A Singaporean In Australia

I didn't get the job. What I got this afternoon was:

Thank you for your application for the position of Longlife Assistant
We had a number of excellent candidates apply for this role and the calibre of candidates was high which made the selection decision difficult. After careful consideration we are writing to advise that you have not been successful for the above position in this instance.
As a large employer, we may have further opportunities that may better suit your experience and would like to retain your information in our database. If you would like to review your candidate file and be informed of future job openings that match your profile click here.
We also invite you to visit the Careers Section on our company website regularly to view other opportunities available in the business across all the Woolworths Limited brands at www.wowcareers.com.au.

Please note, each month system maintenance is completed. If you have not accessed or updated your profile within 12 months your login details will no longer be valid and you will need to sign in as a 'new user'. We encourage you to update your profile regularly to ensure your details remain valid and you do not miss out on any opportunities.
Thank you for your time and effort in applying for a position with our company.
We wish you all the very best with your career.

Kind regards,
Human Resources DepartmentWoolworths / Safeway Supermarkets
Please note: This mailbox is unattended. Do not respond to this email.

I was sad and disappointed for 3 hours after that I was cool with it. Joanna told me I shouldn't had mentioned to Peter, the guy who did my 2nd interview, that I was a project engineer in Singapore. That probably worked against me. I agreed. Or perhaps my interview skills suck. Or probably my resume writing skills too, since I have no replies for several more jobs which I applied for.


The silver lining of the day was that car hunting had begun! It was much tougher than I thought, even with the help of Prithvi's car which she sent us on a 2 day loan most generously.

First, we learnt that there was a difference between virtual fantasy and reality. I.e. Some cars looked really great in the Internet. I wasn't too sure if it was the camera angle or photoshop.

Second, it would always be a newer car with high mileage vs an older car with lower mileage dilemma. There are supporters on each camp and the reasonings on both sides are valid.

Third, the used car market in Australia is so much more bigger than Singapore. You would be offered such a large variety of possible choices that it could become difficult and confusing to gauge which options were the better deals at times.

Fourth, oddly enough smaller cars that we preferred for now could be at the same price or slightly more expensive than a bigger car. For eg. Toyota Corolla vs Toyota Camry. Same year, around the same mileage, similar price. This was a tad incredulous for me.  You would never encounter this in the used car market in Singapore, or perhaps anywhere else in the world?

Fifth, car dealers I met overused (imo) "One owner" as a strong selling point. I just couldn't get it. What I was concerned with was the condition of the car.

Does more owners necessarily mean the car was worse off? What if both owners bought the car for fun and hardly drove it at all? Or that single owner of the car was a hotheaded speedster teen who went around doing adult bumper-cars?

Does that mean a girl with less than 2 boyfriends is less attractive, thus less 'valuable'? Of course not.

Sixth, the second car dealer was extremely annoyed that we didn't buy the car after test-driving it. I wasn't sure if this is the culture here but if that is so then it would make things a bit more tricky.  Some car looked wonderful exteriorly and some were woeful. If I couldn't do test drives without experiencing flake, I wouldn't be able to uncover the intrinsic value, or the lack of in the car.

Seventh, fuel type can be a factor here. In Singapore, car = petrol.  That's it. Over here, diesel is more expensive than petrol. Gas, is half the cost of petrol. Some used cars here had in built gas tank. As it takes much more distance to get around from place to place here, fuel is, therefore a consideration.

Hence, there were enough to make our hunt not so fruitful. Nonetheless we had a better grasp of how these things work here now. We shortlisted our options and will be holding a voting session tonight to align our differences, erm.. so that we can achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for the family.