Hire a migrant. Increase productivity.

Information held on this web site is not intended to be migration advice for employers. Employers who need advice should consult a professional migration consultant. Refer to the legal page to continue and browse this site.

What’s involved in hiring a migrant? Less than you may think.

We don’t agree with most recruiters who automatically refuse to consider a migrant for an advertised position. This flies in the face of their own industry problems, as one of the recruiting industry’s biggest complaints is they can’t seem to find enough good candidates!

With labour supply being scarce as it is, and candidate quality falling with rising wages as it becomes an employee’s market, we think migrants will more than adequately meet employment criteria, if the recruiter or employer looked at their whole skills and personal strengths.

Where to get started? It depends on what needs to come first - the job or the visa.

Some candidates require a job offer before a visa or Government sponsorship can be secured, and others already have a visa (approved or waiting decision), are looking for work and can start work quickly.

For the employer, the speed with which you can recruit the migrant may depend on what you are prepared to offer the employee financially or in the broader terms of employment.

Some of the faster processed visas may require higher employer undertakings to cover medical costs, repatriation etc, and other visas require nothing more than an offer of employment. Some visas have a minimum salary requirement, others are more open to negotiation there. More information about visa and sponsorship undertakings can be found here.

So the first decision is: how quickly do you want to fill the position?

The second decision is: are you prepared to trade anything off in terms of worker skills, time or money in order to meet your recruitment deadline?

Thirdly: are you better off to recruit the right skills and personality and just bide your time to wait for visa grant or employee arrival? This might also carry less underwriting of various specified costs.

We’re not going to coach you about how to recruit a general applicant, rather we are trying to encourage employers to recognise that migrant workers bring different needs to the negotiating table.

Temporary visas are usually less attractive to overseas workers who are giving up good jobs, career networks and family time plus incurring significant financial costs to come to Australia. They endure these sacrifices because they are looking to the future, both their own and their children’s.

Although many will settle for a temporary visa sponsorship, we think “settle” is the wrong word, as many migrants find temporary visas to be “unsettling”.

Why? It depends on the needs of the migrant, and family security has a lot to do with it, perhaps more so than for local employees who have local support networks and access to welfare payments.

Furthermore, temporary visa holders may be precluded from buying the house they want, or as a new arrival may find it more difficult to get credit to buy a car or take out a mortgage. They also have to deal with the higher cost of school and university fees in some States that do not provide “free” education for children.

This really starts to show the level of commitment and ambition that migrants need to bring with them to be able to settle well. All they need is for the employer to understand this - it’s not only about salary, it’s also about security, settling in, social support, tolerance, open communication and adjustment.

That said, a temporary visa may be the only way, or fastest way, to get your new employee.

As an employer you may be offering a tidy salary (by local standards) of say $50,000, and the migrant then has to compulsorily pay for medical insurance, university fees, higher interest rates on “low doc” loans (no credit history here!) etc.

Where employers have a choice as to what sponsored visa they choose to support, we advocate negotiating the choice of sponsorship arrangement with the migrant, working out the combination of ‘most manageable risk’ for you and ‘greatest motivation’ for your future employee.

Equally important, as an employer you may be able to strengthen your negotiating position in regard to salary and other overheads where you offer the worker greater personal benefits that come through offering a different sponsored visa.

You will find many migrants willing to work out an agreement, as the clear majority of migrants are deeply appreciative of the start they are being given by you and are highly unlikely to do anything to jeopardise their employment.

Many have paid significant sums of money to migrate to Australia, such as:

• Visas charges - $1,845 approximately depending on the visa
• Medical tests - $300 each
• English language test - $300
• Skills assessment - $300 to $2,000
• Migration consultant fees - $3,000
• Airfare for two, one way - $2,500
• Household removals - $10,000
• New household effects - $5,000
• Housing rental and utility bonds - $2,000

This would indicate to you that migrants make a serious financial commitment in order to enjoy the Australian lifestyle, around $25,000.

The way forward now is to send in your job vacancy so we can assess our ability to find someone skilled enough for your work needs. The second step is to decide if and how you will sponsor a worker as some visas have salary conditions, hourly minimums and other requirements that can simplify or complicate the employment process. It’s just a matter of working out the choices, looking at the pros and cons, and making a decision.

This minimises the time it will take us to find an existing migrant and present you with their profile as it allows us to market your vacancy around the world. Both our own office and staff in our agent partners businesses will be filtering out applicants to find candidates who can meet your requirements for skills level, start time, English language etc. All you need to do is list your vacancy with us, and we’ll set about searching the world for your next worker, and we’re not exaggerating!

Please note, on some visas giving an undertaking as employer can greatly accelerate the time when your worker will be available to you.

Click here for information about the different visa types you may be able to support.

These are:

Visa Name	Area available	Notes
Employer Nominated Scheme	All of Australia	Sponsorship for 3 years, employer carries obligations, occupation must be on ENSOL
Regional Skilled Migration Scheme	Non-metroplitan areas, but includes Adelaide	No employer obligations, most occupations down to ASCO 4, can lead to PR
457 Work Permit	All of Australia	No natural path to PR for worker, needs other visa, employer carries obligations
Skilled Regional Sponsored (mostly IT occupations)	Non-metroplitan areas but includes Adelaide, ACT not participating	Can lead to PR, lesser English, occupation on State SOL

If you can’t find a suitable candidate in our schedule of clients on hand, we can still help you in a timely manner.

At Hire A Migrant, one of our key assets is a schedule of trusted migration agents that we have developed around the world and been working with since 1998. We also have good relationships with State Government and other sponsoring agencies.

This also streamlines the processes and minimises risks involved in advertising a job through an overseas network. (Did you know that in some countries an overseas job vacancy may be auctioned to the highest bidder, not necessarily the most skilled!)

If your job details are not clear or structured properly for the sponsorship you wish to offer, we may ask you to contact a migration agent, City council migration specialist or nearest Regional Outreach Officer from DIAC and reformat the conditions. Refer to MARA for details of other migration agents.

Once you decide to find out who is available for hire now or want to get your vacancy advertised overseas, please contact us.

There is no fee for this employee finding service to employers.

This site is not intended for use by either migrants or sponsors who are directly in the act of sponsoring a future employe. It is a condition of use of this site that all users acknowledge that they are not seeking migration advice for themselves as migrant or to act as sponsor of a future worker. For full legal entitlement and disclaimer for use please click here (c) Hire A Migrant Pty Ltd ACN 124 164 138 unless otherwise attributed.