Invitation to Apply for Residence

25 July, 2008
A huge envelope had arrived to my husband's office. It was the Invitation to Apply for Residence, from the Immigration New Zealand office in London. After being selected from the EOI pool, each case is distributed to a case officer who belongs to an Immigration NZ office closest to where you currently live. Receiving the invitation means the main applicant's qualifications and experiences are regarded good enough to apply for the Skilled Migrant residence visa. Hooray! In our case, I'm the main applicant and my profession is not usually regarded good enough for a "skilled migrant", but because I'm experienced for quite a long time (more than 8yrs) in the industry, and also I've recently got a masters degree in the related field, they've decided I could be qualified as a "skilled migrant".
A lot of paper work to be done before we can submit the application, but there we go - we're again one more step closer to be NZ residents.

2008年7月25日
夫の研究室にロンドンのNZ移民局から分厚い封筒が届いた。永住権本申請の招待状だった。EOIから選出された後は、各地のケースオフィサーに回され、そこで本申請招待状を出すべきものか再度ふるいにかけられる。本申請招待状が来たということは、主たる申請者の資格や経験が「Skilled migrant（技術移民）」として充分だと判断されたということ。やった！

我が家の場合、私が主たる申請者なのだが、私の職業は通常Skilled migrantとは見なされない。しかし8年間の職歴と、離職後に職歴に基づいて取得した修士号が効いたらしい。よかった・・・

本申請を提出するのに、準備しなければいけない書類が山ほどある。でもとりあえずまた一歩前に進めた（しかもかなり重要な一歩）のでホッとした。