What you need before applying
Applying without these things costs you weeks. An Australian employer hiring a backpacker expects everything to be ready, because they have ten other applications on their desk.
A tax number
The Tax File Number is free to apply for on the ATO website, once you are in the country. Without it, your employer withholds tax at the highest rate. You apply online and the number usually arrives in under four weeks.
An Australian bank account
Wages are paid by bank transfer, almost never in cash. An account can often be opened online from abroad, a few weeks before you leave, and is activated on arrival with your passport.
A local phone number
Recruiters call, they do not write. An Australian number changes everything: a foreign number on an application signals someone who has just arrived and will leave soon.
A resume, not a French CV
No photo, no date of birth, no family status. Two pages are accepted. It ends with references who can be reached, with their phone numbers. A French style CV with a photo is often rejected without being read.
The RSA for bars
The Responsible Service of Alcohol is compulsory to serve alcohol. It is done online or in a classroom depending on the state, and it is issued state by state: the New South Wales one is not necessarily valid in Queensland.
The White Card for construction
No building site is accessible without it. It is a short safety course, compulsory across the country, to take before you even start applying.
The national minimum wage is published and updated every year by the Fair Work Ombudsman. It is the reference to check before accepting an offer: an employer offering clearly less is breaking the law, and those days do not count towards the 88 days.
Casual contracts, the most common among backpackers, offer no paid leave or notice, but they are compensated by an hourly loading, the casual loading. A casual hourly rate is therefore not comparable with a permanent rate.
The three general job sites
If you only installed three, these are the ones. They cover every industry and every city, and most declared jobs go through them.
Seek
The biggest jobs board in the country. The reference for declared jobs, with precise filters by city and contract type.
Indeed Australia
Seek's direct competitor. Lots of listings in hospitality, and one click applications.
Gumtree
Australia's classifieds site. Lots of informal jobs, often posted by bosses who never use Seek.
Jora
An aggregator that pulls listings from several sites at once, including lots of seasonal work in regional areas.
Backpacker groups by city are a real parallel jobs board. It is also where warnings about employers to avoid get shared.
Only useful if you are aiming for a skilled job in your field. Useless for seasonal or hospitality work.
The sites designed for backpackers
Their advantage is simple: the employers who post there know they are hiring Working Holiday visa holders. Nobody will ask you why you can only stay six months with the same boss.
- Backpacker Job Board is the best known. It filters directly by jobs eligible for the second visa, which saves a huge amount of time.
- Workforce Australia is the public jobs board. Free, ad free, it took over the harvest jobs after the end of the Harvest Trail.
- Adzuna aggregates several sources and gives an idea of the average salary per job, which helps spot an abnormally low offer.
Farm work and the 88 days
A point many French guides have not corrected yet: Harvest Trail Services and the Harvest Trail Information Service ended on 30 June 2024. The free phone line and the dedicated website no longer work. Harvest jobs have moved to the Workforce Australia jobs board.
Before you leave to pick anything, check that the postcode and the industry are on the immigration Specified work page. That is what counts, not the farmer's word.
The reality on the ground has been the same for twenty years: the best jobs are found by phone and by turning up in person, not through online forms. A season is prepared by calling the farms in the region three to four weeks before the harvest starts.
A word on contractors, the middlemen who recruit for several farms. Some are serious, others charge for accommodation and transport at rates that swallow half your wages. Always ask for the hourly rate, how you will be paid and the cost of accommodation before getting in the van.
The 88 days in detail: industries, areas, counting and the traps that cancel everything.
Hospitality
It is the industry that hires fastest when you arrive in a city, especially with an RSA in your pocket. In the north and in very remote areas, these jobs can also count towards the second visa.
- Barcats specialises in bars, cafés and restaurants, with a video profile instead of a classic resume.
- The big hotel groups recruit directly on their own websites. Accor, IHG and the holiday park chains often post jobs with accommodation in regional areas.
- Regional tourist offices, especially in tropical Queensland, run their own seasonal job pages.
Construction, mining and energy
These are the best paid industries open to working holiday makers, and the ones where going through a recruitment agency is the norm rather than the exception. The White Card is the absolute minimum, other tickets are required depending on the job.
- Hays, Randstad and Chandler Macleod cover every industry, from the office to the building site.
- WorkPac is very present in mining and big projects, with lots of fly in fly out jobs.
Watch out for the fly in fly out rhythm: two weeks on site, one week off. Wages are high, but the camp is isolated and contracts often end without notice.
Odd jobs and freelancing
Useful to top up an income, rarely enough to live on. None of these jobs count towards the 88 days.
Airtasker
One off tasks posted by individuals: moving, assembling furniture, cleaning, gardening. You set your price.
Trusted Housesitters
Looking after a house and its pets in exchange for accommodation. Not a salary, but no rent for several weeks.
Working for accommodation
A few hours a day in exchange for a bed and meals. It is a good way to stretch a budget between two contracts, and a very bad way to complete the 88 days: volunteer work does not count, except in the very specific case of recovery work after a declared natural disaster.
- Workaway covers all kinds of hosts, from farms to hostels and families.
- WWOOF Australia is limited to organic farms.
- HelpX is the oldest of the three, with a dated interface but lots of Australian hosts.
The method that really works
- Before you leaveOpen the bank account, prepare your resume in the Australian format, pick the region and season that match what you want to do.
- The first three daysAustralian SIM card, Tax File Number application, and RSA or White Card depending on the industry you are aiming for. These three steps decide everything else.
- The first weekApply online in the morning, go round the businesses with your resume in the afternoon. In hospitality, turning up in person is still what works best.
- For farm workCall the farms three to four weeks before the harvest starts, region by region. The phone beats the online form in almost every case.
- For every offerCheck the hourly rate against the minimum published by Fair Work, insist on payslips, and refuse any cash payment if you plan to complete your 88 days.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need a tax number before applying?
No, but you should apply for it as soon as you arrive. Without a Tax File Number, your employer withholds tax at the highest rate. The application is free on the ATO website and the number usually arrives in under four weeks.
Does the Harvest Trail service still exist?
No. Harvest Trail Services and the Harvest Trail Information Service ended on 30 June 2024. Harvest jobs are now posted on the Workforce Australia jobs board, the Australian public service.
Which certificate do you need to work in a bar?
The RSA, for Responsible Service of Alcohol. It is done online or in person depending on the state, and it is issued state by state: the New South Wales one is not necessarily valid in Queensland.
Does a French CV work in Australia?
No. An Australian resume has no photo, no date of birth and no family status, it can run to two pages and it ends with references who can be reached. A French style CV with a photo is often rejected straight away.
How long can you stay with the same employer?
Six months as a general rule on a Working Holiday visa. Some exceptions exist depending on the industry and region, they are detailed on the official visa page.
Shall we prepare your working holiday together?
Everything written here is free and detailed. But between reading the steps and putting your own application together, there is a step that many people take weeks to make.
I can do it with you: the visa application and its timeline, choosing your insurance, your starting budget, the first days' paperwork and the strategy for finding a job. We start from your departure date and what you have already done.
One single package, built around your departure, with a price decided after a first call. That call is free and commits you to nothing.
The resources to prepare in advance
You find a job all the faster when everything else is already in place. These three pages cover what to prepare before you even start looking.
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