Hi there,
my story may be a bit unusual; I have lived in New Zealand for six years, and left about a year ago in search of work. The problem with me is that I am a car designer (as in, transportation designer, one of those guys who spend their working lives scraping around on lifesized clay models of car bodies, sketching and drawing with markers and tape, building 3D computer models of cars, etc.). I trained in the US and Germany, and hold a master's degree in it. I have a bachelor's degree in industrial design - basically the same thing for creating furniture, household appliances, etc. So, totally the kind of R&D work for serial production purposes you'd easily get into in places like Germany, Japan, the US, and China - which is precisely where I find myself jetting around these days, doing contract work.
But I simply can't forget my pretty little life in New Zealand, way back when; I taught at tertiary level then, so, was a university lecturer in design. I've been trying to get back into NZ that way, but so far, no luck - it seems that there's no hope these days without a PhD for that kind of job now, and there may be one every other year.
Now I'm thinking I may just need to go back to school if I want to live in NZ. I've been looking at all sorts of things on careers.gov.nz and found it great; I could totally see myself becoming a plumber or something, getting certifications as I go. But what I worry about is that this may not work out for me for reasons I may not see right now - like, I'm really not your typical "Kiwi Bloke", and I wonder if I may need to be one to succee in a field like this? How important is it to "be just the right kind of guy", fitting the stereotypes? I remember that I even came across as a bit too tender and introvert as a lecturer, not to imagine how things may be in a real "guy's field" like that.
But maybe I've got it wrong? What should I do to heighten my employability in NZ, I wonder? I have no family, and no obligations. When I turn up, it'll be a case of "some Kraut sleeping in the back of an old Ford Falcon station wagon, looking for work, ready to go anywhere." I have no idea what to do with my qualifications. I probably have enough skills to be useful to all sorts of people, but how to market that? What to do with it? After all, I hope sleeping in an old Falcon won't be my lifestyle for long.
Any ideas?