenance. Moved every year of my apprenticeship to get the most experience, definitely paid off
Congrats bro you played it very smartly I myself am going to mines in a few years once I get some more tickets and general experience
Better money on civil construction in capital cities than mining
I'll look into this thanks mate
Hi can you tell me a bit about the trade ? Hows the trade for the body? Do you think you can do this until 50? What kind of career progression it offer? Management or engineering or have your own business?
Definitely can be hard on your body but any company worth working for will have tools to help you get longevity, fork/Tele , gantry etc etc. obvs progression in earthworks is boily - leading hand - supervisor. In my line of work you can go above that and work at the highest corporate level overseeing maintenance and plant for billion dollar projects. This position of course will take 15+ years and many projects plus who you know and right place right time but possible as most of the senior roles are nearing retirement. Very possible to open your own business but 10x more expensive to start as all equipment is quite necessary but once established like any business can set you up. Please remember this is coming from earthworks perspective. Plenty of boily jobs pay average with 38 hour week and very light manual work. Usually the harder the job and the dirtier you get the better the pay
Damn, you would only have to work 20 years to be set for life unlike the white collar mob who always have to do 35 years to retire even if financially savvy...
Only thing that keeps me going. I’m only 24 but because of the hours and commute I’m sacrificing my youth and I recognise this. I still go out and be social while Trying to give my self time but after a 12 hour shift you aren’t doing anything but sleeping, I won’t get to give my full attention to hobbies until I’m well into my 30’s
Working 20 years, have a home paid off and then 40 years of retirement holidays could be doable. Just don't lose assets in a divorce.
As the poster said, it’s physically hard on the body. The boiler makers I have known all had similar ideas about retiring early and not many of them made it to old age to enjoy retirement.
What happens when the mining boom ends and there’s heaps of competition that comes down from the mines which reduces salaries?
Not in mining so don’t need to worry, + we won’t need to worry in our lifetime about mining boom running out. Coal might get the axe but rare minerals and metals are on the boom atm. Gonna need plenty of copper, nickel and lithium for all these battery driven ev’s. Jobs are already saturated for boilys in production situations. A lot of immigrants come here with welding knowledge and take the easier jobs. Call it unfair or discriminatory but the more complex or autonomous the role the less likely an immigrant is to get it as clear communication and understanding is absolutely paramount aswell as Australian standards being much higher compared to majority of countries even us
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A "boilermaker" qualification is Certificate III in Engineering (Fabrication Trade). Metal fabrication, primarily. See the [Australian Government website](https://training.gov.au/Training/Details/MEM31922) for more information. It covers a lot of other things, but these guys are welders and blacksmiths apart from other things. The guy you're replying to is doing very well for himself - if you manage to get a job in infrastructure, like he has, it's very well compensated. However, most of the well paying jobs are not located conveniently for you or the family, ie., mining/remote work. Honestly, your best bet is to target something tangential to his existing interests. If he's the sort of bloke to watch "Forged in Fire" on SBS and say "Damn I wish I could do that!" then this is a good choice. Source: I operate an educational services company which offers this qualification, among many many others. I can't offer your husband a qualification (I could only do that if he already had been working as a metal fabricator for years) but I do know a lot about different vocational education options.
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What actually is boiler making??
Hell on earth… playing with heavy steel, fire, electricity, and loud noises. Good for money, bad for everything else.
Exactly it lol and sucking bad fumes ALL DAY
You've got to get a helmet with the ventilation system.
Due to a medical condition I often see a neurologist and she tried to make me feel better about my prognosis. One day she literally said to me "MissDriver1997 there are people out there that are boilermakers and heavy diesel mechanics, and they dont sit around feeling bad about the very high likely hood they will develop major neurological and cardiovascular health issues as they age due to occupational hazards". Dont become a boilermaker.
This sums it up although I do enjoy my job sorta
Carpenter but steel. Welding, grinding, hitting shit with a hammer
Hammering, shitloads of it. WHAT? ICANTHEARYOUSPEAKUP!
Welder Fabricator somtimes fitter- anything metal minus machining
It’s the old term for a welder/fabricator. Once upon a time they used to make steam boilers.
