MrsFychan

Well I arrived in NZ on 10th January 2012.
Met the guy my husband had met on FB and had been staying with that day.
Saw him a couple of times over the next 2 weeks as we settled into a rental just down the road from him. He worked as assistant supervisor for the after school care at the local school.
He applied and was successful in getting extra work on the Hobbit so needed someone to cover his position for 5 weeks. He put me forward and I was hired to cover his position for 5wks starting on the 14th February and then go as a casual person, being called in when children numbers required additional staff.
The Hobbit went on longer so the committee gave the guy the option of either coming back to work or swapping roles with me so I would be the Assistant Supervisor and he the casual. He decided he wanted to pursue the extra work so agreed. So on the 19th April I became the Assistant Supervisor.
The Head Supervisor resigned in December 2012 and I got the Head Supervisors job.

Snap Shot

In Christchurch I got a temp job from an employment agency within 3 weeks of us arriving. It was a 12 week booking that ended after four weeks as they found an ex-employee to do the job instead and save on the agency fee. Yeah, that old chestnut.

After 3 months in Christchurch we moved to Wanganui near Wellington, for my husband's job. It took a further year for me to find a job from TradeMe, which was temporary and ended last December.

Now I'm back to looking on internet job vacancy sites. I've applied for a couple more jobs, yawn, ho hum. Same old same old.

I registered with another employment agency yesterday who haven't even acknowledged receipt of my cv. Bringing my tally of North Island employment agencies to 4. They've all got one thing in common: useless.

Persephone

I was in NZ visiting Mr S 4-5 months before I was actually immigrating, the plan being to spread my CV around then. Out of 5 CVs, 3 asked to see me, no job but just to get to know me for the future. I had noticed one of the practices had been advertising but the closing date had passed, had an interview and got offered the job straight away. It was the one place I walked into and felt I wanted to work there. They were happy to wait for me to return-I had plans, stuff needed doing and had been paid for! I was very lucky.
In Chch I did the same. Sent out CVs to most of the practices. Got offered a job [had some problems with this, in the past now] part time/casual. That employer recommended me to his mate who also needed someone part time. Ended up working fulltime for two employers who were friends and they often decided between them who could have me It worked well. I also did some locum work for another separate employer.
It does depend on your occupation. In my case the LTSSL is correct, there is a definite shortage. But the dreaded 'who you know' also played a part.

Snap Shot: sorry to hear of the difficulty you're having. I have seen you mention it before but didn't realise you were having such a problem. Really hope you find something soon. Keep trying, don't let the bastards grind you down

Tom1983

Back in Blighty, I sent out applications to the company I work for here, a position in Auckland, two positions in Australia and one in the States.

Had interviews for all positions. Three companies offered me a job (current, States and one in Australia). After careful consideration and many of consultations with the wife, New Zealand it was. USA would have caused a lot of aggro with the green card issue and the Aussie job offer was in Brisbane - wife didn't fancy living with big spiders

Since being here, the wife has had so much fun. She got a job quite quickly at Burwood hospital but they've really cut down her hours ever since the arrival of our son. She's been looking for another job since and after a few months has something. Ironic that the manager of the place she's working at is South Africa (like the job at Burwood). I do have a suspicious feeling that the applications she's made where the manager is Kiwi, they've immediately thrown her CV in the bin. I can't prove it but it does make me question how a person with so many years experience and being over qualified in some positions doesn't even get a flippin interview.

Snap Shot

Persephone, thanks. I phoned my Dad in Britain on his birthday yesterday. He's the one that first made the above remark to me many years ago and repeated it yesterday as the conversation moved into the, 'how are things going ?' phase.

You're a

Bo-Jangles

Its such a shame we don't have any Equal Opportunities Commission or somesuch process where you could challenge decisions. I can think of a good few rotten stinkers that I would like to see put before a tribunal. Particularly irks when you see people employed into jobs that they're not even qualified to do or elevated into positions without any contestable process.

I just went to ahave a google around to se what is out there in terms of equal opportunities employment watchdog stuff and found this:

http://www.eeotrust.org.nz/equal/are.cfm

Even that makes it out to be one big joke. I answered the questions based on the actions of my employers and I score them as 0/11