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Thinking about emigration
ceres
When the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderator Mod Emeritus
When the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderator Mod Emeritus
This may be a long shot.
Right now my husband and I are in a position where emigration to another country is a possibility, IF he can find a job there. Basically, at this point we can and will go pretty much anywhere where someone will give him money for what he does, which is mid-to-high-level network support. We are currently in the US and our area (southeastern PA) is a bit saturated for that sort of thing.
One of the places we were considering as we talked about this is Australia. On the surface it seems like a nice idea; we both hear that pay is reasonable and cost of living isn't too bad. I'm pretty sure he'd have to land a job there first for sponsorship, but looking at the immigration website it looks like they aren't taking any more applications for skilled work visas so I'm not even sure it's possible at this point.
Unfortunately, I am terrible at looking into this stuff. I know pretty much nothing about Australian immigration laws, or how feasible this actually is to do. Does anyone here have any very recent experience with emigrating to Australia from the US, or have any knowledge of how well that branch of IT is doing over there? Annnd I'm guessing we'd have to leave our cats.
Alternatively, does anyone know of a country or part of the US where that kind of job is in demand? Like I said, we aren't feeling particularly tied down at the moment. If the place has companies that may be down with phone or skype interviews, we are totally there.
Right now my husband and I are in a position where emigration to another country is a possibility, IF he can find a job there. Basically, at this point we can and will go pretty much anywhere where someone will give him money for what he does, which is mid-to-high-level network support. We are currently in the US and our area (southeastern PA) is a bit saturated for that sort of thing.
One of the places we were considering as we talked about this is Australia. On the surface it seems like a nice idea; we both hear that pay is reasonable and cost of living isn't too bad. I'm pretty sure he'd have to land a job there first for sponsorship, but looking at the immigration website it looks like they aren't taking any more applications for skilled work visas so I'm not even sure it's possible at this point.
Unfortunately, I am terrible at looking into this stuff. I know pretty much nothing about Australian immigration laws, or how feasible this actually is to do. Does anyone here have any very recent experience with emigrating to Australia from the US, or have any knowledge of how well that branch of IT is doing over there? Annnd I'm guessing we'd have to leave our cats.
Alternatively, does anyone know of a country or part of the US where that kind of job is in demand? Like I said, we aren't feeling particularly tied down at the moment. If the place has companies that may be down with phone or skype interviews, we are totally there.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
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As far as I know, our IT industry is still expanding. Most friends I have working in IT have no problems hopping between jobs. Sydney is the hub for that sort of work, though.
I also found a Lead Network Engineer (internal network support for outages and such) position open in Colorado.
I also checked our PA and Australia offerings and didn't find anything that seemed network support related (note that I didn't look super close or anything).
This is the Verizon job search page, and "search business and residential" is what you would want to search if interested. "Business and residential" means Verizon Telecom, which is union, while Wireless is non-union.
Sorry if none of that is in line with what you're looking for.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
A little warning, though: If your husband goes for that position he will almost be guaranteed to have to work 50 hrs per week (with unlimited OT on top of that if he wants it). It's nice to be rolling in the $$ at first but I soon grew tired of it. 10 hours a day with of people yelling at you is brutal, no matter how much they pay you for it.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
having recently (ok well, two years ago) emigrated from the US to NZ and the way I did it was not necessarily ideal, but i'm here. I got in on a holiday work visa, I got to stay on a partnership work visa, and I'm now on my 2nd partnership work visa and have only just gotten a secure employment.
NZ Takes skilled workers pretty well, from what I understand, although I think our quarantine laws are up there with Ausrtailia's too, if not moreso. I can try and find out some more information for you about those specific types of jobs that he'd be looking for. also, it'd be fantastic to hear a Philly area accent again.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
That said, it's a great place IMO. Good luck.
the cost of living is high here, just about everything is more expensive than comparable american products and services, but it is fine because pay is generally better. that said i never paid for pizza delivery before and i think there might be a driver in karrmer's town making a few sneaky extra bucks on the side.
you can push for this and get there, and it will change your life and be worth it, but it's by no means an easy route to employment. if you guys are under thirty you'll be able to get your shoe in the door much more easily, but if not you can still make it happen - it's just probably not going to precede a stable job
http://www.pizzahut.com.au/pizza-hut-menu/meals
Also an identical "meal deal" costs $38 there that costs $19.99 here. $6 more for delivery there. I don't think you have to tip drivers there, though.
