My Working Holiday Visa’s arrived

I didn’t get a chance to blog about it the other day as we’ve been busy (you should be able to tell by reading Mimi’s most recent post here). Like she said, we’ve now both got our Visas. Mine arrived on Monday 5th March in the morning. Quite a quick turnaround time (1 week). Looks like we’re both going to be looking for contracting jobs over there. We’ll just “wing it” and see what happens. A common question people have been asking is where we’re going to stay when we get there. A good friend of mine has kindly offered his living room (we have to buy our own air mattresses) for just under 2 weeks. Hopefully we can find a place to rent within that time frame.

We’ve still got quite a lot to do so hectic 2 weeks coming up. The bank account’s proving a REAL pain. That’ll teach us to leave it to the last minute. HSBC’s customer service leaves a lot to be desired. Also finally got our cars advertised online for sale so hopefully we can sell them before we leave. Anyone want a Honda Jazz or Honda Accord Euro?

 

My turn for the Working Holiday Visa application

I got sick of waiting for idiot recruiters and idiot companies to get back to me with anything useful. If they aren’t ignoring you, they’re busy pretending to be “busy chasing up companies” for you. If anything comes out of all the shenanigans I’ve had to go through with speaking to recruiters and companies, I’ll be very surprised. All they’ve succeeded in doing is delaying our plans and frustrating the hell out of me.

So as the date draws nearer, I’ve decided I can wait no longer for those fools and have submitted the Working Holiday Maker Visa application online. It will cost me $236 AUD but there’s nothing I can do about that. Waiting for a “potential sponsored work permit” is just proving to be too difficult has proven to be a road block.

Thankfully, Mimi’s already been through this process and posted about this earlier. I simply followed her steps. If I had decided to go figure it out myself, I’d have had a hell of a time trying to find this page that outlines at a very high level what to do or even the bottom of this page that tells you what to do a little better. I say high level because you have to go chasing down the links yourself. Also, if I had followed the instructions at the completion of the submission, I’d be sending the thing to the wrong address. Apparently the right address is here as Mimi outlined. Actually, I should clarify that statement. Both addresses are the same…except one is more specific so it saves them from having to waste time trying to re-route the submission to the right department – which is what would have happened had I followed the submission form’s advice. I’d be guessing most people would follow the form and hence get their application delayed as a result of it. I don’t understand why governments love confusing the general public…I guess it makes everything go that much slower and wastes more taxpayer dollars. Did I mention that we can’t pay the $236 online? It has to be via a form that you print out and fill in manually. Apparently they’re going to “start taking electronic payments in 2007″. I guess they mean December 2007.

Well at least I’m a step closer to being photographed and x-rayed wherever I go in London (read this if you REALLY want to figure out what I’m talking about – if you aren’t interested in privacy matters, it will be boring).

 

Unexpected package…

I had an unexpectedly package earlier this week, my visa has arrived – week and a half early! Job search begins…

 

My first post!

Ok in case you start to think I am not contributing to this blog so here goes…

While Ian has still yet to decide on which visa he is going to apply for, I have decided to apply for the Working Holiday Maker Visa.  I have already completed the online application, which allows you to save the application on any page and return later to complete it.  Do keep in mind that the application must be completed within 7 days, I made the mistake of leaving it for 10 days and later found that I was not able to retrieve the saved application and had to start all over!  Anyhow now I just need to print a copy of recent bank statements covering last 3 months and put this together with my passport, one passport size photo, application fee + postage, plus a signed copies of the supplementary working holiday questionaire as well as the checklist then send all these off to passport & visa section, Canberra and hopefully I should get the visa within the next 2-3 weeks!

As I popped the application into the postbox, my excitement shortly dissipated as I could not help but felt a sense of sadness as I will definitely be missing my family and friends heaps!  Be sure to check this blog regularly and I’ll definitely be on Skype more often to keep in touch!  I know what lies ahead will be amazing, exciting and life changing and I can’t wait to experience it with Ian

 

New passport arrived…

Got my new passport yesterday. It’s one of these new fangled ePassports with a chip in the middle page. This means I can now use one of the SmartGate systems when clearing Australian Customs. I have yet to see these around, but they’re apparently supposed to start appearing in International terminals this year.

Being in my area of work (IT and digital security), I have some concerns over this chip in my passport. I may talk about this at some point in the future on my professional blog…or not. Stay tuned.

Now, I just have to get my Visa sorted. That’s another complication! Especially since I’ve just found out certain companies (e.g. IBM) have a definitive list of Visas they will and will not accept!

 

Passport and visa considerations

I’m currently without a passport because it got cancelled! No, it’s not what you think. I didn’t do anything bad that forced the Australian Government to cancel it. I simply applied to have it renewed. It expires in December this year and I didn’t want to be in the UK having to worry about my passport expiring. Add to that the complications that may potentially arise if my UK Visa is on my expiring passport and getting a new one would involve trying to figure out how to transfer the Visa to my new passport…which brings me to the issue of the actual Visa.

We’ll need a Visa that allows us to work in the UK. This leaves us with 3 options:

• Highly Skilled Migrant (HSM) Visa
• Working Holiday Maker Visa
• Company Sponsored Working Visa

The HSM Visa is probably the best one to go after, except it’s a REAL pain. It allows you to work in the UK for a couple of years and potentially get permanent resident status if you want to at the end of it. It also doesn’t require that you have a job before they approve it. Mimi and I both qualify for this in terms of the points required to get approval for one. So why don’t we just go for it you say? Well, you need to provide ORIGINAL documents to prove you qualify for the relevant points. The biggest issue we saw was having to provide our original university degrees to them. ie. we had to post it to the UK. Which meant that first, we had to take it out of the frame. Then we had to trust that the postal service could get it there without losing or damaging it. Then we had to trust that the authorities in the UK not lose or damage it. And finally, we had to trust that they could send it back without it being lost or damaged. Too much risk. You only get ONE degree. If you lose it, the university can probably give you a replacement, but it would cost money and it would also probably say “copy” on it somewhere. Not my preference or anyone else’s I’m sure. We know of some friends who did this…and guess what? They no longer have their degree! All is not lost however. They “simply” have to go to the university and get a signed original letter that states they have the relevant degree they claim. Lots of fun!

The next option is to get a company sponsored working Visa. This is rather difficult if you don’t have the right contacts. Most recruitment agencies won’t even talk to you without permission to work in the UK. As a result, this option is difficult…not to mention restrictive. There’s usually clauses that say you cannot leave within the space of a year or you have to pay back money or something along those lines.

That leaves us with the Working Holiday Maker Visa. The only problem…some companies do not hire people on Working Holiday Maker Visas and you’re restricted to only being able to work for 1 year out of the 2 years the Visa gives you to stay in the UK. It IS however, the path of least resistance. It is also flexible in that it does not tie us down to a single company like the company sponsored Visa. Having said that, we can show up to the UK without a job and that would be fine. We could even stay there for 2 years and it would be fine. We would just be extremely poor at the end of it as we would probably have exhausted all our savings!

The conclusion? We’re probably going for the Working Holiday Maker Visa. If you’re good enough and want to stay, whatever company you’re working for at the time will find a way to allow you to do so.

In the meantime, I have to wait. I have no passport for at least another 2 weeks…which means I’m in Visa application limbo. Mimi can apply for one now…but she may wait to apply for it together. We’ve still got almost 2 months before we’re going over there so there’s still time.