Our experience of nearly hiring an immigration consultant
 

Hi all, haven't been on here in a little while. Last time I posted I was toying with the idea of using an immigration consultant. You all advised against the consultant but we were torn, for the following reason...

We'd met with a recruitment consultant who flew all the way out to the UK to meet a bunch of UK candidates for employment in Christchurch and having met him face to face he was very positive about being able to line us up with an opportunity. He said he would be able to tell recruiters that he had met my OH in person which they would like, and IF we were to use a [recommended] migration consultant who would have all our papers ready to go, then it should get us over the hurdle of recruiters being wary of people without a visa. He was a very nice bloke and we felt very positive about it, especially as he'd painted a pretty gloomy picture of our hopes of getting a job offer without all that anywhere in NZ (stating that it was only a realistic prospect in ChCh because of the gap to fill on the rebuild), which seemed to corroborate what we'd been told by other highly pessimistic recruitment consultants.

We got in touch with this recommended immi consultant and he was also very helpful. He then tried to persuade us to use the services of someone in addition to him to help us set up our lives in NZ. We were quoted about £2.5k for the immi consultant and well over £1k for this other service - all money we don't have really. We emailed the original recruitment consultant to see if he would be willing to work with us in the meantime while we saved up for this immi consultant's services (having already decided against this second 'service') and he ignored the two emails we sent.

Reading all this written down the whole thing stinks of a con I know and we must sound very stupid, however the recruitment consultant runs a very successful firm and both he and the immigration consultant have good reviews all over the internet and seem very plausible and professional. I still don't think it is a con in that the migration consultant is a genuine professional as is the recruitment consultant, however I do think they have their hands in each other's pockets and are perhaps painting a better picture than is actually the case, and we were dropped like hot potatoes when we admitted we didn't have the cash there and then for all this stuff.

Thank you all for your advice, it really helped. Needless to say, we will not be using the migration consultant. (Does anybody else have any opinions about the premise that the use of a migration consultant is the key to getting a job offer without a visa? Do you think we are being cynical by supposing this is a ploy to get money out of us?)

So we are just plugging away applying for jobs for OH in the hope something comes up. He has one interview in a couple of weeks via skype from something he applied to directly rather than through a consultant, but we're not pinning our hopes on it. Oh and that's in Northland so couldn't be further away from ChCh - so much for that piece of advice!

Re: Our experience of nearly hiring an immigration consultant
 

Hi - I did hear and read that prospective employers prefer direct as it obviously saves them recruitment costs. To be fair thats the same world over (even though i work in recruitment at the moment lol!) We applied direct, had an interview and hubby got the job. Very quick and straight forward really. We were too looking at an immi consultant and had the same experience as you last year - lots of over promising and under delivering for a small fortune! We even got told a possible job interview was on the cards, they were just waiting for us to pay their deposit for services before they arranged it! That set the alarm bells ringing for me. Avoid them and do it yourself - much cheaper and there's loads of people on here who can help with questions. This is a great forum. Plus immi house in London is helpful if a little expensive to call!

Good luck - we've just had our medicals and are awaiting them and the police certs and then visa app going in. Excited does not even start to explain how we feel!
:fingerscrossed::D

Re: Our experience of nearly hiring an immigration consultant
 

How exciting - it's great to hear such a positive story. Hope the rest of the process goes so smoothly for you. Where abouts are you headed and what job did your hubby get? (If you don't mind me asking).

We tried sending one application to the place directly a while ago and got a really snooty email saying they only take applications through consultants *rolls eyes* so it put us off trying it again for a while. But he's decided to stick to the public sector only now even if it means it might take a bit longer, as his career has been public sector to date and they seem to all take applications direct. Our experiences with recruitment consultants over there have so far been dead end and depressing. Crossing fingers extremely tightly for this interview but trying not to get excited.

Interesting to hear you had a similar story, it must be rife. I don't know how they can justify charging so much moolah for what they do, we wouldn't consider it if we didn't think it was 'the key to a job' but just like you alarm bells started going dingaling and we listened to them eventually. Also, I forgot to mention in my original post, in the preliminary talking about stuff he told us two things that completely contradicted our research, so we actually got in touch with immigration and found out we were right and he was wrong, and if the application would have gone off with that on it would have been delayed or failed. Moneys worth I think not!

Re: Our experience of nearly hiring an immigration consultant
 

We're heading to Christchurch and hope to be there in September - more towards the end of the month. He's working on the EQR so it'll be challenging but he's really pleased he can be doing something useful!

He had a couple of contacts from other companies but other than that nothing. I think it was purely down to timing as they were just starting to recruit more people when I sent his cv in! We'd been looking at doing this for a few years and felt we were getting nowhere so one day I sat down and sent his cv to every company I could find on t'internet! Probably not the best way but it worked for us and we were starting to feel very despondent and thinking we were never going to get there!

What does your OH do? From what I can gather work has picked up recently but not being there myself, I can't state that with any actual factual knowledge!

My head is full of things I need to do - I've taken to having a book and pen by the bed as I frequently wake in the middle of the night with something else to add to my list!

Re: Our experience of nearly hiring an immigration consultant
 

Hi Tiger mama
It does all sound a bit dodgy obviously the recruitment agency is hand in hand with the immigration agent. There's no reason why they have to be. No reason why you can't use an agency to find a job and then do the visas yourself. The only possible reason I can come up with is that the recruitment agency have had someone 'official' check over the visa situation in advance so there are no nasty surprises for the employer...
I'd steer clear of the agent if they've got some things wrong already. That does not inspire confidence. Have you read Qssue's posts? She used an agent and it sounds like there was a lot of communication problems between NZIS, the agent and herself. Doing it yourself also means you understand what the process entails and what you have to do in the future.
Agents are ridiculously expensive for what they do, they essentially fill in forms and tell you what documents to provide.

Just out of interest, does that £2.5k involve the costs of the visa itself or is that just their costs with the visas having to be paid for on top? I suspect it's the latter:eek:

Keep going with the job searching and good luck:)

Re: Our experience of nearly hiring an immigration consultant
 

we initially looked at getting an Immigration agent after being talked into setting up a meeting with one at an Expo. The meeting was a complete waste of time to be honest, information he gave us was incorrect making our points less than they actually were so he had to do more work to get the points up. Needless to say we said our goodbyes and carried on asking on here and speaking to the guys at NZ House and had no points problems, no missing document problems (unlike qssue) found the cheap rate telephone number - see signature - all systems go and fairly straight forward. medical did get referred but the Immigration agent would not of been able to do anything about that, did have to get OH's job offer rewritten 2 or 3 times but again nothing an Immigration agent could of done for that.
Cheaper, easier and more informative to do it yourself

Re: Our experience of nearly hiring an immigration consultant
 

Interesting that you are off to Christchurch pinksar, makes me wonder if we were spun the same line by the same people!

I see what you mean about sending CV directly, as in without a job advert you mean. Interesting that you have had success with that as it has occurred to us. If nothing comes of this interview may take a leaf out of your book. Great to hear he was successful, right time right place hey!

Out of interest (we've been told different things by different people) if applying for a SMV with a job offer in place assuming everything is straightforward should it be processed by the end of a 12 wk notice period or is it wise to apply for a temp work visa alongside it?

OH is a finance manager. Persephone that was excluding all the visa costs! Obscene sum of money isn't it? I haven't read QSSUEs posts I don't think, I shall have a look and read.

Re: Our experience of nearly hiring an immigration consultant
 

Go for it - it worked for us! We were going to do SMC but now doing WTR as quicker and for some they seem to be taking longer at the moment. We just want to get there!