If you dream of recruiting in Australia, ensure your partner and children are also ready to take the leap to a new life, advises the managing director of an Australia recruitment business.

Around 40% of UK recruiters who relocate to Australia end up returning home early, most often because accompanying partners or children fail to adjust to their new lives away from family and friends.

Stay-at-home partners in particular may find it difficult to adjust, without their own new work opportunity or readily available support system, according to Karen Colfer, MD of Kelly Services (Australia).

Colfer is on a recruiting trip to the UK this week, seeking experienced UK recruiters to join the Kelly Executive division of the organisation ‘down under’.

Colfer, a transplanted East Londoner herself, told Recruiter that Kelly advises its potential recruits of the possible downside of moving to Australia early on, so they are aware that the dream location for many can pose challenges as well as offer significant rewards — from good weather and enjoyable lifestyle to an reinvigorated and exciting career.

“We have to factor that in to our workforce planning,” Colfer said. “Not everyone is going to succeed.”

Kelly pays relocation costs for its recruits to move to Australia and accommodation costs for the newcomers’ first few weeks in country. She said that her current recruiting visit had drawn applicants from as far away as Ireland and Scotland, and that as of Wednesday evening, at least 10 candidates were being progressed to the next stage.

Kelly Executive in Australia has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, and Perth.