Uni grad praised for adding unique twist to his job search

A university graduate whose months-long search for a job has been fruitless shook things up on a Sydney train.

A university graduate has been praised after adding an unorthodox twist to his hunt for a job.

Bill Chu, who holds a Masters degree in information technology from the University of Sydney, has gone through the usual process of submitting his resume to companies online. But five months of searching for a full-time role have been fruitless.

To improve his chances, he took a sign advertising his talents onto the train in Sydney and walked through each carriage with it.

“Hire me,” the sign read, as pictured in photos that have since gone viral.

“Looking for data analyst or data scientist?”

The sign listed his skills, including knowledge of the programming languages Python and SQL, and urged potential employers to call him.

A photo of Mr Chu with his sign, as shared on Weibo.

“While I was holding the sign, people were taking photos and they gave me the thumbs up and a smile, they were really supportive,” Mr Chu told The Daily Mail.

“They said I was really brave for standing up and saying I need a job.”

The tactic has not earned him a job yet, but encouragingly, he said he’d received “20 to 30 calls” in response to it, from people across the country.

In the meantime, he’s working as a mobile field officer for his old university and supplementing his income with shifts at Woolworths in the evenings.

“I was working at the university and realised it was not enough to pay everything. Everything is expensive in Sydney,” he told The Mail.

Financial pressure on renters building

The single biggest outlay for most young people in Sydney is rent, and things are only getting harder on that front.

The Commonwealth Bank’s latest household spending report shows Australians without a home ownership stake are pulling back on their spending, while mortgage holders or outright owners of property are increasing their spending.

Spending by renters is down 0.9 per cent in the year to June, the report states, while spending for mortgage holders is up 1.5 per cent over the same period.

Australians who own their homes outright lifted their spend by 2.1 per cent across the year.

“If you look at spending by home ownership status, the report shows how difficult it is for renters,” Commonwealth Bank chief economist Stephen Halmarick told NewsWire.

“Their spending is significantly weaker than mortgage holders or owner outright.

“For renters, perhaps younger cohorts, their income is not rising as fast as their cost of housing.

“They are really having to pull back on their spending to make ends meet.”

The imbalance between demand for housing and supply is pushing the average weekly rent even higher. The national average for an apartment has risen almost 10 per cent in the last year to $584.

The CBA report is grim reading for renters. Picture: Roy Vandervegt/NewsWire

Business turnover worryingly weak

At the same time, it is becoming harder for businesses to hire new employees, with elevated interest rates squeezing their budgets.

The latest turnover figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed a 0.6 per cent fall in May, with administrative and support services the hardest hit, declining by 2.3 per cent.

Turnover is the term for the total income generated by a business.

ABS head of business statistics Robert Ewing said the May numbers extended a stagnant trend in turnover.

“The pattern we have seen in recent months continues as the business turnover 13-industry aggregate remained flat in May,” he said.

Originally published as Uni grad praised for adding unique twist to his job search