There is evidence that skilled migrants are finding employment easier to access, according to Auckland Chamber of Commerce migrant employer liaison Lynn Whitehead. “I’ve been here three and a half years, and in the last two years I’ve seen a healthier uptake of migrants,” Whitehead says.

 

“Things have improved a lot and I would put that down to the market, the economy doing well, the job market tightening, and not insignificantly, to a change in the attitude of employers. So a lot of employers and recruitment companies are having to cast their net further afield and think more broadly about their options.”

 

Around 70 percent of all immigrants to New Zealand settle in Auckland.

 

Asked whether Auckland’s local bodies should play a bigger role in helping migrants access employment, Whitehead says Auckland City Council is a “very good” employer of migrants.“They don’t have organised initiatives as far as I am aware, but they do put their money where their mouth is because a lot of migrants that we’ve dealt with find jobs there.”

 

(Auckland City’s Settlement Strategy says, “The greatest contribution local government may make in the settlement process is after migrants and refugees have settled their immediate needs – finding somewhere to live, seeking employment, and learning English.”)

 

Whitehead is in charge of New Kiwis, a website where employers can post job vacancies and download curriculum vitae. Her office has somebody to check all the migrant CVs that are posted, to ensure they contain sufficient detail to enable an employer to make the decision to approach them.

 

But migrants can benefit greatly from coaching to hone their job seeking skills, and the Auckland Chamber of Commerce runs the Kiwi Career Success (KCS) Programme to provide that. Every two weeks in Auckland (and quarterly in Manukau), around 15 skilled migrants deemed to have sufficient English language skills take part in a three-day workshop to polish their job hunting skills.

Around 80 percent of candidates find employment within 6 months of attending, Whitehead says. “It’s not that the programme aims to place candidates directly into jobs – though we may direct them to a job vacancy – the aim is to give them the skills to find their own employment.”

 

The workshops provide an introduction to the local labour market, teach migrants how to write a Kiwi-style CV, and includes practice in job interview techniques using role-playing. There’s also work on how to “cold call” and “door knock” for jobs. For example, just getting the migrants to focus on presenting employers with their skills and experience, rather than just qualifications, can make a “huge” difference. “We get them away from just saying ‘I’ve got this PHD in whatever’ – which a lot of employers aren’t that interested in.”

 

Workshop attendees come out feeling they have more clarity and confidence about the job-hunting process, Whitehead says. It builds morale too. “Sometimes people think, ‘It’s me, I’m doing something wrong,’ and they come in and hear everyone else’s stories and go ‘Oh, OK, it’s not just me, and now I know how to go about it’.”