Need help with "No Visa / No Job Offer" Catch-22

sfobrian

Hi all-

While I'm a newly-joined member here (and extremely psyched about this resource), I've been on the sidelines in trying to get a job in NZ for a while now. I found out about this site through a SFGate article. To be honest, I almost fell out of my chair when I read it; the insinuation that it was so easy to move to NZ ran so counter to my experiences, I was dumbfounded.

Now, I freely admit that it's entirely likely that I haven't been doing everything I possibly could, but short of an old man wearing a weird hat walking up to me, handing me some jewelry and asking me to throw it in an active volcano and doing it, I'm not sure what it could be (and I certainly didn't see THAT prerequisite in all the immigration paperwork). Here's what I've done thus far:

1. Before I left NZ on my first visit in 2001, I met with and secured an immigration specialist in Auckland, who I've been in constant touch with since. I've done everything I can over here in preparation for all the paperwork (I've even had my FBI background check done twice because it "expires" after 6 months).

2. While I will confess that I put off seriously starting the effort for a while (having been a laid-off tech worker, I had been working retail and customer service to make ends meet - I wanted to get a little more experience and money in the bank before going after a job in NZ), as I near my 30th birthday I stepped up the effort several months ago.

3. Back in October, I took advantage of AirNZ's crazy fare sale and went down for a week (all the time I could afford taking off from my job). I worked what little NZ connections I had (to no avail, with the exception of an invite from an American expat working at Weta to drop by Wellington) and tried arranging meetings ahead of time with headhunters. Headhunters, as could be imagined, were not responsive to my attempts to start a dialog via email that we could continue while I was visiting. So I cold-visited, walking in off the street asking to speak with anyone available. While I met with a number of headhunters (and to reinforce the sincerity of my ambition and interest, I gave all of them the contact information of my immigration consultant), nothing came out of it except for pleasantries and loose promises to keep in touch - with one exception.

4. One headhunter managed to get me an interview with the president of a software distributor the day I was leaving. While it was an informational interview, I felt it went really well. Unfortunately, due to a number of factors, this potential opportunity withered on the vine (long story, and this is already a long posting).

Now I do understand that my doing an international job search remotely is a great hinderance (to their credit, what headhunters that did agree to speak with me, did mention it). Unfortunately, I'm not in a position that I can liquidate my life here and move down there without a job offer. Had any of the headhunters said that if I made the move, they could guarantee me a job (in some manner), that would be another story (yes, I understand that they couldn't do that and it's best that they didn't).

Point being, I'm still in the Catch-22 of not having either a work visa or a job offer. I just downloaded the aforementioned PDF of "Accredited Employers" and will be going through it shortly. As my current professional network has been exhausted in its NZ connections, does anyone have any suggestions? Yes, I've tried a number of different job websites, but considering they don't even work for US citizens for US jobs, I'm not too hopeful. I don't have a problem going down for another "discovery" trip, but I would need to have interviews lined up beforehand - I'm not interested in repeating my October trip.

I have a degree from one of the top 25 liberal arts colleges in the US and 4 years experience working for Silicon Valley start-ups (one in software, one in consumer electronics), with a broad background ranging from customer support to a little bit of sales and business development, to my most recent tech job in marketing. I have no problems doing whatever it takes to get my foot in the door somewhere and paying my dues. I love New Zealand and want to make the move, in all sincerity.

Sorry for the long rant, but as you can tell, this has been extremely frustrating and something about which I am very passionate. Prior to reading that SFGate article and finding out about this site, I basically gave up all hope. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Brian

Dave & Sandra · Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2004 5:52 am Post subject: Need help with "No Visa / No Job

Hi Brian

What my husband did was to look on the internet for companies that were in the same line as he is (i.e. Structural Engineering) they also have a Professional body which had a web-site and listed loads of companies and e-mail addresses. He then e-mailed them all direct with his CV.

He got 4 replies from companies that were really interested and arranged interviews when we arrived in Auckland. He got 3 job offers from 4 interviews - not bad going.

He e-mailed about 2 weeks before we were due to arrive, so that they wouldn't have time to forget about him when he called to set up the appointments.

Best of luck

Sandra