General question and advice regarding immigration advisors

[adt1987]

Hello all,

I've posted here a few times and this time we're keen to learn about immigration advisors and anyones experience with them.

Long story short, myself and my wife would be looking to make the move to NZ from the UK in around 18 months time. I am a web developer with five and a half years experience (but no formal qualifications) and my wife has a degree in Marketing and Advertising (from the UK) and has almost two years work experience following the degree. We're both early 30s.

We've reached out to immigration advisors over the years and while it seems that any application for a work visa (and hopefully residency visa following that) would benefit to some extent from an advisor, we just wonder how much value they really add. Of course we're not experts in immigration and it is a complex process but am wary of just throwing money at them without understanding others experience and also if it's really worth the thousands of pounds its going to cost. We're not saying it's not worth it, but with nothing to compare to we feel like we ought to do some digging and asking. One particular example would cost us at least £5,000 (including INZ fees) for a temporary work visa. We're assured that our money would only be requested by the advisor if they actually thought we stood a realistic chance of being accepted (they would take a small deposit and do an assessment). This is reassuring and does seem to negate much of the risk but should we really expect it will cost us £3000 (not including INZ fees) or is it reasonably possible to handle the process ourselves?

Finally, one advisor did suggest that having an advisor can help add a degree of 'authenticity' to a job application. For example, if I were to apply for a job in NZ from the UK, how much can I realistically expect they would even read my CV if they see I'm on the other side of the world. I would of course explain we're fully intending to make the move, but it's easy to say and much harder to achieve. The advisors point was that they can actually aim to reasure the potential employer that we're legitimate in our goals and the fact that we would have paid them money should go some way to 'proving' that. I think this falls under the 'Employment support' part of their service. It's a bit of a crude way of putting it but it does make sense to us.

We appreciate this is a bit open-ended but any insight would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[genegeney]

In my opinion, and experience, you don't need an adviser unless your circumstances are unusual or you're not confident with the process. If you look in the right places, you can find NZ employers who are specifically advertising for overseas candidates. I registered with 'New Zealand Now' and got a specific notification for the job I subsequently applied for. In terms of the visa process, you can view the INZ Operational Manual at: https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/#35439.htm. This has all the detail you need to know about the process.

Hope this helps!

[axczar]

We used a lawyer. Our circumstances were quite complicated with 20+ years past employment in several different countries.

If you have stayed in the UK you should have easy access to the back up required, health, banking, police, and employment history etc. In your case you could probably save the LIA fees by doing it your self. I would recommend a look see visit before you submit your application. Some LIAs will give you a free half hour to advise you of your chances. However if you have to apply for any waivers, an LIA could be helpful.

[JandM]

About the last paragraph of your post - I have yet to hear of any employer who took any notice of an LIA's being engaged when looking to take on staff. Does this company have an employment agency as a separate part of their business? If so, in your place, I would read the sales pitch on their website very carefully to find out how they go about what they do, and what they are promising, and expect to see some verifiable customer satisfaction letters. Also, have you looked to see that the LIA is licensed? https://iaa.ewr.govt.nz/PublicRegister/Search.aspx

Many NZ employers are mistrustful of applicants from overseas, because so many turn out to be timewasters. People apply for a job without having researched the stringent NZ immigration laws, and so without realizing the amount of time and money it will take to obtain a visa. (And, as you will see elsewhere on the forum, there are currently considerable ongoing delays with the SMC residence visa process, with political undertones which have yet to be clearly explained.) Or they apply without having discussed the matter with their family, who are then not in agreement to such a change in their lives. In either case, the employer, who thought he had made an appointment for someone to start in the reasonably near future, would end up with nobody to do the job, and having to start all over again.

For this reason, many NZ employers are reluctant to deal with anyone from overseas, unless and until they have come to NZ to be interviewed. That demonstrates a commitment of time and money, and goes some way to proving the candidate's serious intentions to making the move. These days, it is very rare for someone to be offered a skilled job, the necessary prerequisite for being granted a residence visa or a temporary work visa, while still overseas, unless they have a VERY rare skill-set.

Quite a few members of the forum have managed to get job offers by making a recce trip, having contacted prospective employers or agents beforehand, telling them when they will be available for interview.

[adt1987]

In my opinion, and experience, you don't need an adviser unless your circumstances are unusual or you're not confident with the process. If you look in the right places, you can find NZ employers who are specifically advertising for overseas candidates. I registered with 'New Zealand Now' and got a specific notification for the job I subsequently applied for. In terms of the visa process, you can view the INZ Operational Manual at: https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/#35439.htm. This has all the detail you need to know about the process.

Hope this helps!

Thank you for your reply. It's a good idea for us to do the same regarding registering with New Zealand Now. I understand that https://www.looksee.co.nz/ launched not so long back so keen to take a look at that as well. That's a great link to the Operational Manual. We're keen to learn more about the process so that sounds perfect!

We used a lawyer. Our circumstances were quite complicated with 20+ years past employment in several different countries.

