We are a Singaporean couple starting our journey in migrating to New Zealand. During our research into New Zealand, we wanted to find out more about the new place from a Singaporean perspective.
We were seeking out personnel accords of Singaporeans living (not holidaying) in NZ. Unfortunately information in such area was lacking. A vast amount of information we found tend to be from an European/American perspective. Plenty of blogs detailing personal experiences of Singaporeans living in Australia came up (It seems like everyone is migrating to Australia nowadays). Close but no Cigar.
I'm Mr Fatty. She's Ms Shortie. We are starting this blog to document our journey from SG to NZ. Hopefully it'll capture our state of mind and it's something that we can look back and reminisce about in the future. Maybe it'll help some other Singaporeans hoping to make the move to NZ too.
Our Story
It started out as an idea... sometime in 2010, we came across an article in The Straits Times about New Zealand government inviting Singaporeans to migrate. The article came with pictures of NZ famed scenery. Mountains, Lakes, Glaciers, Cows you name it, they have it. The article gave plenty of reasons to migrate: Cheaper housing, car, relaxed life style, fresh air, blue sky, etc etc etc.... Basically it's a slacker's paradise. At first we didn't think much about it. Our initial thought was its just propaganda, no country is perfect. Besides what do we have to offer NZ? We are a young couple just started joining the workforce a year ago. No money. No work experience. Why would they invite us? Nevertheless, there was a website by Immigration NZ where we signed up to express our interest and receive their monthly newsletter.
I'm not sure exactly what happened next. It could have been all the monthly newsletter plastered with magnificent views of NZ. It could have been the boredom that has been creeping up to us after a few years in SG workforce. It could have been the rising cost of living, the influx of foreign talents into our homeland. It could have simply been the hunger for a new adventure. Or perhaps it was because it has always been Ms Shortie's dream to live overseas. We don't know. It could have been all of them.
Whatever it was, the idea grew within us and we decided to find out more about what NZ has to offer. We scouted the internet for personal accords of migrants in NZ. We looked at NZ culture. We read on NZ job market and economy (Just being Singaporean here. Kiasu. Wait go there no job how?).
Sometime in late 2011, we came across a company,
Immagine New Zealand that conducts free seminars for people who are interested in moving to NZ. Every couple of months, these immigration consultants would fly into Singapore and conduct a seminar on what NZ has to offer. What are the pros and cons as well as the possible pathways to migrating to NZ. If anyone is thinking of making the move, I strongly encourage you to attend the seminar. (It's free. Cheap cheap cheap. But just attend once would do, it's basically re-runs of the same stuff.) We were rather kiasu and went for 3 seminars (listening to the same stuff over and over again) before deciding that we should pay S$180 for a personalized 1 hour session with one of the consultants from Immagine NZ. Prior to that session we had already done substantial research on the immigration process so that session was basically for us to confirm our understanding of the process as well as to find out some stuff which we couldn't find an answer for on the internet. I must say that the immigration procedures are really complicated and despite our thorough research, a few assumptions we made were wrong. These were pointed out during the session. However, by and large we did manage to nail the majority of the application process on our own.
Thus, we started giving more thoughts about making the move. We contemplated NZ, Australia, US, Amsterdam, UK, Canada etc etc. We figured that all these places have their pros and cons and we were largely fine with migrating to either of these countries. At this point it was sometime in 2012. We had been in the workforce for quite a number of years. We were both considered successful professionals in our careers. Unlike our fresh grad years, at this point there is quite an amount of risk involved. We are risking our careers. We are leaving behind our social security net. Can we find a job there? Can we fit into the culture? Lots of questions, plenty of uncertainties, zero answers. End of the day, it boils down to a bread and butter issue. Where can we find a career (not a job)? So our plan was to submit our resumes to companies in our list of short-listed countries. Whichever offers us a job that we are comfortable with, we'll just go ahead with that country. (Think of it as a short-gun method). Sounds like a crazy plan? Maybe it is. We understand how difficult it is to find a job overseas when you are not physically in that country. People have been telling me it's next to impossible. How many employers would be willing to employ someone whom they have not interviewed in person? How many would wait for an employee to travel down the long-drawn path of visa application without any certainty that the visa would be granted? Faced with these challenges and unfavourable conditions, my plan: Just do it.
Fast forward to today. After submitting about 20 resumes, Mr Fatty managed to secure 2 job offers. He decided to go ahead with the one in New Zealand. At this point we were pretty familiar with the entire visa application process that we decided to go ahead and submit the application on our own. Engaging an immigration consultant is just going to cost us additional $$$ which we don't have. Took us about a month to gather all the information and paper work required. After which it's just a matter of submitting the application and wait. And wait. And wait. Did I mention there was a lot of waiting involved?
We are still waiting for the results of our application. Minutes seems like hours. Days feels like weeks. We'll blog again once we have our application results. :)
Mr Fatty & Ms Shortie
