How to get a job in New Zealand
My accreditation to be writing about this?
I have a job.
Without further ado: let’s get into it, yuh.
So… you’ve landed and got your bank account and IRD number sorted. Maybe, like me, you’ve spent a week living la vida loca pretending like the Great British Pound is monopoly money and subsequently exhausted all of your gallivanting cash, leading to inevitable yet crippling impoverishment. Or maybe you’ve gone ahead and—sensibly—gotten yourself a car to tour around the country with and are ready to take the next step:
GETTING A JOB. GASP.
WHAT I DID:
From our AirBnB in Auckland, my best friend and I spent a solid two to three days straight scrolling through all of the backpacker Facebook pages, supplemented by a bottle of cheap-ish NZ Sauvignon Blanc from the nearest dairy in Onehunga.
It was laborious and longwinded
(the job hunt, not the wine).
I wanted a job that felt like it would enhance my CV, not just a WWOOFing* or a fruit-picking gig. Alex and I both preferred the idea of hospitality jobs, ideally together, as it felt like familiar territory.
*WWOOFing = work on farms for food and housing, basically. A great opportunity to see country, but you make no money.
We were selective:
This prospective job would dictate the first few months of our (at the time) year-long adventure throughout New Zealand. It would form the base from which we saw the rest of the country, or saved to travel through the country after the fact. With this basis, we began our search.
TOP TIP 1:
HOW TO BEGIN YOUR SEARCH:
METHOD I
Follow / like as many pages on Facebook as you can possibly conceive.
Often, employers will post a listing for a job on there because it’s free for them to do so and they know that a majority of WHV holders will be scouring those pages to find their next gig.
We put all the keywords into the search bar:
"BACKPACKER JOBS NZ"
〰️
"WHV NEW ZEALAND"
〰️
"[INSERT PLACE NAME] JOBS NZ"
〰️
"BACKPACKER JOBS NZ" 〰️ "WHV NEW ZEALAND" 〰️ "[INSERT PLACE NAME] JOBS NZ" 〰️
…you get the idea.
I liked every single one I could find, answered all the are-you-a-robot questions dutifully and then, once accepted, stalked through masses of posts (some spam) to find job listings, opportunities, expressions of interest, and companies. We did this, like I say, for about two or three nights, each stalking through different pages, comparing notes, weighing up the pros and cons.
This was how we found our first job.
Alex sent a message over to them about their job listing and within days we were back-and-forthing about going up to the BOI, doing a trial shift, arranging staff accommodation etc.
METHOD II
Let me introduce you to the glory of the
NZ Backpacker Board (NBB).
This website that looks like its a relic of the Dark Ages that’s been somehow unwittingly yanked into the 21st century is, despite all odds, actually fantastic. It has become an invaluable resource to me since our first job and Alex’s departure. The NBB has everything you need to get yourself started: advice on how to get your first car, or job, where to go, what to do. It has it all. In the context of getting a job:
It has a chronological list of the most recent jobs posted.
It is free for employers to post job listings on it.
My favourite: you can filter the jobs to accommodate your needs, for example: ‘jobs with accommodation,’ ‘jobs in Tauranga,’ ‘hospitality,’ etc.
In my case, for my most recent job, I wanted to be somewhere that offered subsidised (staff) accommodation. Rent in Wanaka over the winter was a financial burden I could no longer bear. But $150 a week for a room in a fully furnished house (bills included)? Much more manageable for little old me.*
*the first job I had in NZ was $25 a week for a fully furnished cabin on a vineyard with a private beach, if you can believe that. Then, I moved to Wanaka and it became $215 per week. YIKES. Note: $150 is the more commonly accepted rental agreement for subsidised accommodation, though.
Scouring the NBB helped me, as I’m sure it will you, find a job. In fact, it is how I found my current one. It is updated regularly and is a no-nonsense site (unlike this one).
METHOD III
THE AGE-OLD CLASSIC: Handing out your CV.
Besides the fifty applications* for jobs I made online, I also scoured the streets of Wanaka with CV in hand for a good old-fashioned dose of public humiliation.
Rejection therapy? Maybe.
Humbling? Beyond reason.
Please be advised that
I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND.
For me this was a fruitless endeavour and an epic waste of paper. But, it has worked for others.