If you have stayed in the UK you should have easy access to the back up required, health, banking, police, and employment history etc. In your case you could probably save the LIA fees by doing it your self. I would recommend a look see visit before you submit your application. Some LIAs will give you a free half hour to advise you of your chances. However if you have to apply for any waivers, an LIA could be helpful.

Thank you for your reply. A few LIAs have offered a service for ~$200 to do an assessment. I think we'll end up doing that. We don't mind paying a bit of money, it is a big life-changing process so its expected. Given the costs of the LIA we could use the money to make the recce trip ourselves which would probably be more beneficial to us. My only concern with that is the limited amount of time we would have, say three weeks. Lining up interviews for the two of us to land within those three weeks I can see being really frustrating. That all said, even with a job offer following a recce trip we would still need to be eligible so having a formal assessment or two under our belt would give us much more confidence.

About the last paragraph of your post - I have yet to hear of any employer who took any notice of an LIA's being engaged when looking to take on staff. Does this company have an employment agency as a separate part of their business? If so, in your place, I would read the sales pitch on their website very carefully to find out how they go about what they do, and what they are promising, and expect to see some verifiable customer satisfaction letters. Also, have you looked to see that the LIA is licensed? https://iaa.ewr.govt.nz/PublicRegister/Search.aspx

Many NZ employers are mistrustful of applicants from overseas, because so many turn out to be timewasters. People apply for a job without having researched the stringent NZ immigration laws, and so without realizing the amount of time and money it will take to obtain a visa. (And, as you will see elsewhere on the forum, there are currently considerable ongoing delays with the SMC residence visa process, with political undertones which have yet to be clearly explained.) Or they apply without having discussed the matter with their family, who are then not in agreement to such a change in their lives. In either case, the employer, who thought he had made an appointment for someone to start in the reasonably near future, would end up with nobody to do the job, and having to start all over again.

For this reason, many NZ employers are reluctant to deal with anyone from overseas, unless and until they have come to NZ to be interviewed. That demonstrates a commitment of time and money, and goes some way to proving the candidate's serious intentions to making the move. These days, it is very rare for someone to be offered a skilled job, the necessary prerequisite for being granted a residence visa or a temporary work visa, while still overseas, unless they have a VERY rare skill-set.

Quite a few members of the forum have managed to get job offers by making a recce trip, having contacted prospective employers or agents beforehand, telling them when they will be available for interview.

Hi JandM, thanks once again for your reply. That's interesting regarding LIA engagement with the employment process. Of course we have to expect that any LIA is always going to talk-up their own services so this is why we wanted to ask the question. We will definitely do our due diligence before parting with any money to any LIA. Also, the LIA in question seems to focus a tremendous amount of resource into the construction, teaching and healthcare industries so I don't see them being able to offer anything that specific for myself or my wife (happy to be proven wrong though!)

I can totally appreciate it from an employers perspective. Aside from a potential recce trip, we do already have a pair of WHV visits under our belt that I would hope might go some way to adding legitimacy to our applications. We've been to NZ and worked there before. We spent between 12-18 months there. That said, we do appreciate a WHV is miles apart from potential residency.

Do you know if there is an existing thread that might be useful to read regarding recce trips? As I mentioned in my reply to axczar above I can see lining everything up being quite a daunting and frustrating task so any tips would be real

[EGoodhue]

Just chipping in my two cents worth as an LIA myself Licensed advisers are required to adhere to the Code of Conduct set down by the Immigration Advisers Authority and one clause of that code is that fees charged must be fair and reasonable. What 'fair and reasonable' means can be completely subjective but, at the end of the day, an adviser has to be able to justify how their fees will be earned ie. what they're going to do for those fees and what the breakdown of hours involved, etc. is likely to be.

Some NZ employers know nothing about the process involved in supporting a work visa so there can be benefits to having an adviser that is willing to engage with an employer and help guide them through their part of the process - but this usually only comes into play once a job is secured, and I would be wary of any adviser offering to help you secure a job in NZ (has always seemed like a potential conflict of interest to me).

And, just as an aside, I do initial assessments for free

[adt1987]

Just chipping in my two cents worth as an LIA myself Licensed advisers are required to adhere to the Code of Conduct set down by the Immigration Advisers Authority and one clause of that code is that fees charged must be fair and reasonable. What 'fair and reasonable' means can be completely subjective but, at the end of the day, an adviser has to be able to justify how their fees will be earned ie. what they're going to do for those fees and what the breakdown of hours involved, etc. is likely to be.

Some NZ employers know nothing about the process involved in supporting a work visa so there can be benefits to having an adviser that is willing to engage with an employer and help guide them through their part of the process - but this usually only comes into play once a job is secured, and I would be wary of any adviser offering to help you secure a job in NZ (has always seemed like a potential conflict of interest to me).

And, just as an aside, I do initial assessments for free

Thanka for your reply, much appreciated. It's good to get a perspective from an LIA.

I do remember reading about the 'fair and reasonable' fees and it immediately struck me as a very subjective thing. We need a few quotes I think so we can better understand the market.

Regarding the employment support, I need to find out more about what that exactly means. I can see the benefits of an LIA for those companies not familiar with the visa process. It's another perspective to factor in.

Regarding your assessment, how do we go about that please?