Getting a Job

Oops! I know I said the next post would be about obtaining a visa to New Zealand, but before we could even apply for a visa we had to have a job offer in the country, so I am going to chat about that first.

I think the very day that I told Brad I was on board with moving the family to New Zealand he started applying for jobs here. Any job that he might remotely qualify for he applied for. We received so many "I'm sorry, but no" replies. Mostly because we were not in the country. For a company in New Zealand to offer a job to a non-citizen they have to go through a bit of a process. First, they have to be approved by the government to even offer jobs to non-citizens/residents, and many companies simply don't get that approval. Second, they have to prove to the government that they tried to fill the position with residents but were unable to. Also, your job position has to be on a government approved list, so certain jobs here you can't even consider hiring a non-resident.

So, we received many rejections. Many rejections. But we also received a few "Yes, we're interested" as well. One of those was from a NZ company called Gallagher (the gh says just the h sound, mostly). The interview was supposed to be 30 minutes and was with 3 people. It ended up being over an hour, I think an hour and a half and went great. Brad really seemed to click and enjoyed visiting with the interviewees. And they had done their research on Brad. They looked up info about Idaho and were quite shocked that we actually lived 8 hours from the nearest ocean. To them that is just unfathomable - why on earth would anyone choose that? And then when they learned that the majority of our children had never even seen the ocean, I think they were quite concerned about our children's well being! But joking aside, they seemed to like Brad and Brad liked them.

Another interview was set up, this time with a couple different people (but I believe one of the same ones as before) and again, this interview went long. In this interview they discussed helping Brad's wife adjust to living far from friends and family and some other details that made it seem like a job offer might be forthcoming.

I'm going to insert a side story here. I think it was in April of 2022 that Brad applied for a job with Microsoft that would be close to what we think a dream job for him would be. He was not qualified for the job, but the manager he interviewed with saw the potential in Brad for the position and it really seemed like he was rooting for Brad to get the job (and I think he was). We were super excited about this possibility. The job wasn't in NZ, it would be based in Seattle (I am trying to remember correctly, but I think Brad could work it remote and just have to travel a couple times a year for in person stuff). Brad had been told by his current manager at Microsoft that he either had to find a new position or move back to Virginia (so he could be in person at their secure offices working on classified jobs). We had no desire to move back to Virginia and to continue working in the government section of Microsoft (that's a whole other post, discussing all the government waste we witnessed in VA...). We were down to the wire having to find another position and we really wanted to stay in Microsoft and we really, really wanted this job. Brad had received another job offer for a different position in Microsoft. One that would pay the bills but we weren't very excited or optimistic about that job. We had to let that manager know by Thursday if we were going to accept, but a decision wasn't going to be made on this dream job until the following Monday (I believe). We explained our situation to the dream job manager and he told us he could let us know Friday. We just hoped the manager for the "offer on the table" would be patient with us. The days leading up to Friday were so stressful. We went to the temple and while there we both felt at peace and honestly, we felt that we should go ahead and turn down the offer we had received. Which was really scary because we didn't have this other job lined up, yet, and if we turned down the job offer we had received and didn't get the dream job we'd be unemployed in a couple weeks. When we left the temple, however, we both felt that's what we should do. However, after getting home, the reality of what that meant set in and we were weak and rather than turn down the job, we decided to wait and see. I was so sure we'd get this job. I prayed for this miracle and surely Heavenly Father would grant it. Well, Friday Brad got a Teams (Microsoft Teams is a messaging app we use and they used at Microsoft, obviously) asking if he had time for a quick call. We were on our way to dinner and quickly turned around home to take the call. We found out that they had gone with the other candidate (did I mention that Brad made it to the final 2 candidates for the job? The other had all the necessary qualifications that Brad did not). We were pretty devastated. I was so disappointed and felt a tiny bit betrayed. But I also felt like I had let down my Heavenly Father. I knew we were supposed to turn down the other job, I didn't know why, but I knew we should have. We ended up taking the other job and while it was a blessing in many ways, mainly financially, we will probably never know what would have happened had we followed the Spirit. But it is a lesson we are doing our best to learn from and not have to have repeated.

All right, back to the job stuff in New Zealand...

A few days later Brad got a Teams message from the person who had interviewed him at Gallagher asking if when he had time for a "quick call". The same dreaded phrasing as before - a quick call. Oh man, we figured, well, if there was going to be a job offer it probably wouldn't be a quick call. The time was arranged and I sat on the stairs outside the office listening in to Brad's side of the conversation trying to ascertain what was being said. It was a somewhat quick call, but with a totally different result that the other "quick call". They offered us a position! Actually even better than that. Brad had applied for a software engineer position, but after the interviews and time spent with Brad they realized he was overqualified for that and they offered him a senior software engineer position - how fabulous is that?! Not just that they realized he knows his stuff, but that they recognized it and offered the senior position. It made us hopeful that this job might be what we've been looking for.

While working for Microsoft definitely has it's perks, it wasn't the dream company we had hoped for and there were quite a few frustrations in the job. It seemed that Gallagher just might be the work environment Brad had been looking for since leaving Boeing several years back. The fact that the job was in New Zealand was a cherry on the top!

We did a small amount of negotiating (we weren't even sure if that was something they do in New Zealand) and settled on a salary. The start date was a little more difficult. Initially it was thought Brad would start work just after the holidays (they offered the job in August). Which I then realized meant moving James in the middle of his senior year with only months left until graduation. The school system in NZ is totally different than America. They go from the end of January to the middle of December, so they would just be ending their school year and we weren't sure how James' credits would transfer. I had the suggestion that we see if Brad could start work later, say maybe February, and he'd go by himself and I'd stay in Idaho with the kids until school was over.

Brad talked about it with the hiring manager and in the end it was decided that Brad would start work the middle of March, so we'd be apart "only" 3-1/2 months. We appreciate very much Gallagher's willingness to wait so long for Brad to start. He would be starting 7 months after the job offer, which is kind of crazy.

We also realized how blessed we are and honestly how miraculous it is that he got a job offer so quickly (remember, he didn't start applying until the end of July) with a company that seems like it will be awesome, in a town where there is a temple (the only one in New Zealand, until the Auckland temple opens up later this year), and was offered a senior position and a salary that (we hope - we should start getting utility bills soon!) will make it possible for us to live in this crazy expensive country! It really felt like we were being guided with a little help from above.

All right, there you have it. Now, the next post will be about getting those darn visas! And again, as a reward, here's a few pictures for you from last year's trip... I promise, once we get through these "setting the stage/giving the history" posts there'll be lots of pictures. But, I want to have all this written down.

Love from New Zealand,
Lyndsay

P.S. I love reading all the comments, thank you for leaving them! If you want to leave your name, too, so I know who wrote it that would be fantastic, but if you'd rather remain anonymous, no worries! I still love reading them!

A Tui bird: