Types of Jobs for Work Holiday Visa

To obtain jobs based on your working holding visa, the jobs are mainly seasonal or part time in part time. The jobs cannot be full time, unless if the company is willing to obtain a working visa for you.

To apply for the jobs, you must provide a resume for them, and based on the resume they will contact you. However,for lower skilled jobs, they may just hire you on the spot. Most jobs that you obtain for working holiday visa are mainly unskilled, and may be mundane. However, as you are easily replacable, there are plenty of unpredictability in terms of the seasonal / part time job. Please refer to my post on the unpredictability of seasonal jobs next.

The main types of jobs you may get can be segregated into the following types:

1) Retail

This is a job that you usually see in your departmental store. As your job is to serve the customer. I think the key difference and the importance of a sales person is that thy are given proper training, and that they are also knowledgable of the products they sell. I rellise that this does not ring true in many countries. The retail staff in NZ mainly acts as as a friend to you, which is way different from the service you will receive in Japan or Taiwan or China, whereby they treat you as their master.

Getting this kind of jobs may require previous retail experiences.

2) Factory

For factory work, this can range over many different types of jobs. It can pertains to mussel shell remover, to beef deboning etc. They may usually sign a part time contract with you ranging from weeks to months to perform the factory task. In some lucky opportunities, they may offer you a long term contrract in which the company will offer you a work permit, which will indefinitely extend your visa in New Zealand.

Experiences in factory work may command higher pay, however you must be knowledgable about the requirement of befef deboning, thus you may request to be hired as the supervisor.

3) Farms

For farm work, this can range from jobs in the vine yard to the cherry farm, potatoes farm etc. The main key about farm work is that there are seasons for the work. The season may be annually, or the season may be quarterly dependent on the harvesting period.

There are some people who are skilled, are may command hire pay while doing farm works, as they may be doing things such as driving the tractor (modernized tractor with GPS and automated