Nibbles

I recruiter I sent a résumé to in Melbourne notified me just now that he has passed it on to his clients. We e-mailed back and forth last night and at first he wasn't willing to consider an overseas applicant, but after a few e-mails I seem to have convinced him that it's worth a shot. I was poking around on the Australian immigration website today and started going though the on-line application process. At the moment I'm waiting for IBM to send me the transcript of my certifications so I can prove I know what I know. My job experience is worth 60 of the required 65 points for immigration alone, in total, what with being a native English speaker from a Commonwealth country and a few other things add up to 115/65 points. The transcript from IBM will help my immigration review, and I should submit the same thing for New Zealand as well. The application fees aren't exactly cheap, but it's a gamble worth taking. At the very least having the option to go should the Americans decide they need "Lebensraum" seems prudent.

Anyway, nibbles are good. Top contenders at the moment are Melbourne (look out auntee and princeoigan) and Toronto (it will be a few weeks before I hear back on Toronto). I still don't know WTF is going on with Victoria. And, as always, self-employment remains an option.

In the mean time I'm going to upgrade my certifications with IBM to cover the latest release and look into perhaps doing a course on web services so I can have a piece of paper to wave about that as well. I'll be stretching my rather rusty Perl skills in my last few months at work which isn't going to hurt me either.

I was feeling rather bummed out earlier today. This has perked me up considerably.