How to Get an Australian Working Holiday Visa

Question: Why is the Aussie Working Holiday visa so good? Phillip Oultram: Yeah, it’s great to use an Australian working visa because you get to live like—that’s an Australian lifestyle so you really get integrated with that and I would say it’s really good. Naomi Jackson: I would encourage people to come to Australia where you work. You can still do a lot while—in Australia while you work. They’ll ask you to stay a bit longer really, and you know, why would you not want to stay here longer? Charlie Read: Before I came out, I gave myself a lot of time, which I'm glad I did. I gave myself a whole year whereas I know a few people who only go three months and I think you need a full year because I'm now going for my second and I'm staying. I don’t want to go home. I know a lot of people that they’ve done their three months and it just wasn’t enough to get the full experience. And especially when you come out, you do trips and you don’t realized how fast your money goes when it’s not coming in. So I think I got my main—I feel that I didn’t want to miss out on things and I wanted to stay here for as long as I possibly could. Question: How easy is it to apply? Sophie Morris: We applied through a website and I apologize I can't even remember what it was called, but it was something like workingvisa.com or something like that. I mean if you just Google the Australia Holiday Working visa, I'm sure it would be the first site to come up and all we had to do was literally type in our details, type in the kind of thing we were interested in, how long we’d need it for, and the company sorted everything for us. And I think it was 60 or 70 pounds that they paid for and that included the visa at the end of it. Phillip Oultram: It’s really easy to get a working holiday visa. Basically what we did was apply to a company called Real Gap and they gave us our working holiday visa. We paid the money and they give us our working holiday visa, the Medicare and stuff like that. They sorted everything out for us. You have to pay them obviously for it but yeah, it was all done and literally just posted to me, so yeah, happy days. Dom Ladd: We went for a travel company in England and we paid like a certain amount and they sorted our visa, our traveling insurance, and it was all done in about a week’s time. Naomi Jackson: I found getting a working holiday visa a lot easier than I expected. I just went to the travel agent they basically sorted it out for me. It was also a lot less expensive. There’s a reason they’re budgeting for it. Question: How do I find work? Naomi Jackson: I've had a lot of jobs before. I'm traveling, in the catering industry. And I found the best place is just to go into a restaurant and I will ask the catering managers, a mix of people if they have time to book. If I've got work, you go in and ask them. Phillip Oultram: We stayed in Sydney for a while and headed up to Queensland and yeah, we found work straightaway but it also depends on what time of year you're looking at. So if you go early in the year, everyone goes to Sydney for New Year or Christmas and stuff, so the best thing to do is avoid that for work. Dom Ladd: We found work for—they normally have a good job club and they can normally set you up for a few job contacts, so we found work that way.