Key takeaways
A 485 needs no sponsor today, so lead with that.
Put your visa, full work rights and real expiry date in the first lines of your resume and every cover letter. Recruiters skip applications that leave work rights unclear.
Employer sponsorship needs three things at once.
The employer must be able to sponsor, the occupation must be on the list, and the salary must clear the Core Skills Income Threshold, $79,423 for nominations lodged from 1 July 2026.
Searching Seek for 'visa sponsorship' is the weakest strategy.
Most employers who sponsor never say so in the ad. Search by occupation list title, filter by salary and target large employers in your field instead.
Raise sponsorship once they want you.
The second interview or offer stage is the right moment. Confirm you need nothing now and ask whether the team has sponsored people before.
If you are on a 485 Temporary Graduate visa, you do not need a sponsor to get hired. You already have full work rights. What you need is a job with an employer who is willing and able to sponsor you later, before the 485 runs out.
That changes how you search Seek. You are not looking for ads that say 'visa sponsorship available'. Those are rare, and most of them want people offshore. You are looking for employers who sponsor as a normal part of hiring, in occupations that can be sponsored, at salaries that clear the threshold.
This guide covers how to find them, the exact signals to read in a Seek ad, and the mistakes that quietly get 485 holders filtered out. Rules were checked in October 2026. Visa settings change often, so confirm anything you act on with Home Affairs or a registered migration agent. This is a job search guide, not migration advice.
why this matters to the people we build for
Of the 158 people who have completed a karmik.ai profile, 37 are on a 485. That is close to one in four, the largest group after citizens and permanent residents. 21 of them are in Victoria, 8 in Western Australia and 4 in New South Wales.
The roles they target are mostly professional: software engineering, data analysis, full stack development, business analysis, finance. Those are exactly the occupations where sponsorship is realistic, and where the salary threshold is reachable.
And here is the number that surprised me. 29 of those 37 have more than a year left on their visa. Most 485 holders are not out of time. They are out of a strategy. The ones who end up stuck are usually the ones who spent their first year taking whatever came along, with an employer who was never going to sponsor anyone.
the visa pathways your Seek search is really aiming at
You do not need to become a migration expert. You do need to know which visa your next employer would use, because that tells you which employers and which jobs are worth your applications.
| Visa | Who sponsors | Key requirements | What it means on Seek |
|---|---|---|---|
| 485 Temporary Graduate (now) | Nobody. You hold it. | Full work rights for 2 to 3 years after a degree, depending on qualification. Age limit of 35 for most applicants since July 2024. | Apply to anything. Say clearly that you need no sponsorship today. |
| 482 Skills in Demand, Core Skills stream | Your employer, as an approved sponsor | Occupation on the Core Skills Occupation List, salary at or above the Core Skills Income Threshold ($79,423 for nominations lodged from 1 July 2026), 1 year of relevant work experience. | Target roles on the list, paying at or above the threshold, at employers who already sponsor. |
| 186 Employer Nomination, Temporary Residence Transition | The same employer, later | Usually 2 years working for that sponsor on a 482, plus the occupation and salary rules. | Pick an employer you would stay with for years, not months. |
| 190 or 491 state nominated | A state or territory, not an employer | Points tested, plus the state's own occupation lists and conditions. | Your job matters as experience and state ties. No employer sponsorship needed. |
The practical upshot is simple. For the employer route, three things have to be true at once: the employer sponsors, the role is on the list, and the salary clears the threshold. A Seek search that checks all three is worth ten that check none.
Sources: Study Australia, Temporary Graduate visa (subclass 485), KPMG, Australia skilled visa income thresholds from 1 July 2026, Home Affairs, Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482)
why searching Seek for 'visa sponsorship' mostly fails
Seek has no sponsorship filter. So the instinct is to type 'visa sponsorship' into the keyword box and apply to whatever comes up. It is the most common 485 strategy, and it is the weakest one.
Ads that say sponsorship is available are a small slice of the market. Many are written for overseas candidates in shortage roles. Some are low quality listings that use the word to pull in applicants. And because every visa holder in the country runs the same search, those few ads get swamped.
