Quantity Surveyors looking to go to New Zealand?

brendansmith

Hi guys,

Are there any QSs sitting around on the dole here looking for something different?
I am back from Christchurch New Zealand for Christmas and was told to be on the look out for QSs be they newly graduated or experienced who may be interested in working for the recovery.

mcg1987

hi brendan,

i'm just finishing my honours degree in Newcastle now and will be finished in June. Ideally i'd like to do the APCs first and get chartered and have applied for lots of graduates schemes and am just waiting to hear back from them. Anyways if i cant get work here I will 100% be heain to New Zealand/ Australia. More likely New zealand because a friend of mine who did my course until last year didnt bother going on to do his honours degree with us moved out and got work straight away and reckons he's on great money for it too.
Few questions though for you...Is the money actually that good?? What about accomodation and visas and that?? wheres the best place to look for work?? I know you've said you.ve been told to be on lookout does that mean there's plenty? I've spent a lot of time looking into it through interent but would rather some advice from someone who has done it! cheers!

Mrs OBumble

Dunno if you've heard, but Christchurch had a good sized earthquake last year. Lots of demolitions and planning for rebuilding going on, so I can see why they're looking for QS's.

Last I heard the re-build itself can't start 'til they've been 6 months after the most recent force 5+ aftershock (of which there were a few just the other week).

Don't underestimate how hard is to live there: rents have gone up (scarcity and all), constant taste of dust in the air (no good if you have sinus problems), limited recreation and amenities - eg, most takeaways were in dodgy corner shop buildings that fell down and cannot rebuild yet (see above). Oh, and aftershocks every so often. On the plus side, most homes have working toilets again, and the "poo-sucker" machines are gone from most streets, and people now know their neighbours from checking on them so often.

It's not 3rd world, by any means, just don't expect as good a lifestyle as you would in the rest of NZ.

mcg1987

aw im not underestimating anything...in fact I have absolutely no idea what it's like to live there hence why i'm looking through these forums amongst other things. This is why i wanna find out costs, wages etc because it would be a big move for me, girlfriend and 4 year old probably within a year after I go if not at same time as i do.
The competition for graduate places in UK will be fierce and it's not even worth spendingthe time looking around Ireland for work from what i've seen initially because there is little or no work available and the money is shocking.
I would love to get into oz but I dont fancy my chances coming straight out of college unless anyone on here knows of anything i don't!

brendansmith

Hey mate,

Sorry about the delay in replying, I had people pm me and I forgot about this thread.

PM and let me know if you want the email of our recruitment guy.

Cheers

brendansmith

Wow,

Getting a lot of PMs from this thread.

Bump.