Carl and Liz
10th September 2005, 04:45 AM
Hi Everybody,
We had our interview with our visa officer this morning and I just wanted to pass on some info about what happened for those who are still waiting.
We applied under the skilled migrant category with no job offer. My husband is an engineer and due to his qualifications, work history, etc., we had 140 points (I only contributed 10 points because of my qualifications - quite humbling - although I did all the work putting the application together and pushing things along).
NZIS received our application in June. Last Monday (5 September), we received an e-mail scheduling our telephone interview for yesterday (8 September) (rescheduled to today (9 September) because our visa officer did not make it into the office yesterday).
We are in Los Angeles and our visa officer is in London. I had spoken to local NZ officials and they thought they might be doing the interview, but that was not the case. The interview was at 7:00 a.m. our time, 3:00 p.m. London time.
Since Carl was the principal applicant, she wanted to speak directly to him. She did let us conduct the interview on speaker phone and I was allowed to interject a few times on questions specific to whether I was going to work and what I had done to find a job. But, overall, Carl was required to do the talking.
Not surprisingly, the main focus of her questions was what Carl had done or was going to do to find a job. There were several of these questions along the lines of what have you done to identify potential employers, have you actually applied for any work, what problems do you anticipate, etc. I would recommend, if you haven't already applied for work prior to your interview (like we hadn't) have as much specific information as possible about what you have done to identify opportunities - i.e. followed job postings, joined or plan to join your trade or professional society, etc.
She also asked whether we had been to New Zealand, why we wanted to live there, where were planned to settle, whether we had any family or friends in New Zealand and what problems did we anticipate in settling. She didn't ask specific questions like whether we had enough money to tide us over while we look for a job.
At the end of the interview, she was very straightforward about what happens next. Three possibilities: they deny our application (which she said they would not do), grant us a residence visa, or grant us a work to residence visa (where Carl would have to obtain skilled employment within a specific amount of time before we would get our residence visa). We should receive a response via e-mail within one to two weeks.
We did not submit our passports with our application back in June because we needed them for travel. Once a decision has been made, we need to send them our passports within six months to get them stamped. She said that I could go to NZ now (on a regular visitors visa) and send my passport to them once they had made their decision.
An interesting note, I called Air New Zealand a few days ago about the possibility of booking a one way flight to New Zealand travelling on a U.S. passport. They won't do it - I'm legally required to buy a round trip ticket until I actually have a residence visa stamp in my passport.
I hope this information is helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to ask or PM me. Good luck to everyone!
Regards,
Liz
We had our interview with our visa officer this morning and I just wanted to pass on some info about what happened for those who are still waiting.
We applied under the skilled migrant category with no job offer. My husband is an engineer and due to his qualifications, work history, etc., we had 140 points (I only contributed 10 points because of my qualifications - quite humbling - although I did all the work putting the application together and pushing things along).
NZIS received our application in June. Last Monday (5 September), we received an e-mail scheduling our telephone interview for yesterday (8 September) (rescheduled to today (9 September) because our visa officer did not make it into the office yesterday).
We are in Los Angeles and our visa officer is in London. I had spoken to local NZ officials and they thought they might be doing the interview, but that was not the case. The interview was at 7:00 a.m. our time, 3:00 p.m. London time.
Since Carl was the principal applicant, she wanted to speak directly to him. She did let us conduct the interview on speaker phone and I was allowed to interject a few times on questions specific to whether I was going to work and what I had done to find a job. But, overall, Carl was required to do the talking.
Not surprisingly, the main focus of her questions was what Carl had done or was going to do to find a job. There were several of these questions along the lines of what have you done to identify potential employers, have you actually applied for any work, what problems do you anticipate, etc. I would recommend, if you haven't already applied for work prior to your interview (like we hadn't) have as much specific information as possible about what you have done to identify opportunities - i.e. followed job postings, joined or plan to join your trade or professional society, etc.
She also asked whether we had been to New Zealand, why we wanted to live there, where were planned to settle, whether we had any family or friends in New Zealand and what problems did we anticipate in settling. She didn't ask specific questions like whether we had enough money to tide us over while we look for a job.
At the end of the interview, she was very straightforward about what happens next. Three possibilities: they deny our application (which she said they would not do), grant us a residence visa, or grant us a work to residence visa (where Carl would have to obtain skilled employment within a specific amount of time before we would get our residence visa). We should receive a response via e-mail within one to two weeks.
We did not submit our passports with our application back in June because we needed them for travel. Once a decision has been made, we need to send them our passports within six months to get them stamped. She said that I could go to NZ now (on a regular visitors visa) and send my passport to them once they had made their decision.
An interesting note, I called Air New Zealand a few days ago about the possibility of booking a one way flight to New Zealand travelling on a U.S. passport. They won't do it - I'm legally required to buy a round trip ticket until I actually have a residence visa stamp in my passport.
I hope this information is helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to ask or PM me. Good luck to everyone!
Regards,
Liz