[Rimbo]

Kim39 gave me the idea for this thread. :nice1

What were your thoughts on the London Expo held this weekend at the IBIS (Paragon) hotel in West Brompton?

Personally I thought it was useful. I went with an open mind and found that there were some employers with exhibits, but not to the scale that some quarters were promising. :no So it’s a good job I went with this in mind or I would have been disappointed.

I found it suited different people with different skills in different ways. A chef for instance would have said it was completely useless but a nurse or teacher would have loved it. Civil engineers, gas fitters and some other trades would have benefited.

I took it on face value, gave out my CV, got my face into the eyes of possible employers and came across very well to them :angel (hopefully). It is up to me now to follow up with letters, e-mails, visits etc. as with my skills no-one is going to drop everything to come to my aid.

I met some really delightful people. Some stands really impressed me, New Plymouth District council being the best of the rest. I spoke with Rodger Kerr-Newell and Peter Tennent the Mayor. They both impressed me very much and seemed like genuine chaps. They were very bubbly, difficult to do when meeting loads of strangers all day. :nice1

The seminars I attended were quite good, I went to the Hawke’s Bay, Canterbury and NZIS seminars. Hawke’s Bay really sold me, I will definitely be looking more into Napier and Hastings, and again I met the Mayor’s which I was quite impressed with. Sadly the Canterbury video didn’t work, technical difficulties, I suppose I should have stepped in and helped, might have got me noticed. NZIS was good but it didn’t answer anything I didn’t already know.

One major Gripe. Bad organisation!
Venue too small, the queues were horrendous, WE BRITS DON’T LIKE QUEING!
They sold too many tickets for the seminars, not everybody that bought a ticket managed to get into the seminar, so they should not have sold the tickets. Seminar rooms only held about 50 people! :no :no :no

All –in-all, I think I benefited from the day and it was worthwhile to me.
:clap

John

[jo b]

I echo all that Jon has said.

Oh yeah Jon why didn't you fix the Canterbury techy failure :mrgreen:

I had a great journey there and back.........sleeping in the back of the car.

It really fuelled my enthusiasm.

John have you read my I'm a bit giddy now.

Jo

[Rimbo]

Not yet, i'll look for it but i have to rush out to Altringham now.
thanks for your company and the lift on Sat. But you really must sort out that snoring problem! :laugh :laugh
i'll pm you soon.
John

[Jon]

The whole thing was quite well organised, I got down be about 10-10.30 and it was okay, but by 11.30 the place was totally packed.

Not a good day for me, got told by the NZIS that my work expeience was worth sod all, and that I've got no chance in the SMC unless I get a job related to my degree.

Spent the last couple of days looking into Work to residence, if it comes down to it.

Any nurse/teacher etc WILL YOU MARRY ME?

Cheers
Jon

[andersonclan]

We made the trek from Scotland to the Expo on Sunday - a day trip with 2 kids in tow. However, we found it really useful. We didn't stay long - but spoke to a few key people and picked up some good info.

We arrived about 10 and it was fine - but it was really busy by 12.30 when we left.

The kids enjoyed the plane and their first trip to London so all in all - a good day

[Terry&Sophie]

Hi everyone,

I agree about the queues, and the seminars. However, there were lots of recruitment agencies (nice to meet the people we've been speaking to face to face), and both Terry and I managed to get interviews! Mine was organised in the morning and took place in the afternoon in the hotel lobby :uhoh - a little stressful but very useful. I now have people to contact when I get over there (holiday or permanently), although they said they wouldn't offer me a job until I'd been to NZ and had a look around the company :no

NZIS seminar was useful, although we were later given conflicting advice at the NZIS stand! Might also have been useful to know which employers would be there before we went.

Sophie

[captainxmas]

The trick with the queues is to pre-buy your e ticket.

Get to the venue, walk straight past the queue and enter by the hotel's main door.

Cut through the lobby and the big snake queue.

Slip comfortably into the pre-booked queue of a handful of people rather than a few thousand.

Ta Da. :clap

[Rimbo]

Yes we tried that trick.
Didn't really work though!

bum bum :clap

[leslie]

we e-booked but still waited. badly organised event. found the organisations really helpful but employment agencies set off too many alarm bells. very similar to brit estate agents! do you really want to pput your life in their hands???
most of the information is available online/ via embassy. if you missed it wouldn't cry too much... interesting but hardly critical

[acisman]

We went on the Saturday and yes the queues were long and the venue too small. We are retiring to NZ so the employment stands were of no interest to us. However we did pick up some very useful info from Westpac Bank, HIFX, ASB Bank and Crown and PPS (PSS?) shipping companies. It is so much better being able to ask direct questions and get some answers.


Dave

[jeanie]

we went on saturday, husband said i dont think it will be that busy joke. we found it useful. After battling the underground now realise why i dont work in london anymore. on the whole it was ok. Found Bayleys a very expensive real estate agency compared to homes you find on the other estate agents. We were also impressed with the New Plymouth people very relaxed and helpful and easy to chat to.CRS recruitment were excellent husband had a video interview which went very well.

[Slatch]

We were going to use it as an excuse for a weekend in London, but they had to make it the same weekend as the Grand Final :? . Luckily we couldn't get accommodation that weekend :P and the Rhinos didn't let us down :clap

....but saying all that we still want to go to one of these expos, whether it be in London or any other city, does anyone know of any other forthcoming ones?

[Timbo]

I am sure someone mentioned an expo in Cheshire coming up some time.

[Rimbo]

Slatch,
the London Expo is an annual thing. It's the only one that promises real NZ employers. there are many emmigrate shows around the country but they don't specialise on NZ as this one does. Last year we went to one at York Racecourse and this year i know of another that was at Sandown. this was a show organised by outbound publishing( link below). You will find them very useful if you are in the early stages of emmigrating or thinking about it. The reason why the London Expo ws so important for us is that it was soley for NZ with reps from NZ there.
hope this helps.
:cool
http://www.outboundpublishing.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?location=000011000002&showitem=000001

john

[NoelMC]

We had a good visit to the Expo.
Met up with several recruitment consulatancies.
One wanted me to go upstairs with him !!!!! for an video interview with a client in NZ. Not ready to go over yet so put him off.

We have friends over in ChCh and Nelson, they both work for the same Company. When we were over in NZ in January I had an interview with their firm, the guy who interviewed me was on a stand!!

Also met a one of the estate agents on the Bayleys stand, we asked about Nelson, he said that was where he worked, we said we had been over in Jan with friends,he asked who, I told him their names.... and bu**er me with a pitch fork he knows them!!

SO all in all the Expo reminded me what a small world we live in

PS this is my first post

Noel

[jo b]

Noel,

welcome to the forum. If you'd have any questions there are many helpful people on here who will give their valuable information.

Jo