Basically twice as expensive for some Pizza Hut as the US, just saying its things like that that people often neglect. Video game prices are nuts etc
Depending on his specific skillset and job history, there are plenty of places that are looking to hire IT/network engineers--just a quick search of my old company lists 228 open US positions tagged with "network" in their IT department, most of which are in the mid-atlantic area (MD/DC/VA so not far from where you are at the moment)
Maybe have him post/post for him his resume and qualifications over in the SE job thread? There are a ton of people with IT or IT-related jobs that should be able to hook him up.
e: have him poke through the career website for the big defense contractors (Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, L-3 Comms, Northrup Grumman, etc.), even though this sequester thing is giving everyone a tizzy they're still hiring IT professionals because they have to in order to keep up their business
I kind of figured that emigration wasn't necessarily going to be an easy fix, and it makes sense that it would be much easier to do as an internal transfer than to get a company to sponsor you for it out of the blue.
lonelyahava, I think he would probably really like New Zealand... he loves interesting cloudscapes.
Usagi, how likely is that sort of company to require security clearance, and is that hard to get? :P
Cambiata, to my semi-trained eye the Colorado job link looks about on par with his experience and skillset. I think he's going to come through and look at all of these things in the morning.
Thanks everyone for your links and suggestions so far.
Our minimum wage for an 21 year old adult is something like $18/hour...
I understand, and things cost twice as much. The dollar amount you make isn't important, purchasing power is.
That's all I was saying - Australia pays well but isn't cheap, so keep it in mind if offered a job with what seems like some awesome wage. It won't go as far as it will in the US.
The clearance needs really depend on what sort of information he'd be dealing with, if it's just general inter and intra-company correspondence/files/whatevs then probably not (though they'd want a US citizen/permanent resident). But for stuff like technology/documentation servers/vaults, then yeah it'd be pretty likely.
Often the job descriptions will say "must be capable of getting a security clearance" which basically means no prison, not gigantic "bad" debt, no major association with those they consider baddies and the ability to pass (and continue passing) a pee test. They'd start the investigation process upon the job offer and will almost always have work for you to do while it's processing, and heck, once you have it it's a heckuva lot easier to renew and it opens up a whole bunch of neato and well-paying job opportunities.
We (with luck) are about to have a short sale on our credit history, which may count.
You may hear a lot of complaining about cost-of-living issues here, but I don't really think it's so bad for professionals. If you're looking at any of the four major cities though (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth) property is expensive and rents can be high.
Not having emigrated or known anyone who's done so to anywhere but Australia, I don't think I can offer broader advice.
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As for clearances, getting them can be a catch-22 as you tend to need the clearance to get the job, and need the job to get the clearance. The process of actually getting one is somewhat involved, but I can give you details if you're interested.
So my best advice there is to see what the company assistance is like for getting your or your husbands work visa sorted out. As far as work experience goes, Australia pays higher but at least in my experience has less purchasing power compared to a salary in the USA. Rent/Mortgage's are much higher than the USA and in some areas like say Canberra the retail market is ridiculously expensive. The issue I really wanted to comment on the most is what are you into as far as your gaming hobby's are? this was a big one for me. There simply is not the scope and range of RPG, LARP, Freeform, SteamPunk etc etc that there is in the USA and that is something that affected my enjoyment outside of my work (which is something I do enjoy). In the states there are simply far more options for indulging a gaming hobby, more conventions, bigger and better conventions and much more impressive LARPs. I have played a lot in Australia but overall the player base is not big enough, althought they in general are very enthuastic there is simply much less choice and additionally unless you want to pay like double for all your games both video and paper you will have to import everything as well.
So currently I am working in Australia but for my lifestyle, the access to big, massive LARP events, steampunk style clubs and games, RPG conventions the USA was so much better than Australia simply due to lack of numbers in Australia. Of course I am not saying I am the only pov, others will have different experiences than me but I guess the take home message is are you just focused on your job or does the lifestyle the country offers worth serious consideration for you? On the other side if you do immigrate here medical costs will be cheaper.
So my best advice there is to see what the company assistance is like for getting your or your husbands work visa sorted out. As far as work experience goes, Australia pays higher but at least in my experience has less purchasing power compared to a salary in the USA. Rent/Mortgage's are much higher than the USA and in some areas like say Canberra the retail market is ridiculously expensive. The issue I really wanted to comment on the most is what are you into as far as your gaming hobby's are? this was a big one for me. There simply is not the scope and range of RPG, LARP, Freeform, SteamPunk etc etc that there is in the USA and that is something that affected my enjoyment outside of my work (which is something I do enjoy). In the states there are simply far more options for indulging a gaming hobby, more conventions, bigger and better conventions and much more impressive LARPs. I have played a lot in Australia but overall the player base is not big enough, althought they in general are very enthuastic there is simply much less choice and additionally unless you want to pay like double for all your games both video and paper you will have to import everything as well.