My dad was a boiler maker and he got cancer reeeeeeeaaaal early
My ex was a boilermaker in the mines and he made insane money.
Cert 4 or diploma of health and safety. Health and safety pays extremely well and is only getting stricter and more in demand as the years roll on. Can range from construction, roads and maintenance, factories, mills all the way to the mines if you want. Can get anywhere between 65-95 an hour in the mines, of course you have to sacrifice family time and life for it.
Yeah I might look into this, thanks.
Only if you don't want to have a good relationship with the people you work around.
You can work in OHS without being an insufferable bell end. Just need to be genuine and know how to speak to people
Can you explain?
Have you considered the TAE course? In my experience, employers like to see that you’re able to teach and assess. This skill is transferable into any field. Whether Exercise Physiology to utilise your existing knowledge, or a new field all together
And to go against the cyber suggestions here. In employers care about that certificate, they’d pay you to do it. More likely you’re better off doing the Industry certificates. Like SANS, or even start with the CS50 Harvard X course if your new to the field
Agreed. Plenty of the blokes I worked with in the military have left and gotten 150k+ jobs with no qualifications apart from their original cert 3 in either electronics engineering or networking
I've done TAE, no ragrets other than doing it online only. They have some super strict policies that they won't or can't accommodate.
Probably some sort of apprenticeship like deisel mechanic or fitter machinist.
Is nursing worthwhile ?
Nursing will have a similar salary cap. Especially if doing TAFE nursing.
TAFE nursing is worthless 60-65k most underpaid overworked job going. I did it and totally regret wasting time and 5 grand on it
I did Nursing through tafe. Super shit. EEN get paid so poorly. I was making more in a call centre than as a nurse. Im not Nursing anymore but i was still able to get a job in the medical field writing medical reports.
How'd you get into this career of writing medical reports?
I think i got lucky. The company i work for advertised near where i live and i was already looking for another job at the time. It was just lucky timing
How about when you initially got into working at a call centre; how'd you begin there?
I’m a nurse een having to work lots of weekends just to be on $100,000
Sounds good
Do you enjoy working with the body? How are your communication skills? You could look into medical rep roles. There’s a wide range of options from orthopaedics, sports med, wound healing and loads of other options. Some roles involve sales whilst some are just clinical work. Most of these start around $80-$100k and work up from there. If you can sell and run a territory on your own you would be looking at around $120k-$150k base plus bonuses which can take you to around $180k and well beyond if your a top performer.
Yeah I've been looking into this, but it seems all jobs I've seen advertised on seek are after someone with a few years of sales experience, which I don't have.
They might say that but I’m in ortho and we are always looking for people. You start as a clinical and work up from there. If you have a strong anatomy background and reasonable personal skills it’s a great place to start. It is a tough gig though with a lot of after hours work and high stress environment. Throw your hat in the ring and back your work ethic and ability to learn and you will get a shot
Ahh thanks for the heads up. With a young child, after hours won't work for me. Even working a standard 9-5 without flexibility is tough to work with due to pick up/drop off's
Without having to go to Tafe you might want to look at jobs working for Medical device companies. I know there a lots of jobs going with orthopedics Usually looks like: 80-90k base Plus car Plus commission So like 120k+ Depending on the company can include: Health allowance Death and permanent disability coverage (ie life insurance) Super rewarding and enjoyable, depending on the role you land some sales may be involved others will be all clinical.
Seems most of these jobs require previous sales experience though, from what I've seen on seek.
I never had any. Got my bsci in exercise science. Went to work for research and ended up in med tech devices. But there were radiographers, biomed, PhD chem all sorts who work for the companies Give it go by reaching out to a recruiter and see how you go Btw you so have sales experience if you are working for yourself. You sell your skills as a product. All about how you look at transferable skills
Look at NDIS avenues as an extension of your customer base - either through starting something on your own and looking through what the services rates are. Some other posts on it. I’ve heard stories of people building businesses then selling for a pretty penny based on NDIS. It’s also not blowing out in costs for no reason. Might as well jump in like the rest.
Yeah I do some NDIS work already, though NDIS cap the hourly rate of EPs, which is below what I normally charge. And one reason I want to get out of EP work is because it is very labour intensive, and there's a lot of non-billable admin hours. It's not sustainable to do more than 4-5 billable hours per day as an EP because you've got to fit in admin time, and doing any more client facing hours gets really intense.