Meanwhile, most employers who do sponsor never mention it in the ad. Sponsorship is a decision they make about a specific person after they want to hire them. Large firms in engineering, healthcare, accounting and technology sponsor routinely and write perfectly ordinary job ads.
So run the sponsorship keyword search, but treat it as one search out of five, not the strategy.
the five Seek searches that actually find sponsoring employers
Set these up as saved searches with daily alerts, filtered to your city and to full time.
1. Your occupation by its list title. Search the job title the way the Core Skills Occupation List names it, as well as the way companies write it. 'Software engineer' and 'developer programmer' surface different ads. So do 'data analyst' and 'ICT business analyst'. Matching the list wording keeps you inside occupations that can be sponsored.
2. Salary filtered at the threshold. Set Seek's salary filter at or just above the Core Skills Income Threshold. Many ads hide pay, so you will miss some, but every ad that shows a salary above the line is a role where sponsorship is financially possible. Roles that pay below it cannot be used for a Core Skills nomination however much the employer likes you.
3. Sponsorship phrases, as one search among five. Try 'sponsorship', '482' and 'visa' as separate searches in your field. Read each result rather than applying to all of them.
4. Big employers in your field, by name. Make a list of the 20 to 30 largest employers in your occupation in your city and set an alert for each name. Large firms are far more likely to be approved sponsors already, which removes the biggest hurdle.
5. Regional and outer metro roles. Employers outside the capital city centres often struggle to fill professional roles and are more open to sponsoring. If you can move, widen one saved search to the whole state.
free tools that show you which companies already sponsor
Seek tells you who is hiring. It does not tell you who is allowed to sponsor. Australia has no single public register of sponsors, but free official sources get you most of the way: Home Affairs' accredited sponsor lists released under Freedom of Information, its published list of employers with labour agreements, and the Australian Border Force register of sanctioned sponsors. Free directories such as SponsorMap make the accredited list searchable by occupation and state.
Use them to pick 20 to 30 target employers in your occupation, then turn each name into a Seek alert. That is search number 4 above, with a much better list behind it. Our full guide on how to find employers who sponsor visas in Australia walks through every source and how to use it.
how to read a Seek ad on a 485
The wording in an ad tells you a lot about whether the employer can hire you, and whether they could ever sponsor you.
| Phrase in the ad | What it usually means | Apply? |
|---|---|---|
| Must have full working rights | They do not want to sponsor at the start. A 485 is full working rights. | Yes. Say you hold them. |
| Australian citizens or permanent residents only | Often a security clearance or government requirement. A 485 does not qualify. | No. Do not waste the application. |
| Must be eligible for Baseline or NV1 clearance | Clearances generally require citizenship. | No, unless the ad says otherwise. |
| Sponsorship available for the right candidate | They have sponsored before and might again. | Yes, and prioritise it. |
| No sponsorship offered | No sponsorship for this role, now or likely later. | Only as a stepping stone. |
| Salary shown at or above the CSIT | Sponsorship is financially possible for this role. | Yes, if the occupation fits. |
One note on that first row. Plenty of recruiters do not know that a 485 carries full work rights, and screen it out by reflex. That is not something you can fix in the ad. You fix it in your application.
say it in the first line, every time
The single biggest mistake 485 holders make is leaving their work rights for the recruiter to work out. They will not. A recruiter screening 200 applications skips anything that raises a question.
Put one line at the top of your resume, under your name and contact details: 'Temporary Graduate visa (subclass 485), full work rights until March 2028. No sponsorship required.' Use your real date.
Say the same thing in the first paragraph of every cover letter. Answer the work rights screening question on Seek accurately. If it asks whether you have the right to work in Australia, the answer is yes. If it asks whether you will need sponsorship now, the answer is no. If it asks about the future, answer honestly.
Being honest here protects you. An application that hides a visa question just moves the rejection to the offer stage, after you have spent weeks on interviews.
when and how to raise sponsorship
Do not lead with it. Your first job is to become the candidate they want. Sponsorship is much easier to ask for once they are already planning to hire you.
A good moment is the second interview or the first conversation about an offer. Keep it factual: 'I am on a 485 with full work rights until March 2028, so there is nothing needed now. Longer term I would like to stay with the company. Is sponsorship something you have done for people in this team before?'
