Hi everyone,

I am posting this on behalf of a friend who has been made redundant yesterday and is unemployed now and is on a 2 year graduate work experience visa. She's going to go to Immigration New Zealand today to let them know of this unfortunate event and wants to know if she can apply for a visitor visa of at least 3 months to stay here and look for employment. She is highly qualified and extremely confident on finding another job in some time but is not very optimistic that she would be granted a visitor visa as she has just been made redundant.

She's wanting to know what reason (a convincing one) she can provide to immigration that will enable her to obtain a 3 months visitor visa. Of course the real reason is to look for a job, but would sightseeing be convincing enough? I am permanent resident here and willing to sponsor her for a visitor visa by showing funds and whatever's needed. She could also say that she is visiting me, but having already lived here for a couple of years, I don't think Immigration would appreciate that very much.

Any advice?

Cheers.