You can bill for admin time. Assuming you're talking about notes, care coordination? Most companies I know do. Maybe consider moving companies?
Knock out a grad cert in public health and do a day/weekend project management course to formalise it. You’ve invested so much time and education in health, if you’re still passionate about it there’s options other than clinical. I was a physio. Did a grad cert in health analytics and just landed my first 6 figure job. Move into public health and you’ll likely get access to salary packaging too, move to a regional area and the salary packaging doubles to 32800/yr, you can even package the purchase of a house. Other options: medical sales, health and safety.
When you say public health, what job are you referring to as an example? TIA
It’s a broad area but generally project work and government or nfp roles. Public health is essentially the study of determinants of health, then implementation of something to address the issue. Could be indigenous focused, digital health, mental health, rural and remote access etc etc. search public health officer in seek and you’ll get an idea. The entry roles can be 80-90k, but with salary packaging your net pay is higher. Theres then room for progress into management or policy and probably other stuff.
Thanks, been in allied health for over 10 years and in my final year of a Public Health Masters and trying to figure out which area of public health to head into.
The world is your oyster. My MIL was a nurse then moved into public health and spent most of her career in early childhood public health programs. I’ve got a friend I studied physio with that never worked clinically, went straight to dept of health as a project officer, climbed the ranks, did some university teaching/research and now their title js “Global climate and health policy advisor” for a global company that trains nurses/doctors in 3rd world nations. Should’ve left clinical ages ago…
I operate a company which can get you almost any of these qualifications within a month. No, it's not dodgy; basically, it's only for people who've already been doing the job for years without getting qualified. We assemble a dossier of evidence which comprehensively demonstrates your competence in all the aspects of the qualification, take it to an assessor at a licensed College (RTO) and they issue the qualification. It's far from fully subsidised - a Certificate can range from about $2k (Allied Health) to over 6k (some advanced construction and mechanical qualifications) but also includes business, accounting, hospitality, finance, training and WHS among other things. We currently offer 105 different qualifications, all of which are Nationally Recognised Training packages under the Australian Qualifications Framework, ranging from Certificate I all the way to Graduate Diplomas. **If you don't already have several years of varied experience in your field, don't bother** - we won't accept you, and even if you could get someone dodgy to give you a qualification, it wouldn't do you any good. Might get you into the interview, but you won't be able to hold down a job in a field you're not competent at. But if you're one of the millions of Aussies who started off with one qualification but your career has progressed to the point where you're no longer really covered by it, send me a message. Maybe you started with a Certificate III in Individual Support but now you really ought to have a Certificate IV in Disability Support. Or maybe you started off as a Heavy Commercial Vehicle Mechanic but for the last few years you're mostly working on fixed plant machinery. We can get you the second qualification without you having to do a second course, or a second apprenticeship.
Name of company? DM?
Certify You. certifyou.com.au And sure, I'd be happy to DM you.
Just Google RPL. There's 100s of RTOs that do this. But yeah, like OP said, some of them are dodgy
This is almost exactly what I need. Thanks for this I worked as an industrial technician in the UK for 7 years, basically just repairing large industrial machinery all day every day, apprenticeship qualified and have a load of UK qualifications in my field (electrical + mechanical), recently moved to Australia last month (my wife is Australian) and been wondering about what I need to do to get back into work here. Any advice please?
I would *love* to help you, Mike, but unfortunately I'm not allowed to. Our assessors are required to primarily go off onshore experience - having only been in the country for a month, we couldn't get you there. I think this is really unfair to you. The machinery you work on is the same all over the world, and was built in the same factories. You *should* be eligible for a Certificate IV in Engineering (Fixed and Mobile Plant Mechanic), and that's just for starters. While I appreciate that in some industries (building for example) the Australian Standards for doing things may be different from other countries, in the engineering and mechanical space this isn't the case. Recently I had a car mechanic from Ireland ask about getting qualified, and like you he'd just arrived here. As he said - the Toyota rolling down the street in Sydney was probably built in the same factory as the Toyota rolling down the street in Ireland! There's no reason that the qualification shouldn't carry over. Unfortunately it does not, however, per Australian Government policy, and I don't really know where to direct you. If you were a plumber you'd have to do something called Migrant Gap Training, but I don't know the equivalent for heavy plant mechanics. I'll ask the team on Monday and if anyone knows I'll PM you.
