rambling on about our move to new zealand
one more milestone down.
i broke down this morning and called pascale my case officer to ask about the “change of status” email i got earlier in the week. she said that we should ignore the email and that she would contact us with status updates. pascale then said that she had good news - that she had approved our application, the last step was a final review by another case officer, and that she hoped to finish everything up within a week.
one more week of waiting…
…sometime in may.
doh.
company e finally came back with their feedback and confirmed that they thought the phone interview went well and would like to have a face to face interview. i had expected that that would mean me flying to nz to meet with them and also get a feel for hamilton. bad assumption i guess. they indicated that the cto that i spoke with was traveling to europe and the states sometime in may and they would coordinate with me to setup something for then. i’ll admit this seems like a long time for such a baby step since he and i spoke for over an hour on the phone and i don’t think either of us will learn much more during a face to face. but that said, i do admit that when i’m hiring i always hire the person and not the resume, and that for a position like this feeling comfortable with a candidate’s communication and people skills is key, so maybe it does make sense before investing in the time and money for me to fly to nz.
more waiting.
ONLINE ENQUIRY CHANGE OF STATUS
Your immigration application status has been updated. To View these changes please log in to Online Services
this morning i got an automated email from nzis indicating that my application status had changed - but no details of what the change was. they pointed me to their website to view the update, but just to make it interesting when i log in and view my status it’s unchanged - still “pending”. so has it been approved and they just haven’t updated their website? or has jackie’s tsa complaint put us on some international watch list?
i’m going to show great restraint here and wait a day or two before calling nzis to ask what this means. hopefully the website will get updated or i’ll hear more from my case officer.
i had my first interview for an nz job tonight. i spoke with the chief technology officer of company e - a small company in hamilton that makes network monitoring products. the call went very well - after a few questions about my background and what i was looking we spent most of the time talking about the company and hamilton. they are doing very well and growing rapidly and need to expand their software development management skills. like most companies they think they want someone who can manage the team and also provide technical and architectural leadership. i’m convinced that this is like wanting your physician to also be your dentist. both are important and both require enough focus and specialized skills that you just can’t do both well. so i decided over 10 years ago to be a professional manager and provide software development leadership to the team and let others provide technical and architectural leadership. after we talked about it for a while stuart agreed that the real challenge was growing the engineering team from 8 to 30 and that would require someone focused on the engineering management.
in the “the internets bring everyone closer” category, when we were talking about hamilton and smaller town life i mentioned that we had a cabin in vermont that we had just returned from and how much we like the pace of life up there. the cto asked where and i said that we lived on dorset hill in tiny east dorset, pop. 187. we talked about vermont for a few minutes and then he asked “so you’re on dorset hill road? anywhere near uphill lane or squirrel hollow?” holy moly. turns out that while we were talking he was using google earth to check out the neighborhood.
wrapping up the cto indicated that the next step would be something face to face. he said that he was meeting with the management team tomorrow in auckland where he could review his feedback from our interview.
as i mentioned i think the call went well and larry-my-recruiter-says-craig-the-recruiter-says-the-pa(secretary-)says-the-cto “really-liked-me.” either that or that he wanted a ham sandwich for lunch. who knows after it has passed through that many hands. they indicated that he was meeting with his boss, the ceo, tomorrow and they would discuss next steps.
24 actually.
just completed my settlement interview with pascale, my case officer from nzis. it went very well. they start with a few questions to ensure you are who you say you are. might seem silly, but i expect that some applicants from non-english speaking countries might try to have someone stand in for them during the interview. the rest of the questions then fell into 3 categories:
once again the nz emigration forum came through for me since members had compiled a list of frequently asked interview questions that i was able to review and think about my answer. pascale didn’t ask anything that i could not have answered, but it’s a lot better to be able to quickly answer an open ended question like “why new zealand?, why now?” than to compose an answer on the fly.
at the end she reviewed the next steps. pascale indicated that everything for my application was now complete and that after a final confirmation review there were 3 possibilities - declining the application (she said that would not happen), full residency or work-to-residency. pascale said she was marking mine for full residency. she said we should hear within two week, but likely next week.
