What visa are you on? If you’re on a working holiday the likelihood of getting a role is almost 0. It’s not designed for that type of work, it costs about 12k for sponsorship by a business and unless your portfolio is insane or you’re world renowned it’s just not worth the money to hire someone on a WHV when there are plenty of strong Australian resident designers who don’t need that expense

Check campus job postings when you get back, or shortly before you get back. Hiring happens year round for positions.

Worst case scenario, find a couple departments + positions you would be interested in and ask them if you can even just shadow for a few days. That might even be enough to get a foot in the door and possibly get on their radar for an open position in the future.

can help, DM please

US has this

https://www.apprenticeship.gov/

Look for programs that blend classroom time with a contracted job offer at the end. Apprenti lines up tech apprenticeships that convert after a 12-month stint, Year Up pushes IT and biz ops interns into full-time gigs for about 70 % of grads, and union tracks like IBEW’s electrician path lead straight to journeyman cards plus steady dispatch work. I broke in through LaunchCode-eight weeks of night classes, then a paid developer apprenticeship, hired by week ten. I used Handshake to track openings, Coursera for cert refreshers, and JobMate for auto-applying once interview-ready. Always ask for placement stats in writing before signing anything.

A lot of companies will hire an entry level OPT student but won’t sponsor the h1b. That is something to ask about early. Specifically, be careful about positions which focus on a specific, short term project with no goal after.

Apply for temp positions through recruiting companies. Get your foot in the door. Constantly outperform. A lot of old school companies (using old tools) have very few specialists knowing Advanced Excel, and they would want to retain such people. I got such temp job through staffing company, didn't tell them I was an international student. Revealed them after I demonstrated my skills.

apply everywhere hope for the best

Very hard.

The rate right now for full-time roles is at 1 interview for approximately 2000 applications. Internships may or may not be as hard.

It completely depends on your luck and the contacts you have in the industry to get a role in this country. There's no way around it. You can pad your resume as much as you like, and you can apply to as many jobs as you can, but it will all be left to chance in the end.

I don't know how South Asians are going to be able to get work here in the future if this continues. There's just too many of us around the world! There's no stopping this onslaught.

I think it is quite common. This is also the case in countries like Australia for what I call office jobs. It may be different for jobs like nursing

Nope.

No

Are you or will you be in enrolled in a OPT/CPT program for the purpose of this internship?

Doesn't matter cuz they will check your status if you get to the point of an offer.

Even if you lie or not, if they have a hard no policy for internationals you wouldn't get the offer.

International too. Don’t know what these people are taking. Yes, you can and should answer no for #1. But no for #2 is just a lie

My employer has no issue with sponsoring me. My boss was upfront since the first interview. He asked where I grew up and I told him so he automatically knew. My company is 29 years old and 4 full-time employees big and they want to keep people for as long as they can (if you’re competent of course). He was a guest speaker in my class once. I hit rock bottom and had no shame in reaching out to LITERALLY everyone I knew so I reached out and got a job with him with an agreement to sponsor. I think I lined up with what he was looking for and just clicked. I’m a consultant.

In talks with my employer to extend just so that I can for Stem.

It’s A LOT of rejections, very little to do with luck more to do with the field/ industry you are in. I work in tech and I have a technical background.

It is challenging, but if you’re willing to put yourself in uncomfortable and tough situations there is always a way.

In my case, I took up a co-op position while I was finishing up school and worked there on OPT with no mention of sponsorships.

Eventually got let go after promises of a full time role , moved from California to South Carolina on a 3 week notice for a contractor role (not Indian, in case you’re wondering) to keep my OPT status. I worked there for a bit, and eventually after 3 months of looking (1500+ job applications all over the US) while I worked there found a role to sponsor me with 2 attempts left at the lottery. I moved cross states again. I got very fortunate and won the lottery the first time.

It’s not easy, it’s not ideal, but there’s a path… but the lottery step is unfortunately still all luck.

I think people with Green Cards fall into that category.

A lot of people sometimes automatically assume when the word contractor is mentioned that it was for a phishy Indian consultancy

I got a job after my graduation and was laid off just before I had to file my Stem extension. Now I am applying to jobs that are not ready to sponsor H1b. It's a brutal job market. We should hang in there.