That question tells you a lot. 'Yes, we have done a few' is great. 'We would have to look into it' usually means they are not yet an approved sponsor, which is a slower and less certain road. 'We do not sponsor' tells you to treat this job as experience, not a pathway.
Before you accept, check the basics against the visa you would use. Is your job title on the occupation list? Is the salary above the threshold, or will it be by the time you need the nomination? Would you have the year of relevant experience by then?
a weekly plan for a 485 search
This is the rhythm that works for most of the 485 holders I talk to. It assumes a professional role and a city search.
Monday: clear the weekend's alerts from your five saved searches. Shortlist the roles where you would take the job and where the occupation and salary make sponsorship possible later.
Tuesday to Thursday: apply to the shortlist, one tailored application per role. Your work rights line goes at the top of every one.
Friday: add five companies from SponsorMap or the latest accredited sponsor list for your occupation. Check them against the sanctions register, read their careers pages, and set Seek and Indeed alerts for the ones that look promising.
Aim for 15 to 25 tailored applications a week. Reply rates in most searches sit in the low single digits, so a 485 search that sends five a week is relying on luck it does not have time for.
Writing 20 tailored applications a week by hand is close to a part time job. That is the part karmik.ai takes off you. It writes each cover letter against the specific ad and carries your work rights line into every one. On Pro, the desktop app applies on Seek from your own computer, using criteria you set.
mistakes that cost 485 holders the most time
Taking a year of any job. A role outside your occupation, below the threshold, at a company that never sponsors, does nothing for your next visa. Survival work is fine, but keep the professional search running alongside it.
Applying to citizenship-only roles. Defence, many government roles and anything needing a clearance are closed to you. Every application sent there is one not sent somewhere that could hire you.
Leaving the visa to the end. If sponsorship is your plan, the employer needs time to become a sponsor, nominate the role and lodge. Starting that conversation with three months left is far riskier than starting it with twelve.
Paying for a job. Any offer that asks you to pay for sponsorship, a job or a nomination should be treated as a red flag. Report it.
Taking advice from forums over professionals. Visa settings change several times a year. A registered migration agent costs money, but one wrong assumption can cost far more.
Common questions
Do I need visa sponsorship to work on a 485 visa?
No. The 485 Temporary Graduate visa gives full work rights for its duration, so an employer does not need to sponsor you to hire you. Sponsorship only matters if you want to stay after the 485 ends, usually through a 482 Skills in Demand visa and later a 186 permanent visa.
Can I filter Seek jobs by visa sponsorship?
Seek has no sponsorship filter. You can search keywords such as sponsorship or 482, but most employers who sponsor never mention it in the ad. A better approach is to search your occupation by its official list title, filter by a salary at or above the Core Skills Income Threshold, and set alerts for large employers in your field.
What salary does a job need for 482 sponsorship?
For the Core Skills stream of the Skills in Demand visa, the salary must be at or above the Core Skills Income Threshold, which is $79,423 for nominations lodged from 1 July 2026. The threshold is indexed each July, so check the current figure with Home Affairs.
Should I tell employers I am on a 485 visa?
Yes, in the first lines of your resume and cover letter. Say that you hold a 485 with full work rights until your actual expiry date and that no sponsorship is needed now. Recruiters often screen out applications that leave work rights unclear.
Is there a list of companies that sponsor visas in Australia?
There is no complete public register. Home Affairs has released lists of accredited sponsors under Freedom of Information, and free directories such as SponsorMap make them searchable by occupation and state. Accredited sponsors are only part of the picture, so a company missing from the list may still sponsor. Check any name against the Australian Border Force sanctions register before you rely on it.
When should I ask an employer about sponsorship?
Usually at the second interview or the start of offer talks, once they want to hire you. Keep it factual: confirm you need nothing now, then ask whether the company has sponsored people in the team before.
How many jobs should I apply to on a 485?
For a professional role, 15 to 25 tailored applications a week is a sensible target. Reply rates sit in the low single digits for most people, so a handful a week leaves too much to chance on a visa with a fixed end date.
Stop applying by hand
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