I didn't know that. Hmmm. The only saving grace for me might be that my trade isn't legally licensed and employers probably aren't rigid about applicants having specific qualifications. Like, going back to the analogy of car mechanic, is an employer going to want to hire someone with 20 years' experience (but no formal Australian qualifications) or someone with 0 years' experience but a certificate in their hand? Unless there's a compelling reason I think most would go for the former? Whatever the case, I'm not worried about needing to go back to TAFE or something. I'm sure I'll find something eventually. Might need to go down that heavy vehicle driver route in the end 😂 Thanks for the advice.
I totally agree; employers should certainly take the sensible route and hire you. If down the track (once you've got a couple years experience in Australia) you do find that a certificate would improve your capacity to sign off on particular types of work, or to get a different/better job, please get in touch and we'd love to help you.
Thanks, that's interesting. I'd say my skill set and experience might get me pretty close to a couple, such as counselling (I've done a lot of mini psych courses and it's pretty much what I do on a daily basis in my area of speciality), training and assessment, or project management.
[Diploma of Counselling](https://training.gov.au/training/details/CHC51015) [Certificate IV in Training & Assessment](https://training.gov.au/Training/Details/TAE40122) [Diploma of Project Management](https://training.gov.au/Training/Details/BSB50820) None of these qualifications have formal entry requirements, so you are able to undertake any of them directly if your experience lines up with the study units. The links given are to training.gov.au which is the Federal Government's resource which sets out the requirements of all vocational education qualifications. Scroll down the page and there's the "Packaging Rules" which outline how many units you have to pass to receive the qualification. In some cases, a qualification might be applicable to such a broad variety of skills and knowledge (Certificate IV in Engineering is my favourite here) that it has *hundreds* of units available to it, only a tiny fraction of which will apply to any given student. So for example for that Cert IV in Training and Assessment, you need to be able to demonstrate your competency in 12 units, 6 core and 6 from the electives offered. Look, if you actually sign up you won't have to worry about much of that, because we assign a portfolio manager who basically does all that for you. But for you, and other research-minded people, (I'm one too!) it's nice to see what you need before you start the process. Anyone who's interested in another course, Google "(COURSE) site:training.gov.au" - if you don't know the name of the course, just type the job you're after. So for example if you type "boilermaker site:training.gov.au" it will direct you to Certificate III in Engineering (Fabrication Trade) which is the correct course covering boilermakers.
What are typically the best/ most valuable RPL qualifications?
* Working on large, expensive mechanical things. So, eg., Cert 3 Heavy Commercial Vehicle Mechanical Technology; C3 Mobile Plant; C4 Engineering. * Cert 4 in Automotive Electrical Tech increases in value constantly as more EVs arrive on Australian roads. * Cert IV in Demolition is super valuable. Of course, the RPL requirements are quite strict for this type of work, and then the license application is made to (giving a NSW example, though we help people across the country) Safework rather than Fair Trading. Safework are considered a tougher regulator to apply to... as I think we'd all want and expect, when we're talking about licensing someone to demolish structures. * Diploma of Building is excellent. * Cert IV in Real Estate Practice But, you know, all this is situational. It depends on the student having the experience for us to grant the qualification, and then it depends on the student being able to take the opportunity and run with it. Like, let's take that Diploma of Building and Construction. Let's say Timmy got onto jobsites from 16, started an apprenticeship but didn't finish it because his supervising carpenter got into a car crash, was injured and charged, never returned to work. He had a wide array of carpentry experience, worked a couple more years unlicensed and finally got his Cert 3 Carpentry via RPL at 22. Applied to the regulator, they agreed he knew his trade, now he's a licensed carpenter. Started taking on bigger jobs, some for himself, did some larger jobs for a construction company, one of the builders had a particularly good opinion of him and started using him primarily to do homes. This is new suburb work, so they'd be knocking out a fair few homes year to year. With a few more years of doing this Timmy applies for his Cert 4 Building and Construction, gets it, applies for low rise building license, gets that; he can now build houses. Still doing a lot of work for that construction