So currently I am working in Australia but for my lifestyle, the access to big, massive LARP events, steampunk style clubs and games, RPG conventions the USA was so much better than Australia simply due to lack of numbers in Australia. Of course I am not saying I am the only pov, others will have different experiences than me but I guess the take home message is are you just focused on your job or does the lifestyle the country offers worth serious consideration for you? On the other side if you do immigrate here medical costs will be cheaper.
It may yeah, but as long as he's honest about it during the investigation paperwork and interviews you can mitigate that. They'd mostly be concerned about a huge debt that would be a target for enticement to take foreign cash in exchange for information
Top Secret is worth about a 3% salary bump right now, it's not worth what it used to be at all. You need to go higher to get into the real salary increases.
Additionally, lost of places have delayed their hiring until the budget landscape is smoothed out. Not that they won't hire, but they want to know what cuts are where before they make investments.
NZ is a lot easier to get into than Aus (at least for our situation)
There's a few ways to go about it. They work on a points system, so experience and qualifications in a skill shortage area you might be able to get a work visa/residency visa while still in the US. (which is obviously the safest way)
Alternatively (the way we did it) is to come across on a holiday visa, and job hunt.
IT is on the permanent skills shortage list, and there's a lot of skilled IT positions available.
Pay's decent, cost of living is reasonable. Except housing in Auckland. Bloody immigrants raising housing costs.
NZ is lovely, especially if you like outdoors things.
I used a recruitment agency (several in fact) and these guys were awesome: http://www.hays.net.nz/
Used this immigration agency: http://www.immigration.co.nz/
The quarantine procedure for NZ has recently been reduced, and is now (iirc) a month down from 3 months, and costs around 10,000 of some currency (either Rands or NZD)
We left our cat behind with my wife's parents though. She's a nervous kitty, so the shipping/quarantine/new area would have been hell for her.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
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There is definitely some caution with hiring at the moment, but there are plenty of positions out there right now. I live in the area and I know of more companies right now that are hiring than aren't. The budget problems certainly aren't helping things but there is plenty of work to be had. As for the salary, a clearance won't make you rich overnight but depending on the clearance, 10-15% more for an equivalent position is not unreasonable.
I don’t know what it’s like now, but I got a clearance in 2001, hopped jobs four times in three years, and went from $50,000 to $96,000. The trick with the clearance is to not worry much about the first job. It’s just a stepping stone to get the clearance. But after that you can go mercenary for a few years and just keep ratcheting up the salary. Because what matters isn’t really the job skills; what matters is the clearance. In government contracting you can just fake it for a year and then jump ship again before anybody fires you.
Of course, the government is infested with opportunistic vipers like me. It’s one of the reason I quit working in IT.
I'm sure he already had some certs, since he's mid-high level networking, but it's always nice to snag what he doesn't have before leaving. It's cheaper here, and I'm sure with his current experience he'll be able to blaze through the tests no problem.
I think this would depend on the person. Migration to the UK from NZ for me seemed about as hard as moving between cities in NZ, once the visa was sorted. Pity the flights are so dammed long to go between the two!
Sadly the UK visa regime has become rather more awkward since I applied. To get a work visa is now rather awkward due to politics and so unless you have a committed employer I would not recommend it.
Yup, things seem to have got harder all around. I was really lucky to get in when I did when it was comparatively easy and should be able to get dual citizenship pretty soon too
Anyway, I have found these forums pretty useful for UK immigration questions. I don't think they are quite so good for non UK immigration but they do have sub forums for other places on your list with some activity
http://www.immigrationboards.com/
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Yeah, the NoVa/MD/DC area is rife with jobs... especially if he can get clearance. As mentioned, it's kind of a catch 22, but even for non cleared jobs there's a fair bit of openings.
If he's got some job history on his resume, it's worth looking around here, it is a much easier move (or maybe commute depending on distance) than looking at another country.
And if he does get clearance... there's a good number of companies with positions overseas looking for those with clearance to fill those spots.
Oh, and how does 37 hour working weeks, 6 weeks or more paid vacation per year, free health care, free education and generous functioning welfare system, very low crime rate, low bureaucracy, well functioning transparent democracies and the list goes on.
The sales pitch:
The Happiest Nations
This about Sweden but it's much the same in Norway and Denmark
Mention Denmark and one has to talk cycling.
And here is some hard info:
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
PS. Even prisons are nice in this part of the world.