Godspeed if you do try it, though. Nothing worse than being subject to the universally adopted affectation undertaken by a front-of-house staff member who has seemingly never before been so crestfallen or despairing to tell a stranger they have no vacancies. Nothing more soul-destroying than when they tell you some variation of ‘Have you tried applying online?’ or ‘Sorry, we’re not hiring at the moment.’
TOP TIP:
KNOW YOUR AREAS / PEAK SEASONS
Knowledge of the tourism peaks in the places you’re looking to work means that
you have a better idea of when to go.
For instance in Wanaka and Queenstown, spring and autumn are both referred to as the ‘shoulder season(s)’. This is a period of lull in tourism between the peak seasons. More notably in autumn, perhaps, where the conditions have gotten colder but not quite cold enough for snow to fall or for the masses (“the snow bunnies”) to congregate. We made the mistake of getting down to Wanaka for late April/early May, thinking it would put us in good stead to get ahead of the rush of people looking to get a job or work a season. If I’d known the above, I wouldn’t have been living unemployed in Wanaka for little over a month. I would’ve stayed an extra month at my BOI job and then road-tripped to the South Island throughout May to start working in June. Hindsight, hey?
Another good example is the Bay of Islands, a sub-tropical region of New Zealand that bears a hot and humid summer and a relatively mediocre excuse for winter. Here, they are not looking to onboard new staff over the autumn/winter. Their boom of tourism has come and gone, to start again in spring/summer. So you’d be best applying around September before their peak begins.
Knowledge of the area also means knowing what you’re up against.
The issue with places like Wanaka and Queenstown where, understandably, everyone wants to work is that you are up against hundreds, if not thousands, of people oftentimes just as qualified as you are. With a well-padded-out CV, I applied to over fifty restaurants, bars, and cafes.
I heard back from three of them.
Three. That’s 6%.
The other 94% didn’t deign to reply.
One of the three responses led to an interview, for which I was unsuccessful. Humbling blow to the ego.
The other was a dog-walking part-time gig (I was desperate). I was, once again, unsuccessful. I went to that interview thinking it would be a walk in the park (pun entirely intended).
Instead, I walked into a room full of people who clearly knew better than I did about the protocol for when someone’s dog wants to take your fucking ankle off. What’s worse? I was forced to interview in a room full of all of the other applicants, of which there must have been about fifteen. That’s right, FIFTEEN people fighting tooth and nail to walk someone’s grandmother’s little Jack Russell for one hour, three times a week.
The third reply was from Cardrona Alpine Resort. I’d applied somewhat begrudgingly for a Chef role in a last-ditch effort to find a job before giving up on Wanaka entirely. To my surprise and chagrin, they wanted me. I’d resigned myself to having missed the catchment window for the ski resorts. It was by pure chance that someone had pulled out last minute. I know better now, but it felt like a bit of a miracle at the time. It was everything I wanted: a paying job; an enhancement for the CV; working with my new housemate, Sophie; a free season pass; and the perks from RealNZ which are honestly incredible.**
*NZ ALPINE RESORTS START HIRING IN JANUARY / FEBRUARY.
START APPLYING NOW IF YOU WANT TO WORK A SKI SEASON.
**Think: Milford Sound, Doutbful Sound, jet boating, TSS Earnslaw… FOR FREE.
Had it not been for that job, though. I would’ve needed to cut my losses and make like a bandit in the night. I had pushed myself to the point of near-destitution. I was el skinto. The first few weeks of working was purely to pay myself back for my month of unintentional respite. A learning curve, fo sho. Try not to do this, if you can help it. Maybe worth being a bit more flexible about where you want to go. It’ll still be an incredible experience and something wholly new, even if it isn’t where you originally envisioned yourself being.
Ultimately, knowing the peaks and knowing the area means knowing your stake in the employment equivalent to The Hunger Games.
This leads me to where I am now, less than a village with a total population of seven. I figured I’d have good odds landing this job because of its remoteness and the job listing had been on the NBB for quite a while when I finally applied.
So here I am, working at the only pub in a twenty-minute radius. The only anything at all, really. It sounds outrageously isolating, but the community here is the strongest I’ve witnessed throughout all my time in New Zealand. It’s tight-knit, they look out for one another, love the area with an unforeseen passion and want it to thrive. It’s beautiful.
GOOD LUCK OUT THERE.
