Armed with a permanent residency permit, a few years’ M&A experience in London and an advanced degree in finance, I was hopeful when I started my job search in Australia. I did anticipate some teething problems: It’s is a small market – the exact role I held in London would likely not exist here, and it might take a while for any suitable opening to appear. But I never thought it would be quite as bad as this.

The first hurdle: Location, location, location

When I applied from abroad, people completely ignored my PR status. No worries, I relocated. I wanted to remain flexible about where I lived in Australia and naively thought that would be an advantage. Not so.

Not only did I have to rent a flexible place in case something popped up in another city (if you have ever seen temporary accommodation in Sydney, you know how bad it can get). But what’s more, from then on, interviews took one of two possible turns: either employers would be incredulous as to whether I was really willing to relocate; or they would criticise my choice of suburb in Sydney. Then again, at least I was having interviews.

My big mistake: Australia is not London

This is the part I totally messed up. Let me explain: In London, recruiters are agents who work on specific roles, sometimes exclusively. They may not like to hear it, but in M&A they are essentially outsourced HR people. Candidates are called or respond to online ads and are then sent through the obligatory interview rounds, organised by recruiters.

Although I usually tried to be polite to recruiters in London, I have never heard of anyone at associate-level there “building a strong relationship with a recruiter”. Bankers know one another – it’s your colleagues and former colleagues you want to be on good terms with.

Coming from that background, I responded to a few online ads. I assumed any recruiter represented here would have been selected by the employer and was therefore good to work with. Bad move! In Australia, always, always, always go via trusted referrals. That means you need a friend who knows a good recruiter and will introduce you to that person.

My self-inflicted poor choice of agencies hurt me in three ways:

1) Blocked me at the desirable firms

Recruiters responded to me and rattled off a list of banks that they “work with”. This is where I should have asked the following questions:

· Is that a specific, active opening you are engaged to fill? Do you have a job spec?

· What is your placement history with that team?

If only I had asked. Before I knew it, my CV had been spammed across all banks. One particular agency even contacted firms I had specifically said I do not wish to speak to. The idea seems to be: “Someone will hire him eventually and if I can show that I was the first to send an email around, I’ll get the fee.”

I thought a recruiter who was on good terms with the hiring manager was presenting my profile to fill a vacancy. Instead, I now had to be appealing enough to be filtered out of an unsolicited mail. In at least one case, this mail wasn’t even directed to a hiring manager, but to HR, who then had to be willing to put up with an obviously-not-preferred recruiter for my sake.

What’s more, many of these agencies have 12-month terms that cover the entire M&A practice rather than a role or team. This means if someone sent your CV around but is not close to the hiring manager and is not specifically engaged for future openings – that’s it. No other recruiters will represent you, and if they do, it will be considered “floating past HR”. Needless to say, the chances that the bank will search through its database and contact you are…nada.

2) Wasted time in bogus processes

Suppose a senior banker moves and wants some loyal junior to follow. In order to adhere to business standards, the preferred candidate is then sent through a process. This may be channelled via a preferred recruitment agency (high chance of a fee/no violation of non-solicitation clause). The respectful thing is to leave it at that.

But, if a recruiter is unpleasant enough, a bored hiring manager may grant him the “privilege” of interviewing some of his candidates. These people may be good, but it is understood someone else is preferred. The recruiter may be deluded enough to not realise he is only wasting his time.

If the interviewers seem strangely hostile or indifferent and the recruiter is not able to tell you who got the job in the end (and you later hear that it was someone internal or someone from a previous employer), take it as an indication that you have been collateral damage in a rookie recruiter’s attempt to strike it rich. This is bad because it will leave you in the employer’s mind as someone who has already been rejected once, even though you never stood a chance. You will be the one to pay the price for the games employers play with unloved recruiters.

3) Run with the cowboys and the pros will shun you

Because of said 12-month rule and the small market here, once you finally find a good recruiter, he or she may doubt your business savvy should you have to admit the above happened.

The bottom line: You’ll get by with a little help from your friends

You are lost without referrals. The upside to this focus on networking is that some Australians and many fellow immigrants are incredibly open and helpful. I have received kind help from people I didn’t know well at all – even down to acquaintances of acquaintances of acquaintances. Get out there, be polite and hope for the best. Many companies pay rewards for referrals, which should work in your favour.

The downside: You need to know people and it’s hard to rise above your network. In terms of industry, if all of your friends are in M&A and everyone wants out of there, all of you will have a problem. In terms of responsibility and salary, it will be a rare and true friend who refers you for a better position than he himself holds, especially if he is even mildly ambitious and you are better qualified than him

Being an immigrant can be even more of a problem. If one link in the chain thinks you should stay at home and procreate, or go back to where you came from, that’s enough for the entire networking chain to be seriously derailed or break. I haven’t given up hope yet, but it is a tough market out there. Wish me luck.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author, not those of eFinancialCareers.

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