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carter
17th January 2007, 07:17 AM
Well, firstly, hello to everyone and I must say what a fantastic forum this is. I've been reading posts and gathering information for quite a few weeks but I decided to take the plunge and register as our plans move up a gear.

Myself and my GF are 27 & 28 and have been seriously thinking about emigrating to either NZ or OZ from our life in the UK since our first (and only) visit to both countries in 2002. We were in both countries a couple of months. After much reading, deliberating about our lives in the UK we have decided we want to try and eventually migrate and gain PR in NZ. I won't bore everyone with the reasons why we want to emigrate but reading other posts the reasons are much the same.

We've been round in circles as to how we will go about this but we have come to a general consensus of a "plan" (a bit like the Italian job!). So here it is. I would really welcome some feedback on how viable it sounds and just people's general thoughts of its merits and drawbacks.

1) We've decided not to go through an agent as it seems the NZIS website and the valuable wisdom on this forum should see us through.

2) Our idea is to go on a working holiday visa in Nov 07. My GF is a qualified secondary ed teacher with over 4 yrs recent experience. I work for the careers service Connexions. I have a degree and PGCE but this only qualifies me to work in Further Ed (Business and Tourism). The idea was to go over and get a feel for life over there before going through the cost and ordeal of applying for PR. As my job is not in a shortage area and I don't come near to the 140 pts I thought a joint application would be best with my GF as the primary applicant. While over there on a WHV we could get a feel for where the teaching jobs are and where we may wish to settle (we appreciate these could be mutually exclusive!). If both happy we would go for PR.
3) The part I'm unsure of is if my GF wanted to apply for teaching posts and got offered a job we'd still have to then apply for PR which I'm unsure of how long this would take with a job offer. This leads to the question, would the employer wait? If my GF was granted residence with me on the application I would then look for work in an office or customer service based role

I guess my overall sense from reading around is a teaching job offer would hugely strengthen an EOI and possibly expediate the whole process. Trying to get my head round it just drags up more questions than answers :confused:

Your thoughts are very welcome........

Sorry for the long post.

KerryS
17th January 2007, 08:30 AM
If you get a WHV your girlfriend should apply to have her qualifications recognised by NZQA and register as a teacher. She would then be able to get teaching work on a WHV, which, after 6 months she could claim 50 points of additional experience for an EOI if you do decide to go down that route.
If she gets a job when on WHV that she enjoys and you want to extend then a work permit only takes a few days to process. It is only the PR itself that takes any time to gain - although the processing times from within NZ are much faster than from outside. (Think in terms of weeks rather than months in many cases.)
I did the holiday and then work permit then PR route, and initially worked in education when I arrived, so feel free to ask any questions.

Sam B
17th January 2007, 08:33 AM
Hi Carter
Welcome to the forum.
I'm a speech and language therapist so also in a skills shortage area. I found it very easy to get a job without PR (whilst in the UK though) and all the prospective employers (all from the ministry of education) were happy to wait as long as it took to sort everything all out. Actually getting PR was really quick with a job offer - 50 days from submitting my EOI. No probs with medicals or anything though.

If you are going to do it all in NZ, remember to take every piece of paperwork you have ever owned with you... including proof of every job you have done in the relevant skills shortage area and full page birth certs etc.

Hope this helps.

Sam

carter
18th January 2007, 07:02 AM
Sam B, KerryS, thankyou for those replies. If getting PR with a job offer in NZ is a quicker process, then getting the WHV does seem like the best route for our situation.

At least with going on the WHV we have more control of when we go as I'm hoping that will be fairly straightforward to process.

If anyone has any other thoughts about our plan they wish to share please feel free......

Regards

carter

jewelsvani
18th January 2007, 08:31 AM
basically fella we are in the same boat and have the exact same plans for jan 2008, you can get offered teaching jobs from this side of the ocean so you may get pr and a job before you land :)

We are going to do the whv (if we dont get a job) route also i am 30 (nearly 31 getting whv in the next month) and my misses is 26, so your plan to me seems to be very similar to ours there no reason why it won't work. :)

We are just selling everything dont own a house just rent at the mow and turn up with a backpack and start from scratch saves a fortune in container costs. :) get her qualifications assessed this takes 3 months (well did for us) then when you apply for jobs nd quote that number you will come across as more serious as it costs about 400 quid to get i think it was. :) good luck

carter
19th January 2007, 04:21 AM
basically fella we are in the same boat and have the exact same plans for jan 2008, you can get offered teaching jobs from this side of the ocean so you may get pr and a job before you land :)

We are going to do the whv (if we dont get a job) route also i am 30 (nearly 31 getting whv in the next month) and my misses is 26, so your plan to me seems to be very similar to ours there no reason why it won't work. :)

We are just selling everything dont own a house just rent at the mow and turn up with a backpack and start from scratch saves a fortune in container costs. :) get her qualifications assessed this takes 3 months (well did for us) then when you apply for jobs nd quote that number you will come across as more serious as it costs about 400 quid to get i think it was. :) good luck

Thanks for the reply. We'll make sure we get the quals assessed and sort out as much paperwork before we go. We bought a flat a few years back with the intention of it being somewhere we could rent out come the time. Although this brings with it, its own headaches as I keep heaving flashbacks from watching "tenants from hell" when it was on the tv! We don't have too much stuff so we would also start from scratch with furnishings.

I hope it all goes well for you.

Regards

Carter

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