SimonAndCo

Hi all,

I've been lurking around this great forum for about two years or so now and until today, I've never posted! I have however benefited enormously from much that I have read and have decided it's about time I started, trying at least, to put something back.

We (me, wife, two kids 11 & 8) initially had a recce to the North Island at the beginning of 2007 and since then we have been putting things in place at the UK side to allow us to make the move. The house is sold (nearly a year ago now) and we're now in a position to turn our dream into a reality but without a job offer, I only have 105 points.

Due to this, I'm coming out alone for a couple of weeks at the end of this month with the sole purpose of trying to secure a job offer in this difficult economic climate. We'll just have to see how it goes.....

Anyway, hello from me; hopefully I'll have something constructive to contribute over the coming weeks - whether positive or negative. Fingers crossed.

All the best,

Simon

Sue

Hi Simon,

Welcome to the site. Hope you enjoy your stay.

As well as the discussion forum we've also got an article section, a Photogallery, a Classifieds, section, a place for members to blog and a great wiki.

If you ever have any questions about how the site works, or you are stuck on something, swing on by the FAQ's or leave us a message in Site Feedback.

MooMoo290373

Hi Simon

Welcome you will find everyone very helpful and friendly, and almost most of the time someone will know the answers to your questions.

Good luck with the job search

scrubbedexpat094

Hi Simon

Welcome to BE, as you've already found, lots of useful info on here.
Good luck with the job searching, what line of work are you in?

aalls73

Hi Simon,

Whereabouts you heading????
What sort of work you after???

Andrea

SimonAndCo

Hi All,

Thanks to all of your for your kind words of welcome - it's much appreciated.

Andrea, I'm heading to Auckland in the first instance and our ultimate preference is for somewhere on the North Island but at this stage I'm open minded about the whole thing and if a potential opportunity comes up in say Wellington or even Christchurch (or somewhere in between), then I'm quite prepared to travel down and check it out. Hell, what's anothor few hundred miles when you've already travelled 12,000 to get there

I work in I.T. and have specialisms in two distinct, quite different areas: One is Web Development particularly using PHP/MySQL/OOP whilst the other is Systems/Network engineering & support. I have in excess of 10 years commercial experience and am currently the MD of a small I.T. firm here in the UK - albeit very much a hands-on role as opposed to a pure 'business manager'. If you happen to know anyone that might be interested in talking to me, please pass it on by all means!

Thanks a lot for your interest.

Best Regards,

Simon

aalls73

Hi Simon, you may just want to check out the Job sites :


http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-me-jobs/index.htm
http://www.seek.co.nz/
http://newzealand.recruit.net/browse_jobs.html and if you have ANY?? idea of where you would like to be then you could check with the local agencies.....

Good Luck and go for it!!!!

Oh and by the wat New Plymouth is a beautiful part of the North Island to live, but then i'm Bias xx

Persephone

Hi Simon and welcome,
Just to wish you good luck with your job hunting

I know very little about I.T. but are you definitely not on the long term skill shortage list and able to score bonus points for that?
I'm sure you've already checked it out anyway since you've been lurking on here for a while

Hope you do get a job offer and also remember to enjoy NZ whilst you're here!
Sue

SimonAndCo

Hi Sue,

I've had this wrangle with NZIS already; although my profession is on the LTSSL, it is with the caveat that you must have a postgraduate qualification in 'Computer Science'. Mine, whilst it is an I.T. related degree, does not apparently qualify and so I cannot claim the bonus points. To make it worse, because I can't claim the BP for that, I cannot claim bonus points for my 10+ years work experience either!!

However - and this is the light at the end of the tunnel - IF I have a job offer in a skill shortage area (i.e. IT), then not only do I get the points for the job offer, but then they'll let me claim bonus points for the rest too!! Talk about bizarre

So, if I can just get this job offer thing sorted, fingers crossed we'll be ok from there.

Best Regards,

Simon

Persephone

Yes that is bizarre! Well good luck with the trip and the job hunting. Let us all know what happens
Sue