Work Visa options when arriving as a tourist (detail in thread)

[adt1987]

Hello all,

Myself and my wife (British citizens and living in the UK) have been considering a permanent move to NZ ever since we left our Working Holiday Visas back at the end of 2014.
I'm 33 and my wife is 32.
I am a web developer with 5 and a half years experience.
My wife has a degree in Marketing and Advertising from the UK and has worked in marketing for the past 2 years.

I have posted here a couple of times outlining our circumstances in more detail:
Seeking clarification regarding experience as a web developer
Looking for advice from a web developer/IT professional

We are considering a range of options, including trying to find work while still being located in the UK and only making the move once job offers are secured. However we would be interested to learn more about arriving as tourists with a heap of savings and then interviewing 'on the ground'. We would obviously prepare as much as possible particularly with regards to lining up interviews. We're not tied to the UK with any long term financial committments so it seems to us we have an opportunity to take a bit more 'risk'. This is a serious thing we're considering. We've been thinking about it for a long time and have reached out to immigrations advisors to try to learn more. We would love to hear from anyone who has been in a similar situation and can offer any advice or just advice in general about things we might not have considered going down this route.

[DownSouth]

Pre-Covid, you could have looked for job offers while off-shore, and as British web developer you might have been fortunate enough to get a job offer. You could also have come for a holiday as a tourist here, while also keeping an eye out for any jobs and having interviews. Once you got a job offer (either from the UK or here), you could then have lodged your application for a work visa.
Unfortunately because of Covid-19, the borders are closed and are likely to remain closed for quite some time. Even if you get a job offer, based on the current policy in place, you won't be able to enter the country and INZ won't process your application. No one knows when they will reopen, but it is likely to be months and even then 'tourists' will probably be the last group allowed to re-enter.
The most likely scenario is that once the borders re-open (at least to people with work visas), you might be able to get a job offer that would allow you to get a work visa and to enter the country. In the meantime, I think the only thing you can do is keep an eye on the border restrictions and wait until they are at least partially lifted.

[adt1987]

Thanks for your reply. Apologies, I should have said that we're not planning on this for at least 18 months as we need to save and also wrap our heads around the logistics of it all. I appreciate COVID-19 changes everything, I should have acknowledged that in my post.

[adt1987]

Does anyone have any experience first hand of this approach? We'd be ever grateful for some insight

[JandM]

This has been done by many people on the forum in the past.

People are allowed to enter as a visa-waiver person, or to apply for a visitor's visa, with the purpose as "vacation, and look, see and decide". Look, see and decide means they're intending to look around at the job market in their particular industry, who's recruiting, what the prospects are, maybe meet HR and be interviewed, see what the living and working conditions are like in NZ, and decide if they want to press ahead and try for a job. That is all perfectly legal, as long as they don't start to work on the visitor's visa. Therefore, if you then get a job offer, you have to apply for an appropriate work visa, and both you and the employer have to be prepared to wait out the processing time before you will be able to start.

[adt1987]

Hi JandM, thanks for your reply. You've answered our questions in the past and we really appreciate it!

Would a visitor's visa specifically for "look, see and decide" be required prior to arriving or is it more like you fill that out as part of a general visitors visa on arrival?

Absolutely on the legal side of things. I'd like to think that work visa processing times are not prohibitive to the point of being a blanket deterrent for all employers. They would presumably factor in processing time as part of their decision to offer a role On the plus side, our availability would be immediate (work visa aside) as we wouldn't need to factor in notice periods for existing jobs. Industry standard for my profession is two-three months in the UK, for example.

[JandM]

You can enter as UK citizens on the visa-waiver basis, and fill in this reason on the form distributed on the aeroplane just before arrival.

[adt1987]

Thank you.

[adt1987]

We've done a bit of digging into the Look, See and Decide aspect of the visitors visa. According to https://www.emigrationnewzealand.com...e-decide-visa/ it seems that our plan is frowned upon. We didn't make it clear in our original post but our intention is/was to resign from our jobs in the UK and go 'all in'. We hadn't thought that doing so could be seen as not having anything to return home to, therefore overstaying your welcome in NZ! Is that really likely to be such a negative factor? Obviously we respect it but it's something we need to factor in to how we approach things.

It's quite the balancing act potentially as no current employer is going to grant more than three weeks consecutive leave, which means that your job hunting and interviewing time is in quite a tight window (compared to the potential of a 3 month stay on the visitors visa). On top of that, employers usually like a fair bit of notice when it comes to booking leave...which would be hard to know exact dates until we can line up interviews.

[EGoodhue]

To balance out the reasoning of that link, here is NZ's own take on the 'look, see and decide' visit: https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...look-for-a-job. You'll see that they mention that your primary purpose must be to visit. So if you come with the intention of seeing the country (ie. have plans about what you would like to see and do, as well as the plan to job hunt), then I think the intent of a Visitor visa could be deemed to be met. On the other hand, if you had sold everything up and were coming here solely to find a job (come hell or high water) and hadn't given a second thought about actually looking around NZ, then it could be argued that you don't meet the intent of a Visitor visa (either visa-waiver or not). Looking at it from INZ's perspective, they want to avoid people coming here with unrealistic expectations (about the labour market, way of life, etc), having packed up their life at home, and then being 'stuck' here with no job, no contacts, no support and dwindling funds but nothing to return home to and becoming an overstayer who is unemployed and has poor settlement outcomes, and all that that entails (inequality, poverty, mental health issues, etc.).