Hi there
I am no expert on skilled migration - far from it. However, in my observation plenty of people are getting out to Oz on 457 visas despite not having any sort of skills assessment and their skills may not necessarily even be in major demand.
At the moment, I suspect that both of you are considering skilled independent migration only? Agents seem to be saying that employer sponsorship is the route to take whilst we wait for the Pathway D thing to sort itself out.
I think that trying to approach a possible employer direct when he knows nothing about employer nominated visas and one knows little or nothing about them oneself is what makes potential employers in Oz so reluctant to consider the idea.
However, if the possible employer needs skilled help and he is approached by an Agent with loads of experience of employer nominated visas, it is easier to convince him that it need not be the minefield that he imagines and if the prospective migrant is willing to pay all the costs of the Agent and the application, the potential employer can lose nothing by taking a closer look and maybe getting involved.
The shakeup with the 47 visa last year (apparently recruitment agencies can no longer sponsor the applicant themselves and them sub him out to an employer) has made Registered Migration Agents look at other ways of helping to solve the problem - viz by finding the end-employers themselves and matching the applicants to them.
I have been told about this company in Perth:
Complete Migration Solutions
Roantree, if they need brickies then sooner or later the building sites will also need sparkies, plumbers, flooring people and so on. CMS may not have direct contacts in those fields themselves (though you may as well ask, I suggest) but as I understand this, billy braveheart found his employer and thereby his visa via CMS. Billy is a brickie in Perth and he has made a shining success of the sponsored route.
Whilst CMS themselves may not know how to put you in touch with the contractor who would lay the floors, billy might be able to get you some names and contact details and if so, CMS would probably be willing to try to facilitate things between you and a possible employer.
Go Matilda have also started a sister company devoted to helping people to get jobs in Oz. Please see here:
Find a Job in Oz
As I understand it, one can be sponsored for a 457 visa without a skills assessment. The drawback seems to be that one has to stay on the 457 visa for 2 years but after that it can be exchanged for a
PR visa - either ENS or RSMS, I think. During that 2 years they may come up with a new version of Pathway D, so if you ahve all your paperwork ready before you leave the UK, there would be nothing to stop you from doing the new version of the skills assessment once it comes in. That in turn might well speed the route to
PR.
NSW is not the best place to look if one is going to be on a 457 visa because NSW will not fund school fees for the children of temporary residents. However I am told that all other States treat the children of Temp residents in the same way as all other children.
I think that with employer sponsored visas, one just has to be willing to go to wherever the job is for a couple of years, even if that is not the first choice of location in Oz. One can always move later on, once
PR is secured.
Billy does have a TRA assessment so he has been able to start his application for an employer nominated
PR visa even though he has only been in Oz for 4 or 5 months. They should have
PR by July 2008 if not sooner, I would imagine.
My own sister got
PR in Oz via a Working Holiday Maker visa, followed by a 457 or its predecessor (she did it 25 years ago) followed by Employer Nomination for
PR. Subsequently she married an Australian Citizen but she had
PR in her own right for some time before they were married.
I think that if people can just get that first - crucial - break, as happened for my sister and for billy, then the rest is do-able.
Despairing definitely WON'T secure a visa, my friends......
Good luck
Gill
