Living the Dream - Chris' testimonial

I’ve been living and working in Australia for the past three years in sales and marketing executive recruitment and joined Kelly Executive in June 2009.   It’s been a fantastic experience, and my plans have completely changed; going from a two year working holiday to a permanent career and lifestyle move. My life in Manchester changed over night when I discovered that the company I was working for decided to close our office. With no job, I responded to an e-mail asking for recruiters to move to Australia. 24 hours later, I had five interviews lined up.  I took a real leap of faith and it’s the best decision I ever made. Six weeks later my girlfriend and I were on a plane to Sydney.

The economy here is far more robust than the US or Europe and I have found the job market has remained relatively strong compared to my ex-colleagues back in the UK.

Sydney is an outdoors/ party town with something for everyone. Coming from Manchester, it’s certainly nice to be able to leave work and go to the beach! Naturally, there are times when we have both been homesick, but Australia lives up to it’s reputation of being a very friendly place and it’s very easy to build a circle of friends, especially given the amount of Brits out here who are all in the same situation as you.

My advice to any recruiter thinking about making a move is not to worry about what you’re leaving behind.  If I had worried about leaving my clients and candidate base behind, I would have never left Manchester and would never have had the opportunity to live and work in another part of the world.

Executive recruitment is hard work regardless where you live, but the returns for your efforts here are so much more lucrative and the lifestyle and work/ life balance is everything I hoped it would be.