[Questor]

Had an email waiting for me after we got back from honeymoon yesterday to say that a job offer was on it's way to me!!

As long as all the details are good, we'll be heading off to the Kapiti Coast ASAP!

:clap :cheers

(A very happy) Jon

[gil]

That's fantastic news Jon! Congratulations!! :raebanana:raebanana (And bon voyage!)
Gil

[Emma]

Yihaaaaaaaaaa! :raebanana

Congrats!! :nice1

[katandbob]

Double congrats!.....nice to see some happy news!

Kat

[Nienke]

Congratulations on both wedding and job!! :cheers

[Kim39]

Nice way to start your married life....congrats:clap


Kim

[kiwidebs]

Congratulations (on both wedding and job) Jon :clap :raebanana .

Debs

[marcia]

brilliant wedding pressie eh??

Congratulations! :clap

[Smiler]

Yeehaaaaaaay! Congratulations :raebanana:raebanana:raebanana

[willsken]

Fantastic news - congratulations, really pleased for you :raebanana

[zardell]

:raebanana :raebanana :raebanana

CONGRATULATIONS.

What wonderful news...........well, done you.

Julie

xx

[Questor]

Thanks for the congrats folks, I'm watching the post like a hawk every morning now :)

I'm like Pavlov's dog, as soon as I hear the letterbox I'm there waiting to see what's arrived!!

[k-k]

Good news, should speed your ITA along nicely, you'll be over here before you know it.

I've just had my first week working in a pharmacy and I'm sure you'll be delighted to know it's much the same as in the UK (except for the horrendous prescription pricing system).

I've had dealings with the Pharmacy Council etc so if you've any questions about getting prepared to come over, PM me. Watch the fact that your letter of good standing from the society is only valid for 6 months. I just got work sorted before mine was up, the council would have wanted another letter otherwise. They only sort out the paperwork just before your start date as there's more form filling and photos to be certified.

Keep watching the post for that letter! (it's just one long round of waiting isn't it).

Karen

[Questor]

That's good Karen - I was hoping it wasn't gonna be too different - I have all on coping with £6.65 an item here ;)

[Questor]

The letter arrived today!

Unfortunately on all the paperwork they've spelt my name Jo_H_n, hopefully NZIS won't quibble about that - if they do it's waiting at least another week for them to send another copy of the stuff over!

[zardell]

Mmmmmm.....they mis-spelled my name on my police report, but we havent heard anything yet 'cos we only submitted our ITA in February (no job offer) so it wont even have got looked at yet.

But back to you.....

Maybe you could send the company an e.mail asking them to admit their typo error and forward it onto your case officer ??

It may save some time.....just a thought.

Julie

xx

[Questor]

OK I'm going to be really impatient here and I have a question

How soon should we be assigned a Case Officer after faxing over a job offer?
I faxed the offer over last Tuesday, and haven't heard anything since - now I understand that it's been Easter, but they were only closed Friday and Monday, so its been over a week damnit!! :)

Want our PR!! :)

EDIT For being stupid:
I also sent the offer down to them and that arrived on Thursday (sent Special Delivery so I know that much!)

[Smiler]

We were assigned a CO the day after our job offer and interviewed the day after that.

Why not send a nice email, saying hi, how's it going etc? Not that you would send a horrid email. :laugh Or phone them?

[Questor]

I phoned on Wednesday, and the girl I spoke to said that if we hadn't heard by the end of the week to phone them again - so if nothing comes in the post tomorrow I'm straight on the blower!

Not that I want to get things sorted you understand.......:)

[Smiler]

Good luck then as I guess you'll be on the blower at 9.00 am today? :nice1

[Questor]

It wasn't quite at 9am, but at 10.30 after the post had been, and still nothing!

Rung them, and the person I spoke to this time was really nice, and went and checked for me - when she got back she said that it still hadn't been allocated yet, but she had spoken to another visa officer, and he was going to chase it up for me!

So, a kind of result, if not quite the one we were hoping for!

[zardell]

Ooooh isn't all this waiting a killer ???

