Work & Volunteer Abroad

Phones, Cell Phones, Mobiles, & Skype

When I went to New Zealand in 2003, I bought a refillable phone card before I left which had rates of about 35 cents/minute. Upon getting to New Zealand, I realized I could get phone cards for as little as 5-10 cents/minute to call the US. This isn’t always the case when you travel overseas, but it was quite nice to be able to call home, except for that time difference.

I decided to buy a mobile (pronounced, mow-bile) while there because I was looking for a job. A pay-as-you-go GSM phone with SIM card cost NZ$180. It was a worthwhile investment, because I did end up needing it to hear back from employers. New Zealand, like Europe, has Telecom and Vodafone carriers. Incoming calls are free. Outgoing calls varied. While there were plans with monthly contracts, there were no unlimited options, and they were MUCH more expensive than US plans. There were a few outgoing pay-as-you-go plans. I went for the one that was about NZ$.50 cents in the evening, and NZ$1.50 during the day.  Since my house had a landline, I thought it would be brilliant to call cell phones from the landline, since incoming calls are free. Well, calls to cell phones had an additional surcharge from the landline, making that not a great option either. I haven’t researched it lately, but if any of this has changed, let me know.

I never texted much before going to New Zealand, though I had heard that texting was popular in Europe. Texting was cheaper than making a phone call, so I became very good at texting. After being back in the United States, I soon reverted back to mostly making phone calls, because it’s cheaper than texting here. I was able to recharge my pay-as-you-go phone from my ANZ bank account ATM.

Countries like New Zealand use GSM for mobile, which is the dominant signal type in the world. I use Verizon Wireless in the United States, which uses CDMA. My phone doesn’t have a SIM card. GSM uses a SIM card to store the account info and phone numbers. The account is connected not to the phone, but to the SIM card. Want to travel to another country? You may be able to buy a SIM card there and be good to go, if you have a GSM phone. That’s the case in Uganda where I will be traveling soon, but I don’t have a GSM phone.

Time is a challenge when calling home. In New Zealand, it wasn’t too bad, since we were almost a full day ahead. It varied between 16 and 20 hours, depending on what time of the year. The United States and New Zealand both have daylight savings, but don’t switch at the same time. There are a number of websites that can assist with calling internationally, including http://www.countrycallingcodes.com/. There you can see how many hours ahead or behind you are compared to the country you are calling, and what country codes to use to dial the number.

As many of you already know, now we can Skype: http://www.skype.com. I talked a few times with a friend in Ireland last year via Skype, complete with video…for free. Skype has other offerings too, including Skype for Mobile, and the ability to call landlines & mobile phones from Skype for a very reasonable cost.

If anyone has any input, or if anything I’ve said isn’t correct, let me know.

BUNAC Review – Work New Zealand

Back in 2003, I did quite a bit of research about working abroad. I ended up deciding on going to New Zealand, which broughts it down to two choices for a non-student: BUNAC and CCUSA. This will be a testimonial about BUNAC. This review is not sponsored.

It is rather intimidating to apply to work overseas. There is limited third-party information about these programs, and there was even less in 2003. No one wants to go over and then find out there’s a problem with their work visa or that they are stuck overseas without support. At the time, BUNAC had a much nicer website, and this factored in my decision. CCUSA did and still does have a nice program where one can work back-to-back in Australia and New Zealand, which is rather compelling. I’ll look at CCUSA in another post.

BUNAC was founded in 1962, so they have a long track record. They are based in the UK, and have numerous programs. From BUNAC’s website:

Opportunities range from the popular camp counselling programme, Summer Camp USA, and flexible work and travel programmes in Canada, the USA, Australia, and New Zealand to volunteering/teaching placements in Africa, South and Central America, South East Asia and, new for this year, China. Programmes last from as little as five weeks to as long as two whole years. Participants can take part in a BUNAC programme as part of their summer vacation, during a gap year, after graduation or as a career break. Most programmes are open to 30 or 35 year olds.

I had a number of questions, and emailed BUNAC about them. They were quick to respond and helpful. I later called and spoke to someone, and while the person didn’t sound enthusiastic, they were also helpful. I took the leap and sent in my passport along with the application and fee. The passport was returned to me in less than a week with a work permit stamped in it. BUNAC took care of all the details with the embassy, which was nice.

I had to get a number of details taken care of, including buying travel insurance for the duration (a requirement for the program), having $2000 in my bank account (for immigration and customs, who didn’t ask to look at my statement), and had to buy a very expensive plane ticket. I bought it through STA Travel, who has lots of experience with young adults traveling abroad. New Zealand immigration requires an outbound ticket to show them upon arrival (and they did look at my tickets).

As BUNAC says on their Work New Zealand page:

Your sponsor in New Zealand is BUNAC’s subsidary organization, International Exchange Programs (IEP). The program is administered in the USA by BUNAC on behalf of International Exchange of North America (IENA), which in turn sponsors New Zealand student exchanges to the USA.

Once I got there, I used the transportation pass provided to get to the hostel in Auckland, where I was provided 2 night accomodation. IEP then ran an orientation for a few of us, answered questions, and provided additional materials. I wouldn’t say the orientation was necessary, but it was helpful, if for nothing else, just to talk with people going through the same experience as you.

IEP had an office nearby where they were available to answer questions and provided guidance. They also had a few computers available to IEP participants for no additional cost, for job hunting and travel planning. Additionally, they offered to be a location to accept mail on our behalf. I soon went to Wellington, and only contacted the office once more. They were available by phone to support me if needed, which again, is nice. IEP did have representatives in many cities organize a monthly gathering of participants, who are from multiple countries. They were typically at a local bar or restaurant, and a good time to connect.

