First choice for family

Moving to New Zealand from the UK: Paul Tunster

Hi I’m Paul Tunster, I’m from Hampshire in the UK originally, and we moved to Dunedin in New Zealand in June 2011.

We chose New Zealand because it fitted our list of criteria, which was, speaking English, being advanced, schools, education, medicine, industry … all of it was there … nothing that could bite us or scare us, which was good .. and the lifestyle seemed good. Once we decided on New Zealand, the next stage was getting a job.

Hi, I’m Nigel Bamford from ESCEA Gas Fireplaces in Dunedin. Here at ESCEA we’ve hired several people from overseas, predominantly for technical roles, the product we make is quite specialist, there’s not a large manufacturing in NZ in the fireplace business whilst it is overseas so we’ve hired several key people that way.

We came about with the idea of applying for one job a day, whichever was most relevant to my qualifications and experience, and it eventually paid off for us. I got the offer of an interview from ESCEA, which was a Skype interview. It was the first time I’d ever been on Skype so that was an eye-opener for me.  Luckily they gave me the job.

More than half our income comes from overseas companies – because we export, and our export success is much greater when we’ve got staff who are from those countries, or at least understand those countries.

Ah, I needed the job and the contract to get the skilled migrant visa. The points based system meant that the job offer was 50 points,  and I was hovering below the 140 needed before that.

I think it’s really important for any company that is considering hiring people from overseas that they pout a lot of time during in the process in educating the person that they are interviewing and they are considering to come, on the reality of living and working in New Zealand.

I’m ashamed to say I did no research on New Zealand at all, but my wife Tina, she researched New Zealand from top to bottom – she came up with the idea that Dunedin would be best for us… and luckily that’s where the job was.

So as an employer, if we’re going to bring new people into our city, obviously we go to a little bit of effort to make sure they feel at home, … we, we  show them around, we often show their family around, we quite often find ourselves giving advice on things like schools, and the best part of town to live in to the people whilst they are still overseas.

Fitting into life in New Zealand is quite … difficult – Kiwis have enough friends; they don’t necessarily need more.  But if you put yourself out there – and you, you  - if you’ve got children you obviously do clubs and things like that … you’re a part of life before you know it.

So we use video, we use photos, we use everything we can to try and educate that person on exactly what they are undertaking, and they need to realise that what they are going to find here is not what they are used to at home.

I’ve never worked for a company as good as ESCEA – the move to New Zealand has been that much easier because of them, and the help they’ve given us, I understand there’s a service called Settlement Support which Immigration New Zealand runs. One way Tina found to settle in and to meet people and to keep busy was to volunteer, and she volunteered at a Charity shop – or an Op shop as they’re called here.  She really enjoyed that, and she’s gone on since to , to manage the shop as well.

New Zealand is different for us than we thought because, when we came over we thought that it would be good for us.  It’s not been good, it’s been fantastic … ah, for the children, for my wife, for me and my job … everything’s been good.

If you’re thinking of coming to New Zealand the one piece of advice I would give is, always remember why you started it. We were unhappy in the UK or relatively unhappy , and how much happier we are in New Zealand.

We haven’t referred to the UK as home for … oh for months, for well over a year now … New Zealand is where we’re staying – it’s definitely our home.