Dipping my toe in :)
 

Hi all.Just wanted to ask a couple of questions regarding me and the wife coming over to New Zealand and which Visa's you think we would be eligible for. Here's the story. Im 44 UK citizen 25 years Print finishing experience and 2 years working in Finance. Wife is 33 Dual Uk and Thai citizen and is a Traditional thai massage thweapist with 14 years experience. What are our options. Looking to move longterm to New zealand but can do a one or two year stay 1st if needs be. Any advice would be fantastic.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

both are on the list of skilled occupations so I would go with the one that gives you the most points.

Fill out an Expression of Interest on the Immigration site and let us know what points you get.

Please see post 1 in this thread as to when you can apply points for certain questions
http://britishexpats.com/forum/immig...d-pool-810756/

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

I think whatever role you choose to come over with (printing or finance)
You need to have worked in that role for the previous 3 years before the application
But not 100% sure on that.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Thanks for the replies. Think we are going to look into the visa's and see which ones we can go for. The employment side is the main thing I think we need to prepare for the most as my understand is once there is a job offer in place the visa application follows on.

It may be that we travel over for a 5/6 weeks holiday 1st and try to fix up some interviews whilst we are there and maybe get a job offer in placed before we apply.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Justcol is nearly correct you need to have the relevant qualifications or at least 5 year provable work experience. Same goes for you partner

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Thanks again for the reply. Have a relevant certificate in print finishing that should be ok but went into finance as a career change for the last 18 months. My wife has been working as a massage therapist for the last 13 years and has a certificate of skills which she acquired in Thailand so hopefully that should be ok. Need to look at getting a job offer i think before we apply for a visa.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

It is always job offer first before one can apply for a work visa.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

unfortunately Thailand is not a comparable market so not sure she would be able to uplift a visa??

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Thanks again for the replies. She has been in the UK for over 6 years and she was working in Spain and Grand Canaria for 3 years before that so im not sure where how that would work.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

I think the qualification has to come from an approved establishment, maybe best to call Immigration and ask them

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

If she gains a job offer in her occupation then they would uplift temp work visas. The problem here is that this occupation , Thai Massage Therapist , although seen as skilled is not deemed to be in shortage so any prospective employers is going to need to show that there is no NZ resident or citizen that could take up that work.

However, nothing ventured, nothing gained & what better Thai massage therapist than an actual Thai trained massage therapist.

Seek seems to have several vacancies.

From what is written this lady has 5 yrs of work exp in the UK which is a comparable labour market. It may be that an NZQA assessment will be needed to prove her level of expertise. That would include her formal Thai quals + all her work experience for the past 13 years.

Talking with the MassageNZ might be helpful.

Also, if she could uplift a UK qual like an NVQ to help underpin her ability and quals to do this work.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

When I did it I applied on one application and had my wife on it too. I had a job offer. But when I spoke to immigration NZ, they said whatever visa and rights I get, as my wife was on my application, she would get it too. Hope that helps. I ended up with a PR from the SMC, but there is a work visa, for that it needs to be shown that the employer looked for someone with your skills in NZ already!

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Thanks for this reply. I have emailed a few companies to ask about vacancies for both me and my wife and to be honest she has had a far better response than me. Need to get my head around which way would be better for us to obtain visas. Im thinking of holiday visas from the Uk and then apply for working visas once both me and her have secured a job offer. Had a very interesting reply for her from Rotarua. Anyone know how the job scene is down there. Would suit me a lot better if we were not in Auckland but out in the country a little but with my job skills it will be difficult to get something there.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Rotorua isn't that isolated, Tauranga and Hamilton would be commutable for you.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Thanks again for the replies. Looks like the Job/Visa application is a catch 22 situation so the best way forward is for us is to travel over and then take it from there. Seems like a bit of a minefield but with some help when we get there, I'm sure we can sort it out. Feeling positive is the way forward i think.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Can't help ref jobs as I'm in the UK but I just wanted to say how nice we thought Rotorua was. We had expected it to be naff to be honest, but were pleasantly surprised. It had lots of lovely countryside around, the obvious natural attractions and all the people we met were lovely and it didn't feel particularly isolated. We came away thinking we'd be happy to live there actually; especially given the cost of house v Auckland. We may have been lucky with the time of year (August), but smell wasn't an issue. Not sure how the sulphur would be at other times of the year and what the effect would be if you had any chest problems.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

