
New Zealand Will Give You a Free Trip If You Agree to a Job Interview - BerislavLopac
http://time.com/money/4686430/new-zealand-jobs/
======
djsumdog
I lived in Wellington for two and a half years. It's the most beautiful city
I've ever lived in.

That being said, most of the tech is centralized in just a few shops.
Everything is contracted out to Datacom, Catalyst, Frondie, Solnet, etc. etc.

I mean companies do have their own IT staff, but just due to the shortage of
talent, a lot gets contracted out, including tons of government stuff.

If you're under 30 and a US citizen, you can get a Holiday Work Visa and
live/work there for a year. (This is how I started out, before switching to
another visa). If you're a citizen of a commonwealth state, I think you can
get a two year visa to most other commonwealth countries (including AU/NZ).

Oh and Wellington is the windiest city in the world. This is not an
exaggeration. Oh and expect at least one earthquake a year too.

~~~
Rapzid
I lived in Auckland; aren't the winters worse in Wellington? Part of the
reason I moved back(other than low wages and crazy housing prices) was to get
away from those Auckland winters. Lucky for me I moved to CA right when they
got over their drought... Yay.

New Zealand is really nice though. Laid back, safe(accept CBD on drinking
nights), clean, etc.

~~~
coverband
What is CBD?

~~~
kentosi
Central Business District.

It's what Aussies (like myself) and Kiwis call "downtown", or the city-centre.

~~~
Reason077
"CBD" is used in some Asian and Middle-Eastern countries too. But I've never
seen it used in Europe or the Americas.

~~~
cstejerean
I've heard the term used in London as well. But never in the US. I first ran
across it when I lived in Australia, so I wonder if it's a British term.

~~~
sanswork
It's possible it's an Australian term and you were just surrounded by
Australians in London.

~~~
ascorbic
Yes. I've never heard anyone use it in the UK except Aussies and Kiwis.

------
pimlottc
Direct link to the actual program: [http://www.wellingtonnz.com/work/looksee-
wellington/](http://www.wellingtonnz.com/work/looksee-wellington/)

~~~
philip1209
The profile photo uploader appears broken

~~~
joenot443
Same thing for me.

------
vermontdevil
One downside - you have to be able-bodied. NZ will not allow people with
disabilities the opportunity to relocate there.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Do you have a citation for this?

~~~
rconti
New Zealand and Australia are well known for having point systems for
migrants. They highly favor young, english-speaking, able-bodied, highly-
educated people.

[https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/apply-
for-...](https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/apply-for-a-
visa/about-visa/skilled-migrant-category-resident-visa)

~~~
philliphaydon
Or if you have money, you get all the points.

~~~
elastic_church
awesome to know since thats one of my primary goals

------
NDizzle
Honestly, my only remaining fear in moving to NZ would be going from unmetered
internet in the US to strictly metered internet in NZ. Would I be able to cope
with a data cap?!

It could be a reality show. Have your people call my people!

~~~
qzervaas
At least NZ has fibre. Unlike the western island (Australia, aka the mainland
;) ) which has an absolute shitshow for Internet connectivity.

~~~
skissane
I live an hour north of Sydney and I have fibre to my house. (But I
acknowledge I am one of a lucky minority - part of my reasons for choosing
this suburb was the fibre.)

~~~
cknight
You sure are. My parents are well inside Sydney's suburban sea and are stuck
on 3mbit ADSL2+ due to exchange distance.

New Zealand's national fibre plan is brilliant. If only Australia could come
up with such ideas...

~~~
lostlogin
> New Zealand's national fibre plan is brilliant

I live 8km from Auckland CBD and haven't got fibre or an install date. Lines
crap out when it rains. Every fibre install I have seen (and I keep an eye out
for them) is terrible. Through driveway expansion joints, along fences etc. My
view is quite the opposite on how good the roll out has been.

------
samfisher83
According to this article you apply and they will select a 100 people from the
pool. How is this different than a normal interview except the flight is a
little longer.

~~~
cfontes
Plus the flight is very expensive

~~~
ianhowson
The flight price is trivial compared with the 48 hours travel time plus
jetlag.

(Source: doing the return trip right now)

~~~
anigbrowl
People used to need weeks to travel across an ocean, toughen up.

