BadgerLady

It's entirely up to the employer - there are no immigration issues whatsoever. My employer states that you must repay the visa costs ($8,000) if you leave within a year, but that sounds like it would be totally worth it to you! Just check what your internal policy is. You might not have to repay anything at all :-)

How did it go with you? My thoughts are that it only creates new options, it doesn't take any away. Having PR doesn't mean you HAVE to live in Australia, it just means you have a free choice to live here or the UK, and you can change your mind whenever you like :-)

Hi all, So I'm having a bit of an emotional time and am in need of reassurance... or indeed information from those who have passed through the curtain! I've been here almost 4 years now, initially on Working Holiday and ever since on 457. My first employer was bought out by a larger firm, prompting me to leave after 14 months, and I've now been with my second employer for 20 months. Last year I ordered a Skills Assessment, believing that I would pass that step for a 186 Direct Entry, but actually failed on a technicality (I have an Advanced Diploma rather than Degree) and was advised by an immigration lawyer not to bother appealing. I'd hoped to therefore gain PR through employer nomination at 24 months, but I've just found out that an admin error with my employer means they won't actually consider nominating me until January (at 28 months). The thing is, I've been having a really bad time with my employer. I suffered harassment from a senior colleague last year and brushed it under the carpet to avoid causing any trouble, but it really affected me emotionally. In the meantime I was held back from an overdue promotion and have generally felt under appreciated and excluded for some time. While I love my work, the thought of walking into the office fills me with dread and I frequently cry myself to sleep. I recently took 12 weeks to visit home (8 weeks of work secondment in Paris, 4 weeks holiday in the UK) and reset - I came back relaxed and refreshed but then had more bad news from the HR department and fell back into a funk again. In the meantime I'm getting other job offers. One of my ex-clients almost bit my hand off this morning when I asked them about working directly - they've even created a specific role for me and are meeting with their COO tomorrow to discuss whether they can bring me in (it's a government department so they have restrictions to deal with). And I've been looking at other great opportunities with employers that get me excited. But is it really worth it to reset the clock on the 24-month PR nomination? How good is it to get PR? Can I / should I buckle down and stick with this shitty job for one more year to get it out of the way?

Thanks for your help. I'm going to book urgent travel to the UK. I can do contract work for my new employer's London office while we wait for the Australian visa transfer to go through...

I did a talk about this at Ignite Sydney last week. Check out the five minute video: http://www.tinyurl.com/rosestalk

I'm thinking about flying to the UK now... I can get a fast track passport, sort out my visa and even do some contract work while I'm waiting... Sooooo frustrating not having confirmation, given Immigration is closed for the weekend

Hi guys, Sorry to start another thread but I can't find any information about this online at all, and the lazy sods at Immigration went home at 4:30 :sad: I'm a bit panicked. I'm here on a 457 visa. I left my employer a couple of weeks ago so I'm currently unemployed. At the beginning of next week I'm negotiating a new position with an employer who is willing and able to take over nomination for my 457. But I've lost my passport. Properly lost it... it was returned to HM Passport Office and cancelled. So I'm currently here without a valid passport. a) Do I even have a valid visa if my passport's been cancelled? b) More importantly, can I proceed with my new employer's nomination application before my new passport arrives? I've found that I would need a replacement passport before I could apply for a NEW 457 visa... I can't find confirmation of what's needed to transfer nomination. If the answer is 'no', I won't be able to work until after my replacement passport has been issued, and advice in Australia is that it will take 'a minimum of 8 weeks'. Rather than suffer that, I would book a flight back to Blighty this weekend (for as soon as the embassy can issue me with an emergency travel document) and get myself a 'fast track' passport when I arrive. Then I could at least submit my 457 nomination application and head back in a couple of weeks to start work. This is all incredibly painful, just for an A6 printed wallet. But we are slaves to it! Does anyone know the answer?

OH SH&T I just went to renew my driving licence and got the following message: Sooooo... I'm guessing my passport WAS found and handed in. And cancelled. What does this mean for transferring my 457??

Oh and I've also: - Flicked through every book and leaflet in the house to check there's nothing between the pages, - Stood on the toilet and on the kitchen sink to look on top of the fitted cupboards, - Taken the covers off the sofas (and put them back on again).

I really wish that were true. Believe me no-one has ever looked for anything as thoroughly as I've looked for this damned passport! I have: - Dismantled every item of furniture in my flat, piled it all up in one corner, swept all the floors and then put the furniture back in different places. - Emptied every box, every cupboard, every drawer and sifted through their contents. All my little tools, beads, buttons, all organized into little bags. - Scanned every piece of paper in the house - phone bills, certificates, post - and put out in the recycling. - Pulled out every jacket / piece of clothing and checked the pockets. Twice. Including emptying the laundry basket. - Turned every handbag, suitcase and backpack inside out, checking every pocket. - Completely emptied the car, checking carefully under seats, in door pockets... There's nowhere else to look. I normally carry my passport everywhere with me as ID so it's far more likely I've dropped it somewhere - probably fell out of my pocket when I sat on a train. I contacted the passport office to ask whether it had been handed in... They told me I would need to make the request in writing and pay £10. But how the hell do you very hold of a cheque for £10 out here in this day and age?

