Greetings,

I immigrated to New Zealand about 10 years ago. Now although it was 10 years ago, some things do ring true today as they did then. The truth of the matter is you will be confronted with some big questions and how you answer those questions will directly affect the outcome of your immigration process.

The first questions one has to ask is, Why do I want to immigrate? What is it I am seeking exactly? Why New Zealand? What does it have, that will provide me with the lifestyle I am searching for. You see, the reasons why I point out these obvious questions is, I did not ask these things when I immigrated to New Zealand but fortunately for me it worked out and here I am 10 years on and loving my lifestyle.

When I decided to come over 10 years ago, the furthest I traveled was around a monopoly board, no not quite as bad as that, but I was bored with my life in South Africa, I had exhausted my career, I had built a house from scratch I had traveled Southern Africa quite a bit and was seeking something fresh and new. Something that would put a new found spring in my step, some different filters through which I could view the world.

New Zealand had has a lot of similarities to back home but on a smaller scale, they love their rugby, the great outdoors, they are extremely family and children oriented and so forth and so on. There are wonderful benefits to living here and I enjoy the feeling it provides. There is the hustle and bustle of city life as you would find in any country, but New Zealand is just unique.
This article though is not about the beauty and wonder of New Zealand, the web is full of sites that will do a much better job of promoting New Zealand.

This article is about immigrating to New Zealand and doing it right the first time as you only get one shot at it, you can do it the hard way or you can do it the right way. Now you may be asking yourself and what makes me an expert on the topic. Well the answer is I am no immigration expert as such, however I was a recruitment consultant and met dozens and dozens of people who have immigrated here. I have spoken to people from all walks of life who have immigrated, some have used the services of a migration consultant, some have done it on their own, some have had containers coming over and packed before they secured a residents permit, job and place to stay. The preparation and planning that some people have put into their immigration has led to divorce within months of arriving here, financial hardships for others and the list goes on.

All this happens because of the lack of a well thought out plan and step by step guide to immigrating.

The net has all this information available, some sites are more informative and cover quite a large portion of the process but leave out some very important answers, some sites are just interested in promoting their service and lack sufficient content and some has this and some has that.

The questions when Immigrating to New Zealand are aplenty, one needs a comprehensive guide that can and will put things into perspective. I never used a Migration Consultant when I immigrated, they are expensive and I know how to read and fill out a form thanks, but I would certainly have appreciated a guide or assistance pointing me in the right direction. I encourage people to explore both avenues, using a consultant or doing it on your own.