Has anyone gone from work visa to PR?
 

I am finding all the visas a mine field at the moment.
Pending a job offer, it's likely I will need to be in NZ by August 2012 and so time is short to get a SM visa.
We want to get PR at some point, but it appears that the quickest visa for me at the moment is a work visa (essential skills category). I am hoping for a 5 year one as I have level 1 skills and will be >$55000 threshold.

1) will we ever be able to apply for PR?
2) I've gathered that if so, I will have to do it the EOI route and so have to pay for another medical and other costs again
3) What's the most efficient way of getting PR if I do end up having to go the work visa route to begin with because of time pressures.
4) how long could it be before we get our new citizenship?

Thanks in advance
J

Re: Has anyone gone from work visa to PR?
 

Apply for both together, they can use the same medical and police check. You may well get SM PR by August if you have a job offer anyway....

Re: Has anyone gone from work visa to PR?
 

I came over on a work visa and now have PR.

Could be wrong but I dont think you get a 5 year work visa, I think the longest one available is 3 years.

Yep, you can apply for PR at any time with a work visa as long as you have the points required. I had a 3 year visa and applied for PR after 13 months.
Medicals, police checks etc all have time limits so yes, if you wait and apply for PR after they run out you'll need to pay for the whole lot again (medicals are cheaper in NZ though, my second one was about half the price of my first)
The only way is to go through the EOI/ITA process, if you can get your PR application in before your medicals etc expire then that should speed it all up a bit
Citizenship cant be applied for until you have PR for 5 years regardless of how you go about getting PR in the first place.

Hope that helps but, as Simonsi says why don't you apply for them both together and save yourself a lot of time and money.

Re: Has anyone gone from work visa to PR?
 

Does this mean you have a job offer? If you do have a job offer you will get allocated a case officer with your ITA and if you fill it out properly, provide all the necessary paperwork you can get your visa within 3mths.

As others have said not sure you can get a 5year one.
Who are you going to include on the application?
1. yes.
2. our case - submitted EOI with 125 points, husband got a job so got work visa, amended the EOI with the additional points, got pulled following week, got ITA. submitted it 28th October 2011 got approved 31st January (bear in mind the Christmas slow down period) Plus we lost 2 weeks when mine and daughters medicals where referred.