It's an awesome job, and a quickly growing demand for qualified people in Australia! Best courses to study would be Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology and Social Research, then get into an internship / do post grad studies in service design. She'll also want to look at creative pursuits and design thinking - sketching skills are desirable :-)

I work in service design... and before I came here I was a contractor, but I found most employers (service design agencies) in Sydney were keen for permanent staff. The main reason I've done so many transfers this year: July 2013 - got a permanent job with Company A on a WHV October 2013 - was approved for 457 January 2013 - Company A was acquired by Company B, so had to transfer the 457 February 2013 - not being a fan of Company B, I interviewed with Company C and decided to move on... but they were dragging their feet for complicated reasons and weren't yet ready to hire me. May 2014 - got a job offer from Company D... it wasn't my ideal role but it was better than Company B so I took it and transferred my 457 July 2014 - finally got a job offer from Company C so accepted that... now transferring the 457 again Hope that clears it up a bit :-P My plan is to stay with Company C now for two years so I can go for PR (I failed my skills assessment on an irritating technicality despite being massively in demand by employers).

I've transfered mine twice this year - once in January and once in May. Both times it took 2.5 weeks. That was transferring to a sponsor who was already authorised, and my 457 visa having been reviewed within 4 months (so not a lot of new history to look at). I'm about to do it again!

Makes sense to me. Thanks So then the only question is... is a month in the UK enough to get a new passport and get my visa transferred (and spend a week or two in mainland Europe)?

Haha, I love that idea! But I haven't even taken my portable scanner out of its cellophane wrapper :huh: I 'scanned' my passport into Dropbox years ago by taking a high-quality photo of it, and have carried on using the same JPG ever since... in fact I still now use it on my smartphone as ID if I need to pick up a parcel or get into a nightclub!

You're more than OK. I arrived with £12,000 and didn't even look for work for the first nine months Doing it on a low budget can be even more fun if you're up for the adventure!

Hia, So this is a complicated one - I know what all the individual answers are (I think) but have no confidence in putting them all together! 1. I've lost my passport I've spent the last two weeks refusing to believe I've lost it... but having gone through every inch of the car, turned out every pocket and bag and moved / emptied every item of furniture in the house, I have to concede that it's definitely gone. UPDATE: It turns out it's already been returned to the passport office and cancelled. Not just missing but actually *reported* missing. 2. I've got a new job (whoop!) I've had the verbal offer and am just waiting for the written contract to come through, at which point my new employer will apply to take over nomination of my 457 visa. I've already left my last job so am officially unemployed while we wait for this to happen. I've changed jobs several times in the last 9 months and the employer is a big corporate with plenty of other 457 holders on staff. I anticipate 2.5 - 3 weeks processing time with no hitches. 3. I'm nipping back to Blighty I've been invited to speak at a couple of conferences in Brussels and London in September and October, so the plan is to take a month or so out there, see the family and work out of my new employer's London office. So, the questions are... If I report my passport 'lost' now, will I have to wait for a new one to arrive before my 457 visa can be transferred? In which case it would be months before I can start work. Is it better to do the visa transfer first, then report my passport 'lost' afterwards? I still have scans of it, signed off by JP etc... I'll need to get an emergency travel document from the British Embassy to travel home in September (no way I'll get a new passport before then) - should I then try to get a new passport while I'm at home? Or could I apply from here and then collect it while I'm at home? What effect (if any) would that have on my getting back to Australia, given that the 457 visa is attached to a particular passport? Thanks :cute:

In my line of work, contractors don't normally have to worry about notice periods - everything tends to be fixed term so you know exactly when your current job is finishing. I'll be fine once I've started with that, it's this transition from perm to contract that's giving me the headaches...

Yes, but generally these contract positions demand 'must be available to start within 2 weeks'. I'm already stretching their request by saying that I have to work 4 weeks notice...

Thanks guys :-) Pretty much as I feared then... The new agency won't start nomination proceedings until I have a firm contract offer, and my current employer requires 4 weeks notice... Not knowing how long the nomination will take, I either have to hand in my notice early and hope the visa comes through in time, or I have to find someone willing to offer me a contract with no firm start date! Tricky...

Hia, This seems like an easy question but I've been searching all morning and can't find the answer! I was granted a 457 in October 2013. In January by company was acquired by a larger company who took on the 457 nomination - this was approved within a couple of weeks and there was no gap in employment, which may be because both company entities were running simultaneously. I'd now like to leave and have been offered employment by an agency that is an approved 457 nominator and is willing to do the transfer. But do I have to wait for that transfer to complete before I can start my new job? Or can I start as soon as they've applied to take on the nomination? Worst case, do I have to cease employment while I wait for the transfer to happen?

It's a bit frustrating when I was perfectly willing to pay all the costs and arrange as much paperwork as I can... all I wanted was their nomination, and I struggle to see how different that might be in two years time compared to now :mad:

Meh, I guess it's not that important. Most of my job is research - sitting with people to understand how they live, how they do things... running focus groups, that sort of thing. Really isn't so effective over the phone! My pain now is with PR sponsorship - had a long chat with my immigration team yesterday where they basically refused to nominate me with a skills assessment, saying 'their policy' is to wait for two years continuous employment. Argh! I'm getting my own skills assessment, see what they say after that...

Aaaah, thanks. Looks like I'm screwed then! (I guess my company isn't all-Australian)

I'm getting a promotion - yay! At the same time I'm attempting to change visas from my current 457 to a Direct Entry 186, sponsored by my employer. As I understand it, once the 186 is granted I'll have no worries about staying in Australia and will just have to wait until such a time as I qualify for citizenship. But one thought just struck me - the new job involves international travel. Potentially rather a lot of it - as in I could be spending 50% of my time in Asia, Europe or the US, whilst still in full-time employement here in Australia. So how might that affect my visa status and any future citizenship applications? Will it count as 'leaving the country for more than 3 months of the year'? (This would be technically accurate, but it seems to miss the point if I'm still earning Australian dollars for that time). Not a big deal but I'd like to know where I stand :skeptical: