Recalling the time when we checked our eligibility on the New Zealand Immigrations website and lodging our Expression of Interest (EOI) was daunting. It is one of our life's unforgettable moments which had changed our life. We had to provide documentary evidence to support the claims that we claimed under the Skilled Migrant Category. The cost of submitting our EOI was NZD300.00 then.
The minimum points to be eligible then was 100 and we claimed 110 based on the website. Should we have 140 points we would automatically be drawn into the pool for the next stage which was Invitation to Apply (ITA).We had to wait anxiously for our application to be drawn which took about 5 months.
When we was then invited to submit our ITA, the immigrations officer then slashed our points to only 90 reason being that the employment was not a full time employment since the employment letter did not state the working hours and the definition of full time was a minimum of 30 hours a week. The immigrations had called my wife's firm and had been informed that she only lectures 16 hours a week thus not qualifying for full time work. However they did not put into consideration for her preparation time, student consultation time which would easily meet the 30 hours mark. They had also slashed my tertiary education points as I have not attended my convocation which was only scheduled to be held later part of the year.However I have already passed the required exams to be eligible for graduation. As such we had to write and justify our stand on how we derived on our points claimed. To make matters worse the Case Officers kept on changing and our files were transferred from Bangkok to Singapore. We had dealt with 4 different Case Officers.
In our application we have to provide proof or identity, police clearance for countries which we had stood over a year in the last 10 years, marriage certificates, health check, employment letters, proof of qualification, proof of English proficiency etc. All documents have to be translated into English by a qualified translator.
Meanwhile my wife and I had started to apply for positions in New Zealand. It was difficult as most employers would prefer the candidate to be onshore. My wife got lucky as she had good recommendation to one of her application for a position in a university. She was offered a telephone interview then. However she had a long wait for the result of her telephone interview before she was called for her second interview after 3 months of waiting. She then flew to New Zealand and went for a face to face interview but was asked to wait for the result of the interview. It was a nail biting experience as we was wishing for the job offer to go through and our residency application would therefore be a mere formality.
A month after the wait my wife received an email offering her the position in the University and the rest of the application was smooth sailing. If not for the job offer we would have to go for an interview and I was told that we would be ask on questions on our plans to move there. Questions such as how many people we know in NZ, how do we plan to get a job there, how much money we have to start off and so forth. We have heard of cases of decline or just offered a Work to Residence (WTR), which was a condition whereby the immigration would grant a temporary work visa which you have to get a job within a stipulated time failing which you have to leave the country. At that time the applicants were generally offered 6 months to get a job and we were worried if we were given that similar condition of 6 months which is too short especially when we are settling into a new environment. We had to thank our lucky stars that we need not need to endure such agony!!
No comments:
Post a Comment