22 minutes from start to finish.
updated timeline:
start: 14-JUL-06, day 1
EOI submitted: 31-JUL-06, day 17
EOI selected: 02-AUG-06, day 19
EOI approved 31-OCT-06, day 109
ITA received: 06-NOV-06, day 115
ITA submitted: 24-JAN-07, day 194
interview: 20-APR-07, day 280
PR granted:
departure:
i spoke briefly with pascale today and setup my interview for tomorrow morning at 0700.
she seemed quite nice and flexible. very optimistic that this step will be easy.
well, i don’t think you could stuff more good news into a single email.
today i got an email from miss pascale battrick introducing herself as my case officer (milestone #1) and indicating that “Following an initial assessment it appears that the only matter outstanding is completing the settlement interview… Having assessed your qualifications and work experience I expect it to be fairly straight forward.” (big milestone #2). this means that there wasn’t a single question or issue with our application and we are able to go straight to the interview. nzis indicates that the expected time to approve an application is 2 to 3 months. good job to whoever put our application together. but wait, there’s more. pascale continues “This phone interview will take between 15-30 minutes Please telephone me between 09:00hrs-15:30hrs Monday-Friday, or email me to arrange a suitable time” (milestone #3). The expectation was that we would need to wait for their rare trip to the states and then travel down to washington d.c. for an interview or i would need to fly to london at my own expense for a face to face interview. this just saved another 2 months, quite a bit of money and a small mountain of hassles.
this one email moves us up over 5 months. we were targeting an interview on the 10th of october. i should now be able to do that before the end of april and we’re on track for a decision by may 7th.
i’m still not packing my bags yet, but it is starting to feel very real today.
the nzis london branch (where our application is bring processed) updates a web page from time to time to indicate where they are on the queue. several weeks ago they indicated that as of march 23rd they were allocating applications lodged up to and include december 10th. we submitted our application on january 25th. so i was expected that it would be about 6 weeks from then before we got a case officer - somewhere around the 7th of may or so. but then there we no more updates to the site so i had no more insight into where they were. today i checked again (part of my sad daily ritual) and holy cow - “for the week ending 20th April 2007 we are allocating files lodged up to and including 6th February 2007″
so have we been allocated?
no word but several folks on the nz emigration forum have mentioned that if your application is in order you might not hear right away when it get allocated to a case officer. in fact hearing right away was always because something was missing or of concern.
i think i’ll call nzis tomorrow and see where we are. i’ve been very good and not nagging them, but this is too tantalizing.
last night larry forwared me an email he received from nzis describing a new program they have set up - the “ICT Skilled Migrant and Employer Link“. the summary is that they are working to connect skilled migrant applicants w/o job offers with recruiters and hiring companies. they mention that they have contacted the applicants in this situation and have received over 300 CVs (resumes) in response. they have put the CVs in a database for easy access.
sounds great, right? well, odd thing is that i’m squarely in that bucket and i haven’t heard boo. what’s up with that? also, and i don’t want to be competitive here, but given the challenges i have had finding an nz job last thing i need is 300 more folks to compete against for the limited number of opportunities.
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welcome to the results show. i know everyone’s been anxious to hear the results. today we’ll hear if gromit is allowed to travel with his family to new zealand.
this - is rabies test.
<wild cheering>
time to meet today’s judge. let’s hear it for kansas state university laboratory!
<applause>
gromit foster, please stand up.
kansas state university laboratory has spoken and the results…
…will be announced right after this.
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welcome back.
gromit, how are you felling about today’s results? nervous?
why don’t you take a seat and we’ll move onto the results.
gromit - the results are in and… you’re safe!
congratulations gromit!
<wild cheering>
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