Hi guys, Jordan here. I thought I would do a video on how to get a job in the Australian public service so the federal government, rather than the state government, because state government do a little bit differently and but the federal government is obviously the federal government all over Australia. So I think the first video I'll do the easy way and that is through contracting versus I'll probably do another video of the hard way like a permanent public service job. Just a bit of background on me I've been a contractor as well as a permanent Australian public servant in the federal government and the work that I've been doing is incredibly rewarding and I think it's pretty good thing to do to work for the federal government. You can do some really good stuff. You can do some boring stuff I'm sure but you know it's your own personal preference as to what you do. So I started working for the government pretty much straight out of uni so my advice will be pretty tailored to that situation so but it is applicable more broadly so yes so the easiest way to get a job in the public service, the Australian public service is through contracting so through contracting company where you don't actually work for the government, you work for a private company who kind of sells your services to the government. This is due to a number of reasons. The Australian public servant has what's called staffing caps or average staffing levels and these cannot be, you cannot go above them in terms of permanent employees but there's a much more flexibility in terms of the amount of contractors you can hire because with contracting you can be fired very easily and you can be hired very easily. Just before you think about working for the government depending on the agency or department you will need a security clearance or you may not but yet certain departments require security clearances and certain levels of security clearances that are quite invasive they ask a lot of questions and all work for the public service requires a national police check so that can take some time so when you apply and if you are successful for example pending your police check if you have a common name like John Smith your name is probably going to ping on a lot of different police stations for example so your police check will take longer if you have a very unique name your police check will be very quick because there's probably not as many records that come up so you know that's great if you have previous convictions that's going to be a problem you can work for the government I believe with a conviction but it will depend so I have some friends who had convictions for minor traffic offenses their police check took longer but ultimately they were fine to work for the government so it depends I don't know much about that so you know do what you want with that information if you probably like a career criminal maybe not the job for you anyway so when you start your search it's important to note that most of the contracting jobs will be available in Canberra so it's best that you're open to moving there Canberra is a great city I made a video on it as well I love Canberra I live in Melbourne at the moment but I would absolutely move back to Canberra if required so yep keep that in mind it's going to be a lot easier for you to start in the public service if you're in Canberra that's for sure so the first thing you should do is to make your resume really nice so you can you know look up some YouTube videos on that get all your experience out there and then submit them to the big recruitment companies so that's your haze and your randstad that have kind of a national presence and then look at the very small recruitment companies in Canberra so or actually more national ones as well so you've got like Karlka and then there's some very niche ones in Canberra I won't name a few because I've worked for them and that would probably be leading you astray but yeah there's if you look up you know recruitment agency Canberra there'll be a bunch that come up and they're probably the best to go for otherwise if you do the same in your city so not Canberra that's also really good usually there's a phone number you can chat to a person be like hey I'm interested in working in federal gov who do you who do you recommend I speak to and then they'll give you an email address or a phone number and then usually in these recruitment companies there'll be a like a policy contact or a government contact or a you know private sector I mean public sector contact and that's who you speak to and that'll be the easiest way but you can also do it via seek so if you go and seek you choose the category government and defense and then in the keywords you don't even have to do anything and then choose the city that you're in all Canberra Canberra is definitely the best so I was living in Sydney and applied for a job in Canberra and moved down but you can just click there and then look for look for the job listings look for the companies rather than the actual job that are listing the thing so if it's an actual department that's listing the job or an agency don't apply through there because the process is much longer and that's a for a permanent position usually or a non-ongoing position look for a look for an offering that looks like it's being offered by a private company but is clearly like a federal government job usually they won't list the agency so they'll say federal government opportunity and then you have to call them to find out that's so that they can get your information and then you know give your information to other federal government clients so it's really it works out well for you it also works out well for them but yeah that's the easiest way to get a job if you're starting off in the federal government it becomes once you've got your first job as a contractor in the federal government it's a lot easier to get your next ones so yeah just keep that in mind feel free to ask any questions in the the comments or whatever email me I don't care if I see like a trend I'll probably do a video on it so yeah just thought I would put that out there and I hope that helps someone thank you for listening