nmccallum

Hi

Has anyone been the Opportunity Expo's and were they of any benefit?

Although there's a website - it's not very informative and I'd appreciate advice from anyone who's been to one before!

Thanks

pau1burt

My two South African flatmates went to the NZ one last year and said it is well worth the effort and highly recommended it to me. They showed me an entire file full of brochures, business cards and contacts they harvested when they were there. They said they felt a lot more empowered after it.

I think it's certainly worth it (for only £8) to actually speak to real human beings about your own individual case. Remember that the people who come to the Expo are there because they actively want to recruit people to work in Australia/NZ and are trying to sell their respective countries and areas. It certainly makes a change from endlessly sifting through PDFs on the DIMIA website and trying to cross-reference everything in your head.

I'm definitely going to be going along. Nothing to lose, really (except the 8 quid, of course)

Cheers,
Paul

worzel

In my experience the reason the website isn't very detailed is they don't want you to know how little there is of interest. Engineers and nurses have said it was alright but I would say forget it if you are neither of these.

There were a few shippers / finance brokers / banks / state governments drumming up business as well as a stall staffed by the London High Commission if you want help doing the application yourself. But as I remember, there were half a dozen stalls recruiting nurses and similar for engineers and that was it. We were in and out within 15 minutes. We took the tube into London and went shopping for the day instead as we had booked a room. At least we had a good ex-pats meet in the bar and in the pub over the road afterwards

Jonahs_mummy

I put this on another thread the other day about the same thing....

"We went to Earls Court last year & found it a complete waste of time! It was full of migration agents but as soon as they found out we had already submitted the TRA they were not interested in us! Also there were loads of job agencies but ALL were geared up for Engineers or Nurses! No good to us at all.

We have also been to York this year & found it better as there were many more removal companies there and general info about Australia, although yet again we paid the entrance fee & stayed only an hour - we got lots of info but also stuff we could have got on the net... you have to ask yourself if the travel costs & freebies were worth it.... for such exhibitions I fear they are not!

However, if you are about to embark on the whole Visa Journey & haven't done an iota of investigation and/or research then you will probably find they are useful.

Sorry to sound so down about them but we feel that we wasted our time going."

Claire
x

ali south

we also found the London one a waste of time
Tara

Gravyman

Hi

We went last year and to be honest for us it was a waste of time. The only upside was meeting up with a few people from the forums.

It really depends on your trade.

We certainly wouldn't go again.

Graham

Perthforme

The best thing i got at the sandown park one was a book from the WA gov that gave info on everything from living costs to tax/stump duties etc very good i guess most states do them !
Other than that was a bit crap

Jonahs_mummy

Oh yes I would also like to add that the only thing we did that wasn't a complete waste of time was to meet up with loadsa guys from BE! LOL

Yes I am talking about you Scissors, GSB, Professional Princess, DollyDayDream, Kelli28, Worzel, Pink Pussycat, to name but a few.............

lauralollipop

was the best thing we ever did last year, we got a visa and job in Aus out of it, well worth the time and effort. We went both days and found out lots of stuff, JC bagged a couple of interviews and got the job, 2 months later we were living here in Melbourne, all expenses paid, and they sorted out all the visas. Plus we had a great time meeting up with everyone afterwards at the pub!

good luck

laura

lynnlovessun

I'm a nurse and hubbie an Engineer - we travelled down from Glasgow and didn't feel it was worth it - my hubbie is a senior design engineer - mechanical/manufacturing - all the engineer stalls were recruiting civil engineers so a waste of time. The nurses stalls were mainly to do with agencies - I wouldn't go through a nursing agency - too many bad stories and plus they don't really recruit for my area of nursing - District/ community nursing - they are most short staffed in hospitals/ wards.

Wasn't worth the journey for us and most of the info we had already sourced from this site!

Lynn