We were in Rotorua during a tropical cyclone and there was so much rain that everywhere was steaming and bubbling. Storm drains, reserves in the city, side of the road, everywhere. It was pretty sulphurous as well.

I think you have to live in a place for at least a full year before you get an idea of what it is really like.

We do like Rotorua, though. :thumbsup:

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Just a little update and thanks again for all the replies. We have been in contact via email with someone looking for Kanya's skills and there may be a chance of a job offer when we arrive there for her so fingers crossed that may be our way of securing visa's but i need to look how i will be able to get one if my wife does the application. Still unsure if we are going to arrive on holiday visas and take it from there or start the application from the UK.

We are going to visit a New Zealand emigration seminar this Sunday in Manchester and hopefully this will also give us a better picture of the process which we need to do going forward. We cannot really afford to be paying massive fees to immigration companies but hopefully we can find enough info to sort it out ourselves.

I was beginning to feel that we were not getting anywhere but this news has given me the incentive to push on with our plans and make a fresh start in New Zealand.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

which is fine if you earn a pretty good wage, if not your fuel bill (around $160 a week at todays fuel price based on 8litres/100km)
will be crippling. Rotorua - Hamilton is about 110km - hour and half drive each way, very very hard after a long day at work

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Just another update of our plans so far.

Went to a seminar in Manchester yesterday about emigration and securing a job in New Zealand and the best advice they could really give was to go over on a holiday first and have a look around and see if we like the country and see if we think we could settle there. Once in the country they said it would be a lot easier to try and secure job offers and we would have a much better understand of how things worked with immigration once we were there.

That was the advice they said would be best for someone in our position at this moment in time.

So the way it is looking is to get some flights booked and take it from there.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

thats strange advice, can only assume the person giving it wasnt from NZ immigration
as far as I am aware, you are not allowed to seek any form of employment while on holiday visas

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

they seemed to of got rid of that condition since the immigration website upgrade. not sure you should inform customs when entering on a visitors visa that is your intention though

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Yes, looking for work on a visitor visa seems to be a recent update and came in with the website changes. I don't think it's a change to process though as the previous visitor visa conditions never mentioned one couldn't look for work. It just mentioned you were allowed to carry out business consultations, whatever that meant.
In my opinion they have just used common sense to avoid any future confusion and to align with what happens in reality as many people used the visitor visa as a route in to the country to then approach employers and Immigration were always quite aware this happened.
A few of my colleagues used this method and they've been here 10 + years.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Well I'll be buggered, that's new !!

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Just need to finalize a few more details and then we can look at booking some flights over. Stopping off in Thailand on the way to visit the in laws and recuperate from my knee surgery.

Anyone know of the timescales if we were to apply for skilled migrant visa for my wife after we had arrived in NZ. The plan is to spend some time holidaying and travelling around 1st and looking at which place to live would work for us. I am 95% sure she has a job offer on the table and if she was the main applicant then my understanding is that i can also gain a 2 year working visa that is not tied to one employer so I can switch employment if needed. Is that correct and also what happens after 2 years are up? Hopefully she would still be in the same employment but how does my visa fit in with that if we decided we wanted to stay in NZ?

Would anyone advise us to enter an EOI now and then travel there on a holiday visa and then get the letter of a job offer or do we wait until we arrive and then do a EOI? So much to sort and find out before we can even start to organize things.

