[Anna'n'John]

Hi,
Yet another to introduce themselves to the forum. Already been on holiday to New Zealand twice. Last year we travelled around in a camper van and visited nearly all of the South Island. We fell in love with the place and now England seems so crowded, chaotic and congested (lots of words beginning with c I notice).
We are only at the tip of the waters edge and have only dipped in our little toe (metaphorically speaking), and already we are drowning in all the information on the internet:wah. Where do we start? What do we do 1st? Find a job, express an interest, sell our house, find and immigration consultant?? Questions, questions.
Even finding how to post on this forum is a quest. I think I might just be pretty slow when it comes to technology ( I only got a mobile phone last year, and my texting is slower than a snail, I can manage to dial out though)
So please help me. Hope to hear from someone Anna

[stejude]

What we did was contact NZIS. Gave them some background and they advised us how to proceed. Diffence is Im a kiwi so I have sponsored my wife. But I have found them to be really good. I did ring them though, expensive, but it feels better to talk to them. We had the application agreed in 5 months from start to finish.

[Joanne100]

More Essex people!!! Hi and welcome to the forum :raebanana
All i can suggest is lots and lots of reasearch read everything, ask everyone everything, best thing u have done is join this forum its a wealth of info.
Good luck with ur journey
Joanne

[Nathan]

... already we are drowning... Where do we start? What do we do 1st? ...

It's amazing how quickly you'll learn to breath under water! :)

And try this...
http://www.proteapacific.co.nz/new_z...licies_12.html

Scroll down to the flow diagram.

Cheers

[tigerlily]

Welcome!
Before you decide whether or not you need an immigration consultant (most people on this board have done just fine on their own, it's actually very straightforward)- I agree with Joanne- read and research and ask questions. You might get to be an expert faster than you know! The search feature at the top of the page (see the User CP.... line?) is an excellent source of answers. It just doesn't like short words like CV (can you tell what I've been working on?).

Also, we love having questions asked. It gives those of us who are biding our time waiting to go something interesting to do. Oh yes, and usually someone has been there and done that.

Essentially, there are different paths to coming to NZ. Some are short term, some are asking to stay permanently. Your education and your profession will make some options better than others. You'll hear people talking about points. That has to do with the fact that the government ranks you according to your degree and how many years experience you have working and how old you are, and many other factors. Being an upstanding citizen in good health under the age of 55 is also a requirement for the permanent residency. But even people who are older can get work visas provided someone wants to give them a job.

Some people on this board have applied for permanent residency from their home country. Others have literally jumped in and moved without that security. It's actually easier to find a job when there- you can then apply for a work visa and later permanent residency. It sounds a bit wild and crazy, but actually, as a person having permanent residency and going soon, I still think I'm crazy some days.

Tell us more about your situation if I haven't totally frightened you off.

[Anna'n'John]

Tigerlily,
We have been doing lots of reading on the internet and are feeling a little overwhelmed with all of the information. My husband and I have found we are both on the recognised qualifications list. I'm level 7 and he's level 3, which gives us 100 points just for our qualifications, (that's if I've read all the information correctly). Printed off the guide to filling in you EOI form (which will be a light piece of reading!!!). As yet still can't decide if we should get a Immigration consultant or keep plodding along by ourselves. We want to apply for the skilled migrant visa with residency. There's just so much to take on board. I also think I qualify for the long term shortage jobs, I am Primary school teacher, but have trained as a Nursery Nurse and have worked for more than 16 years with young children. The early years education looks about the best possibilty for my job hunting but I would stand an even better chance of getting a visa if I had an offer of a job. How can I get that when I don't even know when I'm going to ever get out to NZ? Is there anyone out there who want to employ me?? I'm very nice.......honest.

[tigerlily]

I think there are jobs for primary school teachers, I believe there are a few teachers on this board. You might try posting a question in the "Working in NZ" section of this board for ideas on how to get employed. I believe that there are some registration issues as well which you might want to ask about.

Have you registered at the Immigration New Zealand website? http://www.immigration.govt.nz/
It's pretty good at showing you the requirements. You can do an online expression of interest, you can stop and save anytime in the process, and you can save but not actually submit it until you are ready. If you both have good work prospects, but only one has a degree usually you would pick the person with the degree to be the primary applicant, but you can try it both ways and see how you end up with the most points. Try the points calculator http://www.immigration.govt.nz/pointsindicator/
if you haven't already.

So many people here have been really frustrated with the immigration agencies. The problem is that you still have to get all the paperwork together (like letters from former employers saying how long you worked, as well as medicals and copies of any degrees). And that is really the hardest, or most time consuming part. Basically, you will need to gather written evidence of everything which you are claiming on your expression of interest, so if you say that you have worked 10 years in teaching, then you will need letters from employers which add up to 10 years of time. The ITA that you hear people talking about is just all the expression of interest (EOI) form printed out for you to verify that all is still correct and then sign.

The process is slow if you don't have a job offer in hand. The school year starts at the end of January. I read and read and learned and about a year into this process actually submitted our EOI. I wanted to be really sure that NZ was the right choice for us, so reading the news there http://www.stuff.co.nz/ and reading this board were helpful in that decision.

Best of luck to you and your family!

[Belmont Babes]

Dear Anna and John

Welcome to the forum. Everyone on here is soooo helpful. I would not be nearing the end of the process without them. We looked into using a consultancy but decided after speaking to members on here that they were expensive and many people complete the process without them.

I can vividly remember being at the beginning and not knowing how I was going to get through it all. Just try to break it off into chunks and not look at the task as a whole. A rough outline of what we did:

Checked points total which was 130
Sumbitted EOI (expression of interest)
got fished from pool same day
Received ITA (Invitation to Apply)
Got hard evidence of information that had been declared on EOI ie. qualifications, work experience, birth certificates (full copy with parents names on) medicals, police checks, NZQA (NZ Qualification Assessment) - we needed grade 4.

Don't lose heart. If I can do it, you sure can. Good luck and enjoy the ride.
Nat

[Andy&Carol]

Hi Anna & John, it is a confusing and frustrating situation! However, I've found that there doesn't appear to be a 'right' or 'wrong' way, just the one that feels right for you.

We're waiting for a job for Andy before we apply to NZIS, simply because we'd feel more secure knowing there's a job (salary!) to go to. Others have gone over on spec and everything's turned out right for them.

Just keep researching, and checking on here - I'm on here a gazillion times a day! Good luck!

Regards, Carol

[holland]

HI and welcome,

Reading your post made me chuckle as I couldn't figure out how to 'post' for a while aswell!!

J and G xx

[Mickstim]

Hi and welcome to the forum. Everyone here is incredibly helpful and should get you through most of your queries!

[Anna'n'John]

Whoops, Still having major troubles, keep posting things all over the place. Want to add photo next to my name but can't even do that. Is there a idiots introduction to guide you through posting, replying, quoting etc?

[Andy-Dee]

Just wanted to say 'welcome to the forum'