(edit title) Tips on finding work in New Zealand Advice for foreigners thinking of moving Options

[Roger O. Thornhill]

The more I learn about New Zealand the more I would like to live there.

Is it even remotely possible to find work there without first getting a visa?

What is the best route to finding work in NZ?

[Emmi]

www.seek.co.nz
There you will find lots of jobs and recruitment companies.
Depends on the industry you are in, go to the company websites and send them your cover letters and CVs.

and www.nzherald.co.nz, click on jobs.

Good luck :-)

[Jukka]

First question is what nationality are you? you can find visa information here

http://www.immigration.govt.nz/

My girlfrind who is swedish needed a medical check done also police records from sweden and more all for a 1 year working visa.So can be difficult for some.

Jobs in New Zealand can be hard in some citys but in most cases if your not qualified in anything you could still find a decent job.You will start of minimum wage which is $12.50nzd a hour which isnt great but stick it out and you will get a payrise.

You will definatly need a car unless your in a big city as there is not much on offer on the public transport over there.Cars are quite cheap to buy you can pick up a decent car for $3500nzd and will last you a few years.

I have lived in new zealand for over 20 years and it can be quite expenisve living rental houses can range from $250 a week till $600 a week if you were living in Auckland for example.But it is very easy to find rental properties over there.

Please note though the entire world is going through a finicial crisis at the moment so jobs maybe a little harder to find since i was last looking for a job there (3 years).

good job sites are

http://www.seek.co.nz
http://www.nzhearld.co.nz
http://www.trademe.co.nz look under job menu.
http://www.adecco.co.nz/
http://www.jobcafe.co.nz/



If you have any specific questions feel free to ask.

[Roger O. Thornhill]

Thank you.

This is a good start.

I have already printed out info. from immigration.

[Brent Knight]

Here is another great New Zealand job agency http://www.spiderpersonnel.com

They are a little smaller than most of the other multinational agencies and you will find that you will get work from them a lot faster.

They are great people too.

[gplusa]

Accomodation prices and quality are not as good in NZ as they are in Sweden. As with Sweden you can get cheap, but you get what you pay for. If you're looking at the South Island then you should be prepared to be colder indoors than you would be in Sweden.

My Swedish wife needed a medical and a police report. From memory (and it's a few years ago now) they had to be no more than 3 months old. They can also require that a non native English speaker take an English language test. There are exceptions to that rule, which we successfully used, but be prepared for the request. Anything to screw a little more money out of you.

Thanks to the Japanese second hand import market, cars are dirt cheap for low mileage good quality cars.

Any non English qualifications will need to be translated and certified in Sweden before they can be processed by the qualifications authority in NZ. They only accept original copies of documents so it's not suitable just to have them translated by a company in NZ.

NZ is still a fairly isolated country and they don't know a lot about overseas workers and qualifications, especially from Europe. So be prepared to meet a bit of ignorance based resistance from employers. I still recall a former boss of mine telling me once that he would never hire someone if he couldn't say their name. Despite my wife being way over qualified and having a very high level of English, it took her several years of working her way up in NZ before she was truely viewed as being the equal of a lesser qualified NZ born employee. It's not an exclusively Swedish trait.

Obtaining a work permit can depend on your qualifications and the market. If you are in a short listed trade, you can generally get an open permit which will allow you to work anywhere. If you don't have a sought after trade then it's tougher. Before an employer is allowed to hire you, they have to jump through quite a few hoops to prove that no NZ resident can do the same work. It took me nearly 6 months to get a foreign worker hired when I was an employer in NZ. It probably wasn't worth all the hassle but in the end they were pissing me off so much that I wasn't going to let them win. Ironically the guy left the country 3 months after I was finally allowed to hire him.

If you are able to secure an open work permit through other means (eg relationships, bi-lateral agreements, etc), then do so. A lot of employers (as in Sweden) aren't interested in the hassle of helping you to get one.