Find a job or submit EOI first?

Hi there,

I am unable to give you any advice. Other than we were told by our immigrations adviser to first find the job.  We have been looking for a while and have not been told out rightly that the visa is a problem, but don't even get to any interview stages. Even though we would be good contenders if the job was in SA.
We have also found recruiters won't even look at your CV unless you are in NZ already. I was hoping there was a recruitment company who could help. (But also not require us to go through them for the visa, as we have an immigrations adviser already who we have paid to help us)

I would love to hear what other people have done or are doing.

You are right this all makes your head spin.

Good luck.

Hi there

I am a licensed immigration consultant and a recruitment/HR professional. I will attempt to answer your questions in a similar order.
1. if you have the 160 points (required by immigration since 12 Oct 2016) to apply for residence, submit your EOI and apply for residence. Securing the residence before you come to NZ is the best outcome to aim for.   If immigration feels that you need to first secure employment in NZ before being granted the PR, they will grant you a temporary visa for that. They will also defer making a decision on your residence application until the end of your visa period.
First step, have your points assessed by an honest and trustworthy professional before submitting your EOI is very important as a lot of people tend to give themselves points with which Immigration does not agree.  I don't normally recommend the free assessment for that as it in not as thorough or formal.

2. In most cases, 160 is not easy to achieve without a job offer/ employment in NZ which gives you 50 points. However a lot of NZ employer don't like offering a job to somebody they haven't met in person and most of them are not keen on visa sponsorship unless the position is hard to fill or when there is a local skill shortage. Therefore, having your immigration adviser assist/guide the employer for free throughout the visa application process is extremely important.

3. Only recently have NZ employers moved beyond their requirement of " the local experience" even for the hard to fill jobs. However this is not the case with jobs that require local knowledge, licence/certifications or connections. Therefore, coming to NZ on a visitor visa and spending some time in the country can be very helpful although it would most likely be expensive.

All the best in all of you

Kind regards
Hala Toubia