~~~
patrick_haply
Just because something else was more shit doesn't make it any less shit.

------
TheAlchemist
I'm very seriously thinking about relocating there with my family (we're in
France). We're actually going there next week to visit the country and do a
reality check about our expectations.

For those who made the move - how was your experience ? IT scene ? Machine
Learning related stuff anyone ?

~~~
kovrik
My wife and I moved to NZ (from Russia) 2+ years ago. I work in IT (Software
Developer). We live in Auckland.

My impressions are:

PROS: \- very beautiful country. Really, nature here is amazing!

\- people are very friendly

\- everything is quite simple and small, people know each other. It is more
like a village, not a City

\- climate is fine (in Auckland). Humidity is high - that is why it feels hot
in summer and cold in winter

\- no earthquakes (Auckland)

\- very safe country

\- coffee and beer and foods are amazing!

\- it is clean

\- lack of stress, slow pace of life

CONS:

\- NZ is unreasonably expensive country to live in

\- you can't really make money here. All salaries are pretty much the same.
You'll get enough for living, but not much more.

\- job market is small and weird (hence, limited career opportunities)

\- rent is very high. You'll spend 40-60% of your salary on a rent.

\- house prices are unreasonably high. It will be very difficult to buy a good
house/apartment here

\- quality of houses/apartments is very bad. They are tiny, old, ugly. Well,
there are some nice houses, but they are far from CBD

\- it is far far away from the rest of the world, hence it is expensive to
travel from NZ to other countries

\- it is boring here. Nothing is going on. About 4-5 good
concerts/exhibitions/shows per year and that's it. The only ways to entertain
yourself are: food (pubs, cafes, restaurants etc. But choice is very limited)
and nature (hiking, camping, surfing, caving etc.)

\- almost all cafes and shops close at 4-6pm. Yes, not many places to go after
work.

\- if you (or your wife) like shopping, then you'll be disappointed. Again,
choice is very limited, quality is quite low, prices are unreasonably high.

\- IT: it is just my opinion, but I would say that average IT specialist in NZ
doesn't know much. I see a lot of IT people here who, for example, don't know
how to use Git. Who never heard about Rust. Who never heard about LISP. Who
have 8 years of Java experience, but don't know basic Java stuff. And so on.
Honestly, this is quite disappointing

\- companies don't hire you for your skills. They don't usually ask any
technical question during interviews. Most probably they will just check if
you are kind, polite, if you smile, if you can sell yourself

\- employers here often require mythical 'New Zealand Experience'. Which means
that if you've never worked in NZ, then it will be difficult for you to find
your first job here (because you don't have NZ experience yet)

\- people don't work hard here. They come to work slowly, relax, read news,
drink coffee, work a little bit, then have lunch, then work a little bit
again. When it's 5pm - they just go home.

\- public transport is bad

Overall, NZ is a very very nice country, but it has some REALLY annoying and
weird stuff. If you _don't_ really want to make a Career and Money, just want
to relax, want to have no stress and anxiety, if you enjoy nature, then it
would be great for you.

If you are more a 'city guy', who wants things to happen all the time around,
who wants to make a career, have opportunities, who wants to live in a big
modern city, then honestly, I would recommend Australia (Melbourne/Sydney)
over New Zealand.

My wife and I are planning to move to Australia in the future.

~~~
TheAlchemist
Thanks for a detailed reply !

I'm a bit surprised about the salary. I've seen than in IT it's pretty
limited, but also that some other profession can make a very good living - my
wife is a doctor and it looks like it's quite a good place to be for medical
professionals.

Living costs, yes - that's something I expect. But coming from Paris, I don't
think I will be shocked neither... Also, we already have 2 kids and will
rather be looking at houses in the suburbs / outside of the main cities, so
this should bring the costs down.

Again, thanks for great answer !

~~~
roel_v
"will rather be looking at houses in the suburbs / outside of the main cities,
so this should bring the costs down."

No, it doesn't work like that. Have a look at some RE websites and Google
Maps. Prices are insane, even in places where you can't reasonably commute to
places where there are jobs for educated people. Only places where prices
aren't insane is in places people only go to get away from other people. Look,
I loved living in NZ in some aspects, but it's not a place for someone with
ambition. Even kiwis with ambition leave, even if they don't want really want
to.

