Archway Candidate Q&A Blog:
We’ve recently had a chat to David Gainsford, Engineering Geologist at Tiaki Engineering Consultants in Tauranga. David was looking to return home to New Zealand from Wales and worked remotely with Michael McCauley to secure his new great role in Tauranga, New Zealand. Now he‘s home, we wanted to find out how David found the recruitment process with Archway.
Tell us about your background.
I am a geologist with a background mainly in the geotechnical field, although with some mining and environmental experience as well. My current position in NZ is broadly similar to my UK role (engineering geologist at Earth Science Partership in Cardiff), organising, managing and reporting on site investigations although now in a more specialised residential development/bridge infrastructure niche market compared to the more generalised contaminated land and soft ground/slope stability work in the UK.
What was your reason for moving back to New Zealand?
My partner and I had lived in the UK for three years and really enjoyed our life over there. We had always planned to come back after two to four years and the Covid lockdowns, a lull in the UK civil engineering sector and restrictions on travel and daily life in the UK helped us make the decision to move back to NZ for a better lifestyle and to be closer to family.
Tell us a bit more about what it was like searching for a job in another country:
I was applying for third-party job adverts and had set my LinkedIn profile to ‘Seeking new roles” before we left the UK. Michael from Archway reached out to me on LinkedIn messenger, and we began a conversation from there. I hadn’t 100% decided to have a job lined up before we returned but Archway (unlike the majority of other recruiters I had used up to that point) were easy to deal with and had a broad range of connections which proved to be very useful.
Tell us a bit about working with the team at Archway recruitment:
I always found Archway very helpful and professional to deal with, they always promptly answered queries and were happy to accommodate time differences between the UK and NZ for meetings which was a huge plus.
Tell us a bit about the process once you found out you secured the role.
Flights from the UK had reasonable availability although were a significant financial commitment. The non-alignment of the flight booking and MIQ voucher booking systems proved a little problematic as the airline changed our flights and meant us having to change our MIQ booking, although this is a fairly common occurrence from what we understand. In all, it took a reasonable amount of admin, but the complexity of the travel process was about the level as we expected.
What are you loving about being back in New Zealand?
We are loving being back and seeing family after our time away and are also enjoying the generally less busy and congested public spaces and roads in NZ compared to the UK. We have also missed the outdoor lifestyle and Kiwi-style beach holidays to the Coromandel, Coastal Otago and the Bay of Plenty.
What advice do you have for anyone looking at making the move to New Zealand during Covid19?
Moving to NZ during Covid 19 has very few drawbacks in comparison to pretty much all the rest of the world! Anyone looking at making the move to NZ during Covid 19 would be wise to be as sure as they can that they want to move before they leave their home country, as it can seem isolated and disconnected from the rest of the world (i.e. with Europe and the UK, travel to different places or to see family is generally short-haul whereas NZ is long-haul for anything except eastern Australia – so best to be sure as you can, you’ll be happy once you’re here).
We have noticed we miss the chance for relatively cheap holidays to totally different countries and cultures which NZ doesn’t have but (in our opinion) spectacular scenery and nature more than make up for it.
What advice do you have for anyone searching for a job in New Zealand from another country?
I would say, assess how much importance you place on family and established friendship connections and realistically how well you make new friends. In NZ, the locals are very welcoming and generally it is easy to become settled, but I’ve noticed those who have strong connections to their own family, familiar activities, culture etc can struggle a bit more once they move here from another country if they aren’t prepared to start from scratch and put themselves out there to actively make new connections. Searching and settling in always takes longer than you think but it is always possible in New Zealand.
What will you miss the most about your previous location?
Things I will miss about being based in the UK will be the range of places in Europe and Africa you can travel to, the much broader range of takeaway shops and stock/services you can buy at shops in general, and how much cheaper household costs like insurance, petrol and supermarket bills were in the UK compared to NZ.
If you are thinking about relocating back to New Zealand, reach out to the Archway Recruitment team now to find out the best approach.
