How do you get a job with no visa?

[Laurel]

If I can get a job offer, we'll have 190 points. But everything I'm reading says that you need a work visa to get a job offer. You need a job offer to get a visa.
What am I doing wrong? We were planning to send out CVs and come over for a couple of weeks to interview, but if that's not possible with no work visa, I'm not sure what we should do.

[JandM]

There are many people on the forum who have made a trip on a visitor's visa, having set up meetings with agents and employers, and also done cold calling and left their CV (resume) around, and in that way managed to get a job offer, and on to a visa. It's not necessarily easy, and I don't think it could ever be stress-free, but plenty of people have done it.

[Sun777]

Job offer doesn't necessarily mean "job" till the conditions on the offer letter are met, it does have details like the date of joining (or commencing work etc) which could be sometimes a date 4-12 weeks away so interim time can be used to sort out necessary documentation like visa, settlement, serving notice period etc. You need to have a visa in place by the date when you actually start the job.

[Laurel]

That makes a bit more sense. I was under the impression that you wouldn't be able to even get an offer from most places with no visa.

[Norgal]

OP we felt the same way this time last year. Here is how we got to NZ and got a job without a work visa.

My husband and I joined LinkedIn and made a very nice profile for him, then set the location to New Zealand. We then got a Skype number with a Christchurch Exchange since that is where we wanted to live (this meant our profile got viewed since it said NZ and we got calls since it was local). I should note, we did post on the profile we were in the USA and set it purposefully to NZ as we wanted to relocate and identified the Skype number as such-no dishonesty, we were up front. We then made a CV in the format New Zealand likes (found templates on WorkIn). We then made a list of all the top employers in my husband's field and began contacting them by 1. Following them on LinkedIn (LI); 2. sending an electronic CV and Covering letter; 3. joining on the company websites for job notifications and applying for any posted jobs;3. Making a profile on SEEK and applying for posted positions. 4. We then joined GROUPS on LinkedIn which were relevant to my husband's field and began heavily participating in group conversations which were active. 5. Paid for PREMIUM so we could see who looked at our profile in LI and sent invitations to be connected to all potential employers with whom we engaged in group conversations with or who had viewed our profile. LASTLY, we began calling the employers who, by now, we had contact with through applications, skype interviews and LI inmails and group discussions to speak about upcoming opportunities with the company in his field and about how to arrange an interview on the island.

All this was building relationships with companies. After about 6 months of this we just DID it, picked a date to send him off and then called EVERYONE, and with great ease arranged 10 interviews in NZ for the 10 day trip he was going to take. With interviews in place, booked the tickets and off he went. Got all 10 job offers!!!!! Was way more than we had expected or planned!

Once he decided upon with whom and where to work we applied and received our work to residency work visas (mine was a partner Visa) really fast (processing times are quick for that) and off we went to NZ, we now have residency through our SMC.

It was WORK. Daily non-stop work on the job search and communication and work on the documents for Visa's and planning travel and the move. WORK WORK WORK WORK and STRESS STRESS STRESS nonstop freaking stress which was so worth it all.


get started, stick with it, and best of luck.
IT IS TOTALLY AWESOME HERE, WAY BETTER THAN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE.

[Laurel]

I love to hear this.
We're still in the anxious pre planning stage, and are trying to look at it from a "can we even do this" angle. The job offer is the sticking point. I've actually started following some NZ specific discussion boards, and I'm trying to make some contacts in my field. With no bachelors, my work experience is going to have to look amazing to get an interview. We're going to try though. Thanks for the advice, I'll do just that.

[Norgal]

What is your career field experience in, if you don't mind sharing?

[Laurel]

What is your career field experience in, if you don't mind sharing?

IT. Infrastructure, with a background in the bankcard industry. I'm focusing more on security certifications to make the move to IS. I'm attempting to learn C# to round it out.

[Sun777]

with a background in the bankcard industry.

Not sure if this helps, but there are lot of local companies who buy infrastructures (payment processing from established firms like GE etc) like Onecard Visa, NZ Post, GEM cards etc, so be open to these as well when applying, similarly Wex Cards which don't complete use banking infrastructure but there must be some infrastructure similar to that behind the scenes.

[Laurel]

Not sure if this helps, but there are lot of local companies who buy infrastructures (payment processing from established firms like GE etc) like Onecard Visa, NZ Post, GEM cards etc, so be open to these as well when applying, similarly Wex Cards which don't complete use banking infrastructure but there must be some infrastructure similar to that behind the scenes.

Thanks, that's exactly the sort of place I'm looking for.