MGold

Hi all wondering if anyone can give me some advise.

I am currently looking into immigrating to New Zealand with the view of working on the Christchurch rebuild. I am a Quantity Surveyor and need some advise in regards to who are best recruitment agencies to contact as I would prefer to have a post before I leave.

Any help would be much appreciated

Tks

MGold

sparkytoad

Try fletchers construction,

scottishstacey

try fletchers, downers and fulton hogan. My bf is a excavator operator so obviously in a much less skilled job than yours but we were in touch with two recruitment companies, one let us down by saying the company werent hiring uk workers at this moment and the second seemed very keen and said that the company they were recruiting for would be in touch but they havent so far. Basically what im trying to say is try and deal with the companies directly if you can, recruitment companies seem to be slow. I'll try think of some more companies you could try

best of luck

Jan n Neil

ScottishStacey:

Only just caught up with this thread and the fact that your other half is an excavator operator.

Neil is heavily involved in that line of work, but I would say it took him probably 2 years to where he could understand the Christchurch construction mentality well enough to be able to easily change or get a job. He has worked in all aspects here from demolition to fibre cable laying to drainage, and his latest job is actually doing the training, because the government recognise they need skilled operators in ChCh right now.

There is loads of work here already apart from the demolition, obviously. Roads and power lines need fixing, the new motorway is going ahead and ChCh is rapidly rolling out ultra fast broadband.

BUT unless you live here, he can't really see your bf getting a position. Delta are advertising in the UK at the moment, but our experience has been that foreman/bosses employ their friends first, Kiwis second and Brits absolutely last. This does seem to be a ChCh thing. Neil has been for countless interviews when HR have been really excited about his experience, and when he has got there, they have said wonderful mate but we're going to give the job to my neighbour, or Wonderful CV mate but I know your boss and he's a mate so I'm not going to steal you. ChCh again.....

The other problem is that nearly all this type of work is timesheeted and you will not be paid, at least at the full rate, and maybe not at all, for being rained off. So proving that you earn whatever the salary needed is, to ImmNZ, is going to be tough.

We have noticed that hourly rates are going up though, and I believe the govt may have introduced financial support for people wanting training on heavy plant, so they are expecting the work in ChCh to require demand more human resource than it currently has.

As Bevs said - and especially pertinent to ChCh I feel - you would need to be over here to be seriously considered for a job. There are many applicants for each job and it will increase.

Sorry to be a bit negative. ChCh IS a lovely place still despite the harbingers of doom, and has some great and innovative ideas to get itself out of the troubles.

Jan

Jan n Neil

I wrote you a big long answer to excavator questions but it went into the Canada forum when I posted it

scottishstacey

Hi Jan, delta was the company we had dealt with first. We went through all the references which we were told fine and were told that we'd have a wait for a interview as they were busy. we then got a email from the recruitment agent a week or two later saying delta had decided not to hire uk workers at this precise moment but would be in the next few months or so and she'd get back in touch with us. At the same time we were in touch with another recruitment company who did all the references too and did a telephone interview with him, said everything went fine and the construction company was keen to speak to him but we havent heard back from them yet. Starting to take it personally lol. We got a email yesterday from Fulton Hogan asking dave to do a skype interview for a position. So going to organise that and take it from there, hopefully dealing with the company directly will be better. Not getting our hopes up tho.

Thanks for at explaining the other things, I wasnt sure about the raining off. Currently if he's rained or snowed off then he still gets paid but i think its just 8hours. It's a bit worrying that it'll be so hard to prove his earnings. Do you think this is something we should discuss with fulton hogan during the skype interview? Other than applying from the uk there isnt much else we can do as he's too old to come over on a working holiday visa and apply that way.

scottishstacey

lol its fine i've just replied and i also sent you a pm. hope you dont mind. thanks for the info, it was very helpful!

sparkytoad

BEVS

... and as if by magic. Shazaam.

scottishstacey

wahey thats better

yorkylass

Hi

My other half is project manager with McConnell Dowell based in Auckland. They have won a major Christchurch refurb and have recently been advertising for staff.


http://www.macdow.com.au/

Good luck

MGold

Thanks

MGold