[mesh2008]

I'm a software engineer and currently I'm preparing to lodge my application, I got my ITA a few days ago. I contacted dozens of IT agencies in NZ but they all refused to help me now, they told me they would be happy to help if I got the PR.

Application without a job offer can take a year or more and I was hoping to get a job offer to speed up the process. Is it forbidden by the law to hire an overseas candidate? Why NZ says that there is a shortage of IT professionals if they don't hire overseas candidates? Isn't it easier to offer a job to an applicant with ITA than hiring someone who has not applied to residence?

Please advice.

Thanks a bunch

AM

[dusk]

it'scertainly not illegal
we have job offers (subject to successful visa applications) and others here will be able to relate their own stories of job offers received before visas are acquired.

People's responses to potential employess does seem to vary a lot though.

hopefully someone here will be able to offer you some practical advice on job hunting.

[mesh2008]

Thanks dusk :) I hope someone can guide me to the correct way to hunt a job

[ourquest]

It certainly can take a while from receiving ITA to obtaining PR, and perhaps this is not quite far enough along for employers, as it implies that anyone in your position might not yet even have medical or police clearance (or shown any documentation), for example?

The single biggest factor in the willingness of employers to make an offer seems from this forum to be you actually being in New Zealand in person. It's probably like selling something; until you have the money nothing is guaranteed, and they probably know that so many things can influence a potential immigrant to change their plans before they make the move that they don't want to commit to you, and then miss out on another potential candidate. I guess unlike us being able to obtain multiple job offers and then choose, an employer obviously cannot make multiple offers because of the legal issues if two or more candidates were to accept for the same position.

Best of luck.

[dusk]

oh, meant to say - not sure where you are, but if you happen to be in the UK (or anywhere else where they have NZ immigration events) you should definitely get yourself (and your CV) along to one of those too

[daygloweyes]

Would be nice if they had these NZ hiring events in the US and wondering why they don't?

[Ojai]

For my experience, I have had no offers of employment yet, but many people are very interested in meeting me once I have arrived in two weeks. As ourquest says, the employers seem please I am coming to New Zealand. I think it shows I am serious, and they are not going to waste their time with me.

[mesh2008]

I live in Egypt and NZ nearly has no events at all here :(

[Mildred]

I was so relieved to see your post, as we had become almost paranoid that it was just us! We have practically given up on NZ now. As my previous post shows, we were given ITA so spent a huge amount of money having medicals, only to be told we shouldn't have been invited to apply without a job offer.

Despite the experiences of other people, we have contacted so many heating/plumbing companies and agencies in NZ and all of them are not interested without at the very least an offer of work to residence. Apparently so many of them have kept job offers open only for NZIS to come up with a reason not to give wtr or pr.

We are absolutely gutted over this but don't see we have any alternative but to accept NZIS's offer of giving us a refund on our application fee and hopefully the £1000 in medicals.

So anyone out there who knows of a company wanting an experienced gas fitter from the UK, please let us know asap!

And my advice to anyone young enough to change career in order to go to NZ - well become a hairdresser - you'll get straight in

[mesh2008]

oh! Mildred would you please tell me when NZIS offered you a refund? after you lodged your application?

[Mildred]

oh! Mildred would you please tell me when NZIS offered you a refund? after you lodged your application?

As NZIS admitted that they had made a mistake in inviting us to apply, they have offered to refund our application fees. The fact that it took over four months for them to realise this didn't help.

[mesh2008]

oh! really I'm so sorry. This is not good at all :(

[CJ22]

It's the usual catch-22: employees are reluctant to invest time and energy in somebody who may not end up with a PR or WTR visa - there are a lot of hurdles and a lot of reasons to give up on the way to achieving these. Yet, of course, without a firm comittment from an employer, getting the visa is all the harder.

If you can't go on a recce/interview trip, try the local NZ recruitment events, but be warned that even in the UK these events aren't THAT big. There may not be anybody there who would be interested in you (we got very lucky in that regard). I suspect you can probably check in advance who has a presence at any give show. Meeting somebody in person will make a lot of difference - those people have invested a lot of time, energy and money in making the trip to the UK to hire, and they really really WANT to hire people to justify the trip, so tap in to that. Try and get a full interview BEFORE they go home (most have built in time after the show to do interviews).

It's about getting the hirers to invest some personal comittment to you. If you're just a name on a CV from half a world away, you're not going to get much interest. But if they've met you in person and have some idea of how serious you are, you'll get somewhere. Kiwis seem to need constant shoving to get on with things, so keep shoving :)

[Mildred]

It's the usual catch-22: employees are reluctant to invest time and energy in somebody who may not end up with a PR or WTR visa - there are a lot of hurdles and a lot of reasons to give up on the way to achieving these. Yet, of course, without a firm comittment from an employer, getting the visa is all the harder.

If you can't go on a recce/interview trip, try the local NZ recruitment events, but be warned that even in the UK these events aren't THAT big. There may not be anybody there who would be interested in you (we got very lucky in that regard). I suspect you can probably check in advance who has a presence at any give show. Meeting somebody in person will make a lot of difference - those people have invested a lot of time, energy and money in making the trip to the UK to hire, and they really really WANT to hire people to justify the trip, so tap in to that. Try and get a full interview BEFORE they go home (most have built in time after the show to do interviews).

It's about getting the hirers to invest some personal comittment to you. If you're just a name on a CV from half a world away, you're not going to get much interest. But if they've met you in person and have some idea of how serious you are, you'll get somewhere. Kiwis seem to need constant shoving to get on with things, so keep shoving :)

We went to the Expo in London last spring. The only stand interested in taking a c.v. was Superhighway (something like that). Apparently they went bust not long after that!!!!

[mesh2008]

Thank you very much for your reply. Unfortunately NZ has no events in my country (Egypt) so there is no chance to attend a face-to-face interview unless I go on a trip to NZ. It is very expensive to go there (1 NZD = 4.8 EGP) so this may not be an easy option too :( Most probably there is no chance to get a job offer to speed up my PR application, I think I'll have to wait indefinitely till they respond. Thanks for all your replies.