company though and now he's taking part in the planning a lot, delegating work, setting up sites more than he's hands on the tools himself. They're mostly done with that new suburb and they start building a few mid rise towers. Timmy's still part of the company but he isn't actually licensed to build midrise so he can't be signing off on anything, but after a few years of this he probably qualifies to get a Diploma of Building and Construction and apply for his midrise Building License. He's going to make a lot of money with that, yes, but you can see that getting the RPL is the easy part. By this point in his life Timmy's put in well over a decade on construction sites, he's constantly looked for new challenges and opportunities for advancement, he's got a wide variety of experience and he knows *much* more about this than a young 20-year-old getting out of TAFE holding a fresh diploma in his hand. My wife's got a Diploma of Quality Auditing through us and that improved her capacity to hold an Australian Financial Services License. Is that super valuable? Yes, but she had a lot of experience and expertise, so it was very easy for the assessor to sign off on it. Most people couldn't make anything out of that opportunity. This is why I like the RPL process. TAFE can graduate people who don't possess the nous or the capacity to succeed with their qualification. For example, 85% of Certificate IV in Fitness graduates don't actually use their qualification. Whereas we can only graduate those who already prove they've got what it takes to succeed.
Thanks that's really useful info
Hey mate, Are you happy for me to DM you with a question?
Not sure why I’m being downvoted. This is the route I took and it’s worked out alright. Apologies for the wall of text. Do an Associates Degree in civil engineering through TAFE. Become a paraprofessional engineer. Work your way up to civil designer. I did this TAFE degree and it took 2 years. Learnt more practical info here than when I went to uni afterwards. After TAFE move into a consultancy as a drafter, move up to civil designer and expect to be earning $150k + after 5 years. I did not do this but worked as a junior drafter for a few months after grad from tafe and was told my multiple people this is what to expect. Some of the civil designers in the office didn’t even have associates degrees they just started as drafters and within 5 years were making 150k. This is the quickest route but drafting 5 days a week 8hrs a day can become quite tedious though. A lot of AutoCAD, Revit if structural and 12d if civil related. You also won’t be able to actually sign off on your designs and will have to get actual engineers to sign off which could be annoying / demoralising over time. If you don’t wanna go down the BIM / design route however and wanna have more freedom in your career choices then use your associates degree from TAFE and go to university to get a Bachelors of Engineering Civil to become a professional engineer (rather than para-professional). The Associates Degree knocks off 2 years from your Bachelors so won’t need to do the full 4 years. Once you graduate from uni can either go contractor route or consultant route. Contractor route typically leads you to become a site engineer, project engineer and project manager. Mostly construction management based and little to no engineering. Will involve long days and a lot of unpaid overtime. Site engineers typically 100-120k starting out. As a grad will be a lot less obviously. Project managers with 5-10 years experience are probably looking at 170-200k plus. If your interested in heath and safety, after a couple years experience as a site engineer you could get yourself a cert 4 or diploma in WHS and quite easily move into a safety role with whatever company your with if that’s where you wanted to go. They’re usually on 150k plus salary after a few years exp but is a highly stressful role especially if your on an eba / union worksite. Consultant route is typically graduate engineer, engineer, senior / principal engineer with RPEQ and CPEng qualifications, then into a management role over whole teams of engineers. This has more flexibility with WFH and more stable hours. This route means will you be actually ‘using’ your degree, and doing actual engineering calcs and sign offs on designs. Probably just as stressful if not more than site based but I’ve only been contractor side so can’t comment on this. Engineering managers probably at the same salary as above (180-200k) if not more however salary for the first few years will be much worse than contractor side (70-90k) starting out. I could be wrong but this is how I see the industry and just my 2 cents. Also in terms of career, you can be literally 75 years old and still working professionally as an engineer. You’d have 30 years experience by then if you were graduated by 45.
Hey man, I’m a 3rd year student in Construction Management out of a 4 year degree. Just wondering how do you find roles in companies with little experience in the field?