~~~
TheAlchemist
This is something that bothers me indeed. My best case scenario is to create a
company in the machine learning field there. The idea is not yet mature
enough, so I'm giving myself time for now (we're planning to move in a year or
two).

As for houses, I've checked and it sure looks expensive, but again - I'm
living in Paris area where the prices are insane in my opinion. In the suburbs
where I live, it's ~5000e/m2 - with almost 1h commute to work.

~~~
roel_v
First, let me make clear that I don't want to dissuade you from going to New
Zealand. It's a lovely place, but many people in Europe have a (somewhat)
wrong image of it. So I just want to make sure you know what you're getting in
to.

Yes, compared with central Paris, prices aren't that insane. But if you want
to bootstrap a company, you are looking for (one or more of):

\- cheap COL \- access to customers \- access to staff

In NZ, you have none of those. You'll be _much_ cheaper off living in northern
France or somewhere else 'remote' and rural in France, or even the rest of
Europe. You'll spend thousands a month renting somewhere that isn't even
particularly nice (houses are of crap quality in general), money that you
won't have when you're getting a business started.

There aren't many companies that need or are willing to pay for cutting edge
software. Sure, you can sell to anywhere in the world through the internet
nowadays, but then why would you live hours flying away from your customers,
on (relatively) crappy internet lines, many timezones away?

Most Kiwis worth hiring have moved to Oz. That is not to say that all Kiwis
left are idiots, of course, but in general they won't be the sort of high-
flying, go-getter people you'll want in the initial stages of your company.
And those that are left will be hard to find or to convince joining you. It
will be easier to convince young people looking for adventure coming from
abroad to join you, but they'll be gone just as easily, too (I've seen it
happen several times).

NZ is a great place to live if you want to have an outdoorsy-oriented, good
work/life balanced lifestyle, while still being in an English-speaking,
originally Europe (British) oriented country. Your friends and family will
love saying how they will come visit you and then won't once they realize how
far away it actually is (exaggerating only slightly here). Until the 1970's,
NZ was a very insular, inward-facing, closed economy, of which the effects are
still felt today. People like to live very spread out, which makes 4mm people
responsible for maintaining infrastructure in an area bigger than the UK. It's
true that the majority lives in a few cities, but that also makes those cities
expensive.

May I suggest you go live there for a few months first before you move - and
treat it as 'living' there, not 'holiday'. So living in the same place, daily
rhythm of Mon-Fri 9-5 and doing laundry on the weekends, not being able to go
_anywhere_ without a car (this is the number one thing my daughter complained
about, although she was only 4 at the time).

Good luck. If you take the plunge, I'm sure you'll have a great time and it'll
be a great adventure, but your chances of being the traditional definition of
'successful' will not improve with going there (nothing wrong with that, of
course - everybody has to define for themselves what constitutes
'successful').

~~~
TheAlchemist
Thing is, we decided that we will choose the next country according to my wife
job (doctor) and lifestyle - nature etc. So based on this, New Zealand seems
like the perfect place. I'm well aware that it's not the best career choice I
can make to say the least, but I don't consider the points you've made like
blocking issues. Things will be harder for sure, but far from impossible.

I may be wrong, but money shouldn't be that much of issue based on what I've
heard / read - it seems like doctors are making plenty of money there (as
opposed to France, where they are very underpaid, compared to cost of living).
Does this sound plausible to live on one income only (family with two kids) ?

We are actually going there next week for 15 days, to see how life is. We're
only doing the northern island since it's most probably were we would like to
live (and we will have plenty of time to visit the southern one once there).
15 days is short, but I hope we will get a fair idea about the country.

Thank you all guys for the opinions !

------
ryandrake
I guess I'd have the same reservations about moving to NZ for a job that I
would about moving to Small Town, USA for a job. It's very risky career-wise.
If things go bad at that job, where else are you going to go? Are there enough
jobs locally that would allow you to do, say 20 interviews and actually find a
similar job? Or are you looking at another international relocation?

