UK family's job hunt

Hi, I'm Jackie Neville from Manchester, UK. I've been living in New Zealand now for four years, and I live in West Auckland.

We first started to think about moving to New Zealand when we went to an expo in Manchester.

As a family, it took a long time really to get all the paperwork together. There was a lot to do in terms of getting all the stuff sorted for the children.

So we decided once we'd been accepted in principle that we really should come and have a look at New Zealand, we came to see some relatives of best friends of ours back in England who lived in Oratia, which is just up the road – and we probably would never have come to Titirangi otherwise, but we arrived very early at their house, and decided we would go and have a walk on the beach - and loved the place.

So when we got back to England, it was the one place that we found that we thought we could settle, and would be home for us. 

We just decided we would sell the house, give up our jobs, and just take a big leap of faith and just come on out to New Zealand and see what happened.

My husband arrived in New Zealand in the beginning of September in 2009.

I was left behind to pack up the house, and get the containers sorted; get the dog and the cat packed off to London

So it must have been around March time, the following March, that he got his first job as a recruitment consultant. So – that, it was hard for him, because it was getting someone to take a risk without New Zealand experience. That they – and that was one of the things that they were after all the time, that you needed to have New Zealand experience, in order to get New Zealand experience ... he's had three different recruitment roles since he's been here, and he's finally found one that he's really happy with.

But ironically, I was one of Dan's candidates. Dan, my husband, he sent my CV into the airport and that's how I got my job.

They met me and they interviewed me, and once they realized what I was doing at Manchester, they decided that that would actually be something that would be worthwhile them having at the airport, which they hadn't had before – so, I've pretty much got the job that I used to have.

Work is - we thought it was a lot more, I guess, laid back approach to work. But actually everybody works very hard… but I think that's why everybody plays very hard as well.

The house that we've now moved into we purchased, was the third house in the space of a year.

It just happened that one night I had parked up, it was raining and I was outside a estate agent's window, and I spotted the house.

It was in a place that we absolutely loved, and by Sunday night we'd put an offer in and had it accepted.

I can't quite believe we've been here four years now, and as a family we all sit and say, "Have we really being here for four years?" All in all it's gone really well, I think.  We had our moments. I know that as I say, I think it's been more around missing family and friends but we do keep in touch on the phone, and our family are now beginning to join us.

My husband went back to England just about a year ago now, and he noticed that people, that nothing had changed, nothing had moved on; whereas we feel like as a family, we've really achieved something here.

My advice to anyone else who's thinking about making the same move is, just do it.