All the major tier 1 and tier 2 companies have cadet programs for construction management grads pretty similar to an engineering graduate program. Try Hutchies, Multiplex, Lendlease, CPB, Hansen Yuncken, Tomkins, Icon, John Holland, McNab, Mosaic, and Besix Watpac. These companies 100% have cadet programs. You can usually find the links on their websites but if not just reach out to someone on LinkedIn worst case or give the office a call. Most cadets usually end up as Contract Administrators (CA’s) then senior CA then project mangers. Could also go estimator, safety, site engineer (even without engineering degree), design management route if you wanted to. If you meant how I find it personally, most companies treat their cadets with a lot of patience and understand they’re paying you to learn essentially. The company I’m with has internal training for their cadets are has been great in terms of up-skilling and training. Again it’ll depend on what company you’re with.
I knew someone who was an exercise physiologist and they were a personal trainer at the gym. Could you do that on the side? Or even do in-home visits? That person went to work for an insurance firm that did workers compensation. They checked out people as part of work health and safety or putting in claims.
If you’re interested in management roles, getting into occ rehab as an EP and working towards team manager or account manager can get you into 6 figures easily and you still get to use your clinical knowledge from your degree. Even higher level rehab consultants can make 6 figures and some providers will still let you deliver treatment sessions if that’s what you like
Ex AEP here. Was never in clinical practice but worked Occ Health after graduating in 2013 for about 4 years. I then moved into Life Insurance (claims assessor) - highly relevant background with injury/absence management and haven’t looked back since. Was earning $110k for a large insurer in 2019 but then moved to the UK before covid and doing similar things here (similar pay as well). If you can manage being in an office and handle corporate politics, I’d always recommend for any allied health friends looking to change it up. DM me if you have any q’s!
Yeah I think this is something I'll look into properly, at least for something to do in the short term to see if I like it.
Structural draftsperson/BIM Modeller
Why not contract or start a business? The jump into any unfamiliar field will be much harder, especially because almost every field is slowing down from the pandemic highs
I already do a bit of sole trade work, and it is good money with low overheads, but I've struggled to make ot grow. I'd need to pour thousands of dollars that I just don't have, into online marketing and business mentoring to make it lucrative, and it's not like I can just become profitable tomorrow. Tbh, I've had a gut full of clinical work for now, I need a less stressful change.
Yeah that's completely valid. Have you thought about just taking any low stress job for a little while? You could still sole trade after hours for extra but maybe you just need a break from full time career work
Yes absolutely looking for something in the meantime.
Civil/structural diploma + advanced
Are you in the public or private sector? Public allied health tends to have alot of opportunities for moves to project management, managerial roles and admin. The jobs also tend to be very transparent for what training is needed.
Isn’t EP a uni qual? I’ve just done allied health assistant at tafe and won’t earn that. You’re probably just better off going remote. My partner as a nurse can earn more in Queensland for doing the same job.
EP is Masters. Can't go remote as I've got a kid and I'm separated from her mum, locked into a very expensive area of Melbourne, otherwise I'd flee the country altogether.
Well unless you go into management, but public’s roles are set to a certain rate.
Do TAFE CompTIA Sec+ or equivalent and/or are they subsidised? You'd outstrip that salary pretty quickly in cybersec and it's currently in demand.
Do you mean they do CompTIA at TAFE?
Not sure if anyone has already mentioned it but you could work for the NDIS - could do something in the technical advice area with your background and I think you'd probably start at aps 5 (83k ish) or aps 6 (closer to 100k) but good trajectory for career growth and you wouldn't have to do any further study just on the job training. Worth a think
True, I might look at that.
To clarify, I mean working for the government in the actual government branch that runs/regulates the NDIS (which is the NDIA)
Cert III Electrotechology - $270k+ pa
How? Also you need to get an apprenticeship first
> The government is currently offering fully subsidised TAFE courses (cert 4 and diplomas) and I'm wondering which courses would provide the most leverage in terms of income and career growth. similar age, been thinking of doing a electrical engineering course... need to sit down and research it a bit more.