I ended up extending my stay by a month, and had to contact the office about extending my travel insurance, which was easy enough. I had to extend my flight through Air New Zealand rather than STA Travel. Air New Zealand messed up my stateside ticket, but that’s another story.

Overall, I highly recommend BUNAC. Be aware that there are limited allotments of visas for each year, so take that into consideration.

If you have any questions, let me know, and I will answer them on this blog.

How I found a job in New Zealand

Upon entering New Zealand in November 2003, I already had a work permit allowing me to work at any non-permanent jobs for up to a year. This is typical of working holiday arrangements. I could work in a cafe, a ski resort, or temporary contract work, but I couldn’t be hired full-time professionally without going through immigration.

I targeted Wellington as the city I wanted to live in. Part of my rationale, honestly, was to live in the city at the center of The Lord of the Rings. Wellington, however, also had the second best professional job market (in 2003/2004), and is the third largest city, as well as the capital. I also liked the idea of living in a city that is less of a tourist center and more of a place to live. There were a lot of arts, culture, and music activities to participate in.

One of my first actions was to buy a pay-as-you-go mobile phone, which cost about NZ$190. When job hunting, I simply couldn’t afford to miss a call about a pontential job. Upon arriving in Wellington, I also got a bank account and figured out how to receive mail. From there, I spend many hours in Internet cafes paying to use a computer by the hour, looking for jobs. I also stopped in at many of the temporary employee centers and filled out applications. One of those was TMP/Hudson. Apparently they had two divisions. I stopped in to one division, the contract division, and they told me to go to the temp division. I applied for temp work, and was later told they didn’t have anything for me.

I was unable to stay at hostels for a few days due to The Lord of the Rings World Premiere, but I had emailed a church beforehand, and then stopped in to ask if they knew of somewhere I could stay. A few really great people put me up for a week in a suburb, and then I went back to hosteling. I was offered a part-time job for a week doing phone surveys. I’m not a big fan of outbound calling, but thought I could do surveys. Our team did a survey for the AA, the Automobile Association.

While there, I met a few people who lived in the same flat, and who had a room for rent. I had checked out a few places, but didn’t find a mutual arrangement yet. I wanted to live near downtown, as most of the jobs were near there, and I knew I wouldn’t get out as much if I had to bus into town. I liked the apartment, and the people there seemed cool, but it was a little more money than I wanted to pay. I also wasn’t sure if I was going to get a job before my cash reserves ran out. So, I took a risk. I decided that I would rather have a sense of what it was like to actually live there, even if I had to head home sooner than I planned.

To make matters more emotionally complex, two close family members were suddenly in the hospital. At that point, my days seemed numbered. I kept applying to jobs. I applied online through the local classifieds for a tech support job that I seemed qualified for, but didn’t hear back about it. I decided to place a followup call to Hudson about the job. They had not seen my application, but upon my pointing it out to them, they put me on hold, and then setup an interview for the next day. The next day, I received a call from someone else at Hudson for another interview, to work at Fontera. I was offered the first job before my second interview, but told them I would get back to them shortly. Fontera was a more chaotic environment with less security…the kind I would normally prefer, but since I wanted to focus on experiencing life in New Zealand, I went for Fujitsu New Zealand. Technically, I was sponsored by BUNAC who coordinated with IEP NZ, so I could work for Hudson, in a contract for Futitzu New Zealand, supporting Transpower, who runs the electricity grid for New Zealand. My position? Service Desk Analyst and Change Coordinator.

Five months in, I was offered a permanent job with a raise for Fujitsu New Zealand, with them as my sponsor, to stay indefinitely. It was a hard decision, but I turned it down. I’ll give my reasons in the next post.

The basics of working abroad

So you’d like to work in another country? If you are European or part of the British Commonwealth, you have a lot of options. If you’re an American, your options are limited.

In general, if you want a real job in another country, you need to be sponsored by a company in the host country AND get approved by their immigration office. Countries typically want to reserve their best jobs for their residents, most notably, their native residents. So, if you’re an American and want to move to another country and get a job that pays enough to make a living, it might be an uphill climb. Fortunately for you, countries have shortages of qualified workers in some industries. When I was in New Zealand a few years ago, they didn’t have enough qualified workers in education and IT, which means the path through immigration would be much easier.

Getting a job in another country is going to be easier if you have a contact over there or if you are actually there to apply in person. So, that isn’t unlike finding a job in the US. If you are remarkable, someone may hire you from a distance. If you’re one of many resumes, there may not be a compelling reason for them to give you a second look.

In some countries, there are volunteer opportunities and/or seasonal work opportunities (such as fruit picking) that are fairly easy to get and allow you to ‘work’ in some capacity in that country, which is a good place to start.

There are short term work opportunities through organizations like BUNAC, most of which are for current or recent college students. Most opportunities are for students, because student work supplements their labor pool while not providing competition, as it’s transitional by nature. Going to school in another country is a related way to get temporary work abroad. What if you’re not a college student?

There are a few organizations, such as BUNAC and CCUSA that offer work abroad programs to Australia and New Zealand, with the upper age being 30 or 35. Since I went through BUNAC, I’ll focus on them in later posts.

Work Abroad Programs website

This website will be a continuation of a travelogue I kept while working abroad in New Zealand in 2003/2004. The primary focus will be on what it was like to live, work, and travel abroad, and how others can do the same. I learned quite a bit along the way, and look forward to sharing.

Cheers,

Seth