The Working Holiday Club

I've had people ask me how I did it; how I'm so lucky to move to another country, find a house to stay and a job in such a short time. Here's how: The Working Holiday Club.

I purchased the Jumpstart Standard package during a sale and got it for AU$495. For that, they helped me with accommodation, a basic job to get me started and other little bits and bobs.

Me and Dylan arrived early before our program start date and so stayed in the hostel for a week. At our orientation day with TWHC we picked our house and the next day picked up our keys. For some people this took a little longer but we didn't muck around and that's how we got into our house a bit quicker. I think it helped that we had already spent a week getting to know the city, whereas other people who started our week had just got off the plane the day before. We were already orientated and ready to get started!

London can be a big city, but I found it easy to get settled.

The job organised by TWHC is for an agency that provides staff to hotels in central London. It's mainly hospitality work and they provide full training. You can be at a different hotel every day. It has its upsides like being able to work huge events like movie premieres, fashion events and after parties.
The company is very flexible in allowing you to choose which days you want to work and which days you want off. I've just finished my first week of work and my biggest downside is that it's quite irregular hours. I had two shifts starting early morning and three where I finished in the same early hours that I was just waking up earlier in the week! My best shift of the week was working the cloakroom at the 50 Shades of Grey premiere after party. I didn't even get to see anyone famous, but the vibe and people I worked with were just great. And I got to take home flowers at the end of the night!

My souvenir from my fabulous night at work!  

TWHC also helped us organise a tax number, set up a bank account and get a SIM for our phones. All of this we could have done ourselves and it's all free to do, but was still a great help to be pointed in the right direction.

TWHC also organises parties and pub crawls. They have a Facebook group for those of us in London and those about to arrive and it's a great way to find instant friends. All our housemates are also in the same boat as us so we've got more instant friends there too.

In summary, yes you can move to London and find a house and job by yourself. But the advantage of doing it this way is having the peace of mind of knowing you can be in a house by day two (less spent on hostels) and have a job by week two (money in the bank quicker, even if it isn't your dream job). If that's what you want, plus some added extras and instant travel-buddies then I definitely recommend checking out TWHC.