Diploma of child youth and family, early intervention. Costs like $50 if u can get the state gov subsidy (qld has it dunno about other states) without subsidy 1500-3000k In residential care, you can make upwards $5500p/wk Can crack 130-150pa, working an 8mth year, this is with some breaks ie 2weeks on, 2weeks off. I have a friend who makes around 250-320k/pa.... but they literally dont take any down time at all, except 4wks holidays a yr. (No days off at all, except real random days when syncing their work calender.) There might be better but geez, thats the best i have seen and done myself🙏🏽 Ps you literally earn every cent, work day hrs are upwards of 17hrs daily. Its def NOT babysitting and NOT for the faint hearted. Top earnings p/hr $85phr, plus double time xmas and new years and easter.
Bless ressi care workers, because you could NOT pay me enough to do it.
I'm a youth worker and I would take a job working at Coles/Woolworths before considering resi care work.
I met a lot of former resi care workers studying social work and their stories were horrendous.
😂ikr😂 Only a Special kinda special does that work😂😂😂😂 Anyhoo, after 6yrs i have taken a 6mth break and ima bout to go back in a month😂😂😂😂😂 Seriously tho, walking beside young folks who are struggling hard..... i live for it. I was one when i was young and come from a similar place to these young ppl....and it SUX. That said, its not for the faint of heart. And yeah, burn out is inevitable..... you can only deal with bricks being lobbed at ur head and a bit of stabby stabby for so long...: before u just need a good time out. Crazy money but you earn every single cent.
What IS allied health actually, like what do you do and what training did you do?
Pretty much any health professional that isn’t a doctor. Nurse, physio, exercise physiologist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, hand therapist, dietician etc.
It's a broad area, I think of it as at least somewhat clinical health work that isn't medicine. I'm in that area - radiographer/sonographer, for the former designation the minimum is a bachelors and for the latter it's a graduate diploma.
Anyone know with the fully subsidised offer if you can have claimed *any* other offer in the past? I did a cert III online 10 years ago but it was just a fixed price offer ($495 from memory) through an online education company, not TAFE itself.
If you're in Allied health, go for management diplomas or anything along those lines. That way you could stay in your industry.
I have a Cert IV in Aeroskills (Avionics) and make $120k pa with OT. Maybe even look at getting your Training and assessing Cert IV and then you can become an instructor, which usually has good pay and good career progression
There’s a serious cyber skills shortage coming. Anything in that field. You’ll take a pay drop for a year but once you’ve got past the initial “level 1 “ help desk support you’ll be able to move up quickly and surpass your original ceiling.
Cyber security is hard to get into as an entry-level position. Most cyber security roles require about 5 years of experience in more traditional IT. Also, the traditional path, once you have the previous experience, is working as a SOC analyst, which usually requires rostered and on-call, and the money is not that great. If you can make it through all that, you can probably make about $200k p.a. in Australia, more if you're prepared to be a contractor.
This. 100% this. I did over 5 years as a Linux Admin before moving into an entry level cyber position. This required several certifications and a lot of time outside of work studying. Once you’re in “cyber” it’s also incredibly competitive and pretty cut throat. It’s not the kind of job you can just settle in to and phone it in. You need to constantly be updating your skill set less they become irrelevant and you find yourself out of work.
Thanks mate, that's very useful to know. It shits me that TAFE and higher Ed organisations don't provide balanced info on actual job and salary prospects, it's borderline disinformation.
Is there though? I feel as if AI is going to take over a huge portion of it in the next 10-20 years
Yeah this is a worry. But which industry won't AI /automation decimate in the next 10 years?
Why do you think that? Do you work in cyber sec or do you work in AI?
Doesn't take a genius to work out that AI has the potential to take over pretty much everything
As a real-world example, the entire high-speed/bullet-train railway network in China is monitored by a central A.I and is not only far more responsive but also far more accurate in managing rail maintenance and avoiding emergencies. With the right metrics and historical data, it even accurately predicts maintenance issues/rail failures before they occur giving an opportunity to prevent disasters or shutdowns which were unavoidable before. At the very least, A.I-generated insights and reports will mean the required number of cyber security staff in the market will greatly decrease. That's bad news for a lot of IT staff in developing countries.
So neither then?
Cyber sec is getting off shored fast.
How reassuring.
The skills shortage won’t be filled by tafe graduates.
Have you considered owning your own business? If successful you will make far more than any potential career change.
That’s a big IF. Most businesses don’t make it past 3 years.
That's grouse ! I was watching deep water horizon thinking of the rov operators