------
jstrate
As an fyi to the folks developing this website and those thinking about
signing up, I refreshed the page while logged in under my account and it
loaded a different account. I have screenshots and other information to pass
along if you give an email.

~~~
joenot443
Yep, there are some pretty significant bugs in the site. I've been trying to
upload a profile picture for 10 minutes now, one try the tab stopped
responding, the second time it redirected to a 502 page.

------
killjoywashere
I met a New Zealand network security specialist in Santa Monica recently. He
and his mate moved here. When the general is calling forward the reserves, the
reservist would do well to take heed of the front line that's coming toward
them.

~~~
pcmaffey
Can you expound on this warning?

~~~
zbtaylor1
I believe he's implying that this program may be a sign of a generally poor
employment environment in New Zealand.

~~~
tomjen3
When people offers you free meat, it is because they have hidden a hook in it.

Honestly I can't really see why I should go to New Zeeland even if they had a
great jobmarket: why relocate half-way around the world to a country that as
far as I know has no interesting tech companies.

~~~
mikestew
_why relocate half-way around the world to a country that as far as I know has
no interesting tech companies._

If that's truly what's holding you back, I gather that New Zealand might not
be the place for you. I have been told, however, that NZ has other fine
qualities having little to do with tech. For instance, the fact that it's
half-way around the world, and they talk like those musicians on that HBO
show, might be reason enough for me personally.

------
eli_gottlieb
So they have literally hundreds of tech jobs and they're looking to interview
literally 100 people?

~~~
RubenSandwich
Yup, pretty standard marketing technique. Offer a special deal to a select few
but by advertising that deal you get other interested/talking about it. Kind
of like we are.

------
touristtam
> LookSee Wellington has gone viral! > > And unfortunately, due to the
> increase in visits we've temporarily closed off the website to new
> registrations. We're currently working on scaling up to handle theigh
> volumes, so please check back in 24 hours. > > We'll still be accepting new
> registrations up until March 20th so you haven't missed your chance! Once
> we're back up and running, you'll be able to create and submit a profile
> again. > > If you'd like to receive an email notification when registrations
> are open again, you can submit your details here. > > If you've already
> registered, you can still log in and access your account.

As of March 2nd 16:00 GMT

------
i0exception
For a brief period of time I was either able to edit someone else's profile or
the information I entered was overwritten with that of someone with the same
last name. Be careful with entering any personal information there.

------
santaclaus
I used to work in Wellington -- pretty fun city, pretty slow internet.
Furniture (and shoes for some reason) are hella expensive. If you move there
from the states load up a shipping pod ahead of time.

~~~
GeorgeDewar
We now have pretty fast internet. I'm on 100mbit with unlimited data for
$79/month, and could have 1Gbit for $129/month.

International speeds can _occasionally_ be a bit slow, but the widespread use
of caching and CDNs limits the impact of this. It's mostly pretty good.

~~~
santaclaus
That's great to hear! How is mobile data these days?

------
sdm
There appears to be some serious security issues with the site. I was filling
out my profile, but when I saved my bio, my session was some now that of a
developer from Brazil...

------
davidw
Cool, but....
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington#Climate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington#Climate)

Not for me.

~~~
bovermyer
30 F to 88 F is not for you? While that's probably true, I'm greatly amused by
people who can't survive outside, say, California.

Having no real winter must get really boring.

~~~
davidw
I'm ok with cold. Sort of. It's the rain and lack of _hot_ that would bother
me. I actually live in Oregon's "high desert", which is more of a steppe,
really.

My ideal summer includes a month or two of 30C, rather than that being the
highest temperature ever recorded.

~~~
bovermyer
You may actually enjoy Minneapolis, then. It gets to be about 35 C in the
height of summer. Winters are about -10 C, on average.

~~~
davidw
We have more mountains here in Oregon and it's dryer east of the Cascades.

------
alannallama
There are a few similar programmes coming out like this. If you're an
entrepreneur interested in NZ and working on social impact, you should also
check out the Edmund Hillary Fellowship. Gives you access to the Global Impact
Visa, and residency after 3 years.

[http://ehf.org](http://ehf.org)

------
kentosi
So my hacker brain says anyone looking into this who's coming from somewhere
far away (like the US, Europe) should maximise their opportunities by hopping
over to Australia and doing some job interviews there too.