Forgot to add that our scores on the points test were 175 for my wife with the job offer included and 110 for myself. Is there an online link for this as I just used a old list to compare scores and it may not be accurate.

Also just started the process of opening a New Zealand bank account now which seemed to go ok.
Things are hopefully starting to fall into place.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

you need to be aware that the length of time it takes to process an application in NZ is much longer than processing in UK.

Your wife could uplift a temp work visa, should only take a few days to enable her to start work whilst the Visa application is processed. You may be able to get an extension on the visitors visa if necessary or just use your return flights and come back when your wife has been provided with a valid visa. If you extend the visitors visa you would not be able to work until your wifes visa has been processed and approved.
To gain a temp work visa your wife will have to provide a satisfactory job offer which again would be used for the EOI. The standards for the EOI are more stringent than the temp visa, my OH was working on a temp visa in the position he was applying for on the EOI and they sent the job offer back 3 times to be rewritten as they did not agree it met all criteria to gain the visa, or the case officer was just being over zealous.

We started the EOI before OH came over on his own to look round and was offered a job, we updated the EOI and was selected on the next selection round. The visa process was done in the UK and once we had cleared the secondary check we asked that the process of sticking the blue stamps into our passports was transferred to NZ, which they were happy to do.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Thanks for the reply. We are going to look into the temp visa route and see if we can possibly obtain and then uplift it to a skilled migrant visa app and then I can also get a working visa on the application.

The more I look into all the visa application, the more confusing it seems to get. I really think we need to get some sort of help and advice from a visa specialist but unsure if we are better getting the help from someone in the UK before we travel for a holiday or get someone to assist once we arrive in New Zealand or use a New Zealand company whilst we are still in the UK?

Anyone recommend any immigration company's that do not cost an arm and a leg? Thinking of settling in or near Rotorua so somewhere around there or Hamilton would probably be best suited.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Print finisher is on the list of skilled occupation so as long as you can get a valid job offer from an accredited company then you really do not need any help to collate the paperwork - which is generally all an immigration agent does. Obviously if you think you may have medical problems to get over or of refugee status then you would possibly need to go with a specialist agent.
For you case I would say save the money and get an relationship with the case officer yourself.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Thanks again. It is my wife who has a provisional job offer as a Traditional Thai massage therapist. The employer is a new business and I'm unsure if they are accredited yet. How would they go about getting accredited and is there a link which i could maybe pass this onto them.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

as a new set up I am not sure they would qualify

https://www.immigration.govt.nz/empl...dited-employer

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

They would need to meet the criteria & pay NZIS for that.
When you say new, how new ? They need to be established as a going concern . That means 2 years of accounts and possibly to show employment and profit.

Also. As previously written.
That means that this prospective employer will need to show NZ Immigration proof that they have advertised here in NZ & have training in place .
NZ Immigration will also check with the local Dept of Labour that there is no NZ resident or citizen that could take up that work.

In other words, the employer cannot just offer your wife this job. They will need to prove that there is no-one else in NZ available to fill the vacancy.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

I can see several vacancies on NZ Seek.

what your wife will need to do is to convince an employer that she can uplift the required visa as most often employers do not understand it is a job offer first and then a visa. Not the other way round.

Then the employer needs to convince NZIS and the Dept of Labour that she is the best fit for the job.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Well both mine and my wifes notices has been handed in at work and we have started to make steps to start our journey to New Zealand. Just been looking around the site regarding Visa agents and think the best thing we can do is travel over to New Zealand and then speak to immigration once we are over there and take it from there. The fees they are asking seem to be high for the amount of work needed.

We may need to use them at some point but I'm going to try and use the site for as much info as I can so if anyone has any useful tips they want to share then please do so.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

The biggest tip is not to bother using an emigration agent, as effectively you will be buying a dog and barking yourself. They do nothing that you can't do and will merely present information that you will have had to provide them with. You may as well cut out the middle man.