How you contain yourself from not going down to London in person is beyond me. If I was in your position my OH would have to physically restrain me.
You may have gathered that patience is NOT one of my virtues...... :laugh


Never mind....you'll soon be on your way. :exit

Julie

xx

[Questor]

Oh believe me I've been on the verge of phoning avery half hour over the last few days!

I'm consoling myself with the hope that if this is the worst it gets we'll be alright! :cheers

EDIT: This just arrived in my email inbox:

Dear Mr Redshaw



Thank you for submitting information regarding an offer of skilled employment in New Zealand. I can confirm that your Skilled Migrant application with job offer has been referred for allocation to a visa officer. You will receive notice when you have been allocated a Visa Officer and will get your visa officers name and contact details.



Please ensure that you have the original offer of employment letter and signed contract. These will be requested by your visa officer.



Kind Regards



Karen Gane

Skilled Migrant Administrator

While its not a case officer, it's at least an acknowledgement that one is on the way! :) :yes

[zardell]

:raebanana :raebanana :raebanana

Yaaaaay........how good is that......... :yes

Keep the barbie warm.......we won't be too far behind......LOL.

Julie

xx

[Questor]

Whereabouts are you headed Julie?

[zardell]

:laugh :laugh :laugh ...........Don't ask !!

We have narrowed it down to 3 areas now, so when we land (hopefully Sept/Oct) we will be hiring a camper van and doing the rounds.

Undoubtedly at some point, we will be calling into your pharmacy for the obligatory paracetamol and the Valium....... :yes

Julie

xx

[Questor]

Sounds like a plan to me!

[Questor]

Gah!

Someone at NZIS is being stupid I think!

As I'm a pharmacist, I need to have registration in NZ before I can practice. In order to get registered, I have to be in New Zealand.
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPSGB) over here have an arrangement with the equivalent body in NZ that we can register after practicing for 4 weeks with another pharmacist. In order for the NZ society to recognise me as a pharmacist of good standing, I have to get the RPSGB to send a letter of good standing to the PCNZ.
This I did back in January. The RPSGB send the original letter to NZ, and a copy to me, which is stamped "copy" by the RPSGB.
I submitted this copy, along with a photocopy with our ITA, mentioned the fact that the original goes direct to NZ and that whilst it says "copy" it is "original" (If that makes sense!) in the covering letter, and even mentioned it when we handed in our ITA in person!
I got an email today, saying "we need an original letter of good standing before we can proceed with your application :rolleyes:

Now, I've emailed them back saying that I CAN'T get an "original" letter because they don't send it to me!

I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall!!

Jon

[katandbob]

Good luck with NZIS....sounds like you need some :roll

Kat

[k-k]

Jon,

It all sounds so familiar. I had exactly the same problems with the NZIS. Believe me, there will be a lot more head banging to be done before you get that visa.
It took me long enough to convince them that the letter of good standing was all they would need (they initially told me I needed to be registered before they'd process the ITA).
I'd not arranged the letter before this so when they decided they needed one I rang the RPSGB and asked them to send a COPY of the letter of good standing directly to the case officer when they sent off the original to the Pharmacy Council. They also sent a copy to me which as you state has 'copy' stamped on it. I'll bet you that the copy they sent to the case officer had the same stamp on it.
Wait till you get assigned a case officer and deal with them directly and if necessary ask the RPSGB to send another copy directly to the NZIS.
My case officer was Adelle Curtis, so she should know exactly how to process a pharmacists application after dealing with me, if you don't get her then refer your case worker to her.
If you need any more info let me know.

Karen
(almost a real NZ pharmacist.... ethics interview this Wednesday)

[katandbob]

Jon,

It all sounds so familiar. I had exactly the same problems with the NZIS. Believe me, there will be a lot more head banging to be done before you get that visa.
It took me long enough to convince them that the letter of good standing was all they would need (they initially told me I needed to be registered before they'd process the ITA).
I'd not arranged the letter before this so when they decided they needed one I rang the RPSGB and asked them to send a COPY of the letter of good standing directly to the case officer when they sent off the original to the Pharmacy Council. They also sent a copy to me which as you state has 'copy' stamped on it. I'll bet you that the copy they sent to the case officer had the same stamp on it.
Wait till you get assigned a case officer and deal with them directly and if necessary ask the RPSGB to send another copy directly to the NZIS.
My case officer was Adelle Curtis, so she should know exactly how to process a pharmacists application after dealing with me, if you don't get her then refer your case worker to her.
If you need any more info let me know.

