Hello All!
My Fiancee and I will be married in August and hope to move to the Christchurch area from the US in November. We would like to live and work for an extended period of time (more than 3 years) and look for Full time jobs. We will both be 23 years old when we move.
I have a level 9 Graduate Degree in Business Management and she has a level 7 Bachelor's Degree in Primary Education. Neither of us have job offers yet, though we are working on it.
From my research, there are three main visas we could pursue.
1. The Skilled Migrant Visa. Our scores on the points indicator were 120 and 110. With these scores, we know we are not guaranteed the visa, but is it worth doing the Expression of Interest anyway? Will this visa allow us to obtain full-time permanent jobs once we are in country? What steps would need to be taken to secure residency from this visa? Will they consider our case as a partnership, or individually?
2. Working Holiday Visa. We would use this visa to get jobs in New Zealand, then try to obtain another visa that allows residency. Our challenge here is that Working Holiday only allows us to obtain part-time jobs, where we would rather have professional full-time jobs. Has anybody gone this route and how did it work for you?
3. Work to Residency. This particular category seems to be rather limited. Is this something that we would apply for after being in country with a Working Holiday Visa?
Thank you all for reading, any advice is greatly appreciated. We are so excited to move over there!
Cheers!