LTSS with a job offer; professional registered in NZ; 210 on EoI (submitted)

[buraddo]

Hi all,

I am a Canadian by birth, UK citizen/passport holder, living in England. I have a permanent job offer in Wellington in a long term skills shortage area (Clinical Psychology) from an 'approval-in-principle' authorised employer in NZ. I have submitted my EoI and am awaiting the outcome. I remain a little confused by the next steps. I understand that once/if I get an Invitation to Apply (my points total on my EoI was 210) I submit the work visa application / SMC residence application? Is that right?

I have my police checks back from the UK and Canada (clear), have already gone for the medical (clear) and hold full professional registration and an active practising certificate in NZ.

It seems that there are two choices, namely to apply in the first instance for residency or for a less-than-24-months working visa... is this correct?

Any sense of the current waiting time for Full Assessment in London?

Thanks in advance to anyone with specific answers. I know that I have found a lot of helpful information on this forum, but sometimes there is no substitute to having someone comment on your specific circumstances.

[buraddo]

p.s. I have see the posts about how long people without a job offer have been waiting to have a CO assigned. Does it make a difference if you have a job offer? I am starting to worry that I vastly underestimated the timeline. Am I right to think that I can bipass the lengthy wait by just applying for a temporary work visa and then go through the long process once in NZ?

[JandM]

There are three possible separate processes. Current estimated timings for all are here. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/branc...ocessingtimes/ There is never any guarantee of these, because of individual variations in cases, the unpredictability of numbers of applications, and conditions in the INZ office.

1) Application for Residence under the Skilled Migrant category, which you have started by putting in the EOI. With that number of points, you will be selected at the next fortnightly selection, and will receive the ITA (invitation to apply). When you send that back, you include evidence of everything you have said about yourself in the EOI. Because you have a job offer, your case will be prioritized for allocation and processing.

2) Temporary Work Visa under Essential Skills. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra...entialwork.htm

3) Work to Residence under Essential Skills. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra.../caniworkinnz/

Many people with an employer waiting for them put in their ITA, and ALSO an application for one of the other kinds of visa. If you make the point to INZ at the beginning of the process that you are doing this, you can use the same evidence for both applications. They will tell you where you need to send material for either one of your cases. The Work Visa or WTR visa will normally be processed quite quickly, and you will be able to travel to NZ and start working, while in the meantime, your Residence application will be taking the necessary time for the extra checks involved in the background. Whether or not you need to do this depends on how soon your employer is keen for you to be there and start.

[buraddo]

Thanks JandM, that is very helpful. So if I hold out for option 1 it could be between 1 month (in a perfect scenario) and 3+ months, while the temporary application could be as quick as 25 days (for 90% of applicants). From what I gather I would qualify under option 3 as well, which makes option 2 seem the least attractive.

As a side question, I was surprised how my points added up. By my calculations I should have had 160 points for education (BA hons [level 7] 50pts; PhD [level 10] 60pts; PGdip [level 8] 50pts) but only got 70 points in total by the online application. I guess it doesn't matter, perhaps. Is their a cap on the number of points in a particular section?

Thanks again for your time. I really appreciate your knowledge and the generosity in answering questions here. Your forum has been a real blessing.

[JandM]

Ah... you only get the points for the highest value one out of your qualifications. Then you can get bonus points for a qualification being in, for instance, a future growth area, or on the LTSSL. You can sometimes get more than one lot of bonus points for the same qualification, depending on your circumstances. The INZ Operational Manual http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/ Residence » Skilled Migrant Category » SM6 Summary of points for employability and capacity building factors gives a chart with an overview, and the last column of the chart gives the section to refer on to for the fine detail.