jobs

Finding a new job or info on how to join an upcoming startup in Australia can be difficult as there’s no one place to discover opportunities. Luckily, we’ve listed a few places below to kick-off your search.

The Australian startup community has really grown in the past few years – in fact nearly all of the coworking spaces, accelerators and meetups you see today didn’t exist pre-2011. (We remember heading along to Silicon Beach Drinks when there were just five people there!) Funding has also come on a lot but most startups are still poorly resourced or slowly bootstrapping so employment opportunities (well, the paid kind) are limited.

Many US companies are now going international and localising city-by-city in Australia. Uber, Etsy, Yammer, Yelp, oDesk, Airbnb, General Assembly, Stripe and Twitter have all recently set-up shop here and are often looking for talent. However, if you are making the shift from corporate to startup, we recommended getting a solid taste of startup life and going in at the early-stage. This way, you can make a bigger impact, have more responsibility and grow with the company (or see it fail, which is arguably a better experience to have).

One of the downsides of taking a startup job in Australia is that company regulations and structure often means it’s harder to allocate stock to employees. Some startups here won’t even put equity on the table. Salaries can also vary from being globally competitive to barely offering a living wage. The other elephant in the room is the visa situation – Australia can be strict so you’ll need to research the best pathway for you.

With all this in mind, check out our handy guide on how to discover startup jobs in Oz:

1) The Silicon Beach Jobs Board

This is a community-led initiative and is the most specific site for startup jobs in Oz. It has lots of promise but unfortunately doesn’t get updated too much. Often Sydney-centric, there are full-time, part-time and casual opps on offer. Don’t forget to check out the Google Group for jobs posted directly there too.

2) City-specific mailing lists

Many community groups and meetup organisers maintain a mailing list for announcements to their communities. In these (somewhat sporadic) updates, they regularly include new roles. Lean Startup Melbourne, Silicon Beach Drinks and Fishburners are some examples.

3) Accelerators

Accelerators can be the breeding ground of startups that are looking for funding. Startmate, AngelCube and BlueChilli are a few suggestions in Australia to look out for – check out the companies in each batch and ping some of the founders with an intro and your background. When the time is right to scale their team, you’ll have already built a relationship with them. Check out a full list of more incubators and accelerators here.

4) VC firms

Similar to the above, contacting venture capital firms directly and asking if their portfolio companies have any jobs going can be effective. This is also key for senior hires and if you’re thinking about moving countries, since VCs are dealing with the most well-funded tech startups in Australia. Southern Cross, Starfish, Blackbird Ventures and the local angel networks are worth checking out.

5) AngelList

AngelList is the best site to search for startup jobs in the US. It’s also doing nicely in Australia. The key is using the filters to refine your search by location. Even if startups aren’t hiring, here’ll you’ll find a good signal of who’s strong in each city. For instance https://angel.co/melbourne will deliver you a ranked list in Melbourne.

6) LinkedIn

LinkedIn is still an odd mix in Australia in that you’ll have some solid roles advertised here but it’s not that comprehensive. SEEK is still the leading job board but it’s become very noisy and rather broken in referring amazing talent. Actively search for jobs on  LinkedIn but also follow companies to get their news and openings in your news feed.

7) Offline 

There’s nothing like word of mouth for getting your next job. Here’s a great article on the power of weak ties in your network. But where to start? Check out many of the local events and coworking spaces to get out there and start meeting people. If you’re not yet on the ground, do some research and then start reaching out to people via Twitter and email.

“Jobs that people heard about via personal contacts were best of all. But when people got these word-of-mouth jobs, they most often came via a weak tie.”

8) The Fetch

And, of course, if you want all of the above curated in one weekly email digest, sign up to The Fetch – you can also submit your roles to us via email (contact details.) 🙂

So, where else do you recommend?

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Image credit: Kasia Kaczmarek

About our contributor // Kate Kendall is the founder and CEO of The Fetch. She regularly blogs about startup life and helps businesses understand the role of community. Follow her on Twitter via @katekendall.