[daummer]

Hello Everyone! I am new to this board but was thrilled to find it. My husband and I are trying to figure out how to emigrate from USA to NZ. It seems, from reading various posts, that often the easiest and fastest way to do this is to go over and find a job. Can anyone confirm or dispel this assumption? My hubby works in financial services. He has 8 years experience as a financial advisor and a Bachelor's in business. It seems like it might be a good idea to engage a NZ headhunter and have him go over alone for a couple of weeks to do interviews and hopefully secure a good offer. If he were to receive one, does the hiring firm then request a visa for him. Or do we lodge it specifying that we have a job offer? I am so confused by all of this. It seems so complicated! Thanks for any insights/help!

[SoCal Gal]

Have you done the points calculator? If you and your husband are fairly young, with bachelors degrees, you may have enough points to qualify already. Read EVERY post you can find in this forum about employment....especially agencies. It seems as if many people just contact businesses directly, it's not hard to find the larger employers of an area.
Just don't waste your money if you don't need to.
And, welcome to the ride!!
SoCal Gal

[daummer]

Hi Socal Gal, thanks for the reply...I will try the points calculator again but I think when I did it a few months ago we fell short without having a job offer. We do both have bachelor's degree and are in our 30's but I am a small business owner and that didn't give any points and his profession only got 40 I think. Good idea to try to contact the employers directly. I know the immigration agencies that promise to find a job for wannabe immigrants can be very expensive and of course we'd like to avoid that. By the way, my husband went to college and lived in San Diego for 9 years (Point Loma Nazarene University) and loved it there! We live in Boise, Idaho and he still misses it. Are you moving to NZ soon? We hope to...Best, Andrea

[Bergita]

Hi there

My advice is, as SoCal said, check your points - you can do this here: http://www.immigration.govt.nz/pointsindicator/
If you have the points required, then make your application. If you don't, check your points again, this time with a job offer. If you have enough points now, then consider going to NZ and trying to find a job.

My understanding is that if you go to NZ and find a job, you would then make the application yourself, ie, by submitting an EOI with proof of a job offer.

This is what we are planning to do, we know we will qualify on points if either of us gets a job offer, so we'll go, find a job and submit an EOI. And then take it from there....

Good luck!

[SoCal Gal]

Hi Andrea,
Yes, much as we have enjoyed our time in SD (and doesn't your hubby's old college have the most wonderful view!) it is time to go, and we should be there Oct. 1!! We leave for recon trip (only our 4th!) next week, and really, really need that job offer to get the ITA....but we already got our FBI background check done, so if we have to wait to get the medicals down there, that's OK.
You'll love this forum, it's incredibly addictive, and I have actually heard from every single company I ever contacted, even if they have no availability. When I think of all the 'blind resumes' I ever sent out up here and never heard a word back...well, that part of the job search has been nice.
Best of luck!

[daummer]

Congratulations and good luck to you, SoCal Girl! May I ask, did you contact companies directly and they responded positively to you even though you didn't have a visa yet?

[SoCal Gal]

Hi again,
The thing potential employers seem to want most of all is "when will you be here?" I started contacting people in June for my September visit/October move, and to a person it was, "Contact us again when you get here/almost get here/have a plane ticket in hand." Don't mean to sound sarcastic, but they really like it when you can say "I'm coming on such and such day", at least in my case. I know everyone has different experiences, but the PR thing/whatever never came up. Have confidence! They can only say no!
;-) Good luck!

[daummer]

Just learned that my husband probably would have a hard time finding a job in banking due to the fact that they want to hire Kiwis for financial advisor type positions. The headhunter said the best plan if we are really serious about moving to NZ is to just come out for a few months and find employment and do the 2 year work to residence path...My question to anyone who can help is, does it matter what kind of job? Does it have to be in the field one has worked in before? Can it be anything? HELP please! Also, if anyone can speak to the job market for English speaking, college grads? Thanks in advance!