The long flight to NZ is covered. You're only paying for a short NZ/Aus return
flight.

~~~
stanleydrew
This seems kind of unethical. The government is doing something nice for you
and offering to cover the cost of flight and accommodation. In exchange I
would expect to focus my attention on the opportunities they are offering, and
not treat it as a free plane ticket.

That just seems like the fair thing to do.

~~~
dvtv75
Australia: better pay, better hours, better conditions, better weather, and
better career prospects.

New Zealand: free plane ticket. Rugby. But then, Australia has that, too. Umm.

Hmmm.

Honestly, being born in New Zealand, earned a Bachelor CS degree, unable to
get a job there. Before I graduated, I had plenty of experience but no
qualification so nobody would take me. After I graduated, the same places said
I had a qualification but no experience so they wouldn't take me.

------
shaftway
Site is pretty buggy. I've registered and I keep seeing other people's profile
data pop up

~~~
personjerry
That's why they want to hire you to fix it :)

~~~
shaftway
Looks like a caching error.

The two hardest things in programming are naming things, caching things, and
off-by-one errors.

------
TronPaul_
I've looked at possibly seeking employment in NZ, but most of the shops (at
least the one posting on the sites I've searched), are .Net or MS shops, which
I'm not too terribly interested in. Hopefully this job fair will have a bit
more diversity.

------
nthcolumn
OMG Welly? The most beautiful country in the world and the most awesome people
- seriously excellent people. I'd move there in a heartbeat. If you can - go
and no - one week is not long enough, try a month or two.

------
callesgg
New Zealand is pretty great (actually sounds interesting)but the 12 Hour time
difference is horrible.

I would need a week just to adjust, and then talking english all the time is a
major drain that to.

------
uladzislau
Nice PR stunt! I think the wrong incentive tells me that the quality of the
submissions and the outcome of this (hiring the right people) won't be very
good.

------
jayrparro
Site is still buggy.. Contact us will redirect to "Global Page Error" page

------
popobobo
I think most professional tech worker they are trying to hire would be able to
afford a round trip ticket and travel expenses to New Zealand.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I can afford it as a vacation, though it would be a pretty big dent.

But I can't afford it just to hear "sorry, we've decided to go with someone
else."

~~~
rconti
Flew to Auckland from SFO for our honeymoon for ~$950 roundtrip per ticket, so
it's not horrendously expensive, but of course I'd hardly call that the kind
of sum you'd want to throw away jut for an interview.

~~~
knz
$950 from SFO isn't a bad deal. It can be considerably more expensive around
peak season if you don't catch a sale (easily $1.6k to $2k).

~~~
jordanthoms
Prices have dropped massively in the last year or so as there are more flights
and airlines doing AKL<->SFO now

~~~
knz
Even over the summer months? Google is telling me about $1,400 for late March.

United entered the market within the last two years and that does seem to have
driven the prices down a bit.

I fly to Auckland or Christchurch at least once a year with a family of 4 so
welcome cheaper prices!

~~~
rconti
Ours was April on Air NZ but its been a couple years and 1400 doesn't sound
out of the question.

------
Swizec
What if I do it for the trip then say no and go back home?

I'd love to visit New Zealand, not sure I wanna stay. It's nice there but it's
really far from everything.

~~~
F_J_H
What if you went into a bakery and ate all the free samples?

------
John23832
What if you fly this person (who is great on paper) to Wellington, and they
turn out to be the most toxic person you've ever met. What if your luck is
truly awful and you fly out 100 of these people?

~~~
cmdrfred
If you find from a group of 100 people, that each one has a personalty that is
so "toxic" they are impossible to deal with. I assure you it is you that is
"toxic".

~~~
John23832
We've all met developers that were so lacking in the intangibles that
(hindsight being 20/20) they probably we not worth the hire/interview. Imagine
that with a couple grand flight tacked on. Don't take a rhetorical question so
personally.

~~~
BerislavLopac
I don't see the parent's comment as taking the question personally -- it's
just taking it a step further.

Yes, we've all met (or been, at occasion) such people; and yes, it's
theoretically possible to interview 100 of such people at the same time. But
in reality, the probability of that happening is astronomically lower compared
to the probability that the problem was in the interviewer in the first place.