Karen
(almost a real NZ pharmacist.... ethics interview this Wednesday)

Karen - good luck for wednesday then :nice1 , nice to see that there is someone on here that knows exactly how Jon is going through.

Jon - you'll have to keep us all posted on how it turns out. :D

[Questor]

It was our case officer who emailed me - his name is Craig Pontifex (odd name!)
I've not heard back from him as yet, I'll ring him tomorrow

[Questor]

Good news (kind of!)
Phoned today, and spoke to Craig. He seems a nice guy, and he said that they were happy to go through with our application at this stage, and we'd be hearing from him at the beginning of next week (He's out of the office till tuesday now - BOO!!)

I think this is a good sign!

[katandbob]

Yes sounds good.......... :raebanana heres one banana for starters...

Kat

[Questor]

yeah - I think one banana is deserved - but only one mind! :D

[Smiler]

I'm sitting on my banana's until Tuesday ;)

Good luck for then Jon.

[Questor]

UPDATE

Well I've been in touch with Craig and he says they have sent me some forms to prove that we can support ourselves (Is a job offer not enough any more?!?!!) This was last Friday and nothing has arrived - I'm going to have to ring AGAIN aren't I tomorrow?

I'm getting more than a little fecked off with it all, and Catie's even worse!

[StevieD]

That's the guy who is sitting in for Dave Martin -sorted us out real quick - but a different situation to you Questor.

[Questor]

I've got a job just gimme at least WTR damnit!! :)

[Smiler]

Yes, please get him to hurry up and decide one way or another. I've been sitting on my banana's for two days now. :rolleyes:

[k-k]

Hi Jon

It's never ending isn't it.
I don't remember being sent forms to fill in regarding having funds to support myself but I did have a letter asking for the following:
Evidence of your travel arrangements to NZ
Evidence you have sufficient funds to support yourself for 3 months and
Evidence you have sufficient funds to purchase an outward ticket from NZ.
As usual they want all original documents, no photocopies. I had to send bank and credit card statements etc.

Might as well get the stuff looked out whilst waiting for these elusive forms. Though you'd have thought the fact you have a job and will be paid wages should be enough. ( maybe they think you'll be working for free!!).

Keep sane
Karen

[Questor]

Well we got the forms today and they told me we needed to provide lots of evidence, like you said Karen.

I rang Craig and said something along the lines of "Do I need to provide all this seeing as my job will support us?"
He then said "Oh yeah, I should have thought of that!" :roll

So I'm saying that we will be supported by my job, and HOPEFULLY we should have WTR visas back next week!! :)

[k-k]

Good news Jon, but isn't it sooooo frustrating. It's bad enough that you've got to keep chasing them up, but the fact they're giving duff info doesn't help.

Karen

[tchelseat]

Questor, have you already made your travel arrangements? We submitted our ITA the same day as you (!), but with no job offer or PR yet, we're not making travel plans until we have official word on our PR. Just curious as to what your response was to your case officer if you haven't yet booked flights, etc.

[Questor]

Well, with a job offer they look at your file more quickly, so I don't thin they'll look at yours till about the end of the month going with where they're at currently.
We haven't made any travel plans yet, as we wanted to wait till we had visas before booking, as you can get extra baggage allowances that way.
Because I have a job, they don't need to see proof, I just can't get registered in my profession (Pharmacy) until I'm in NZ and I can't get PR until I'm registered, so that's why we have to go down the WTR angle. We'll get PR as soon as I've been in my job for 3 months.

Does that make sense? It seems to in my head, then come out as a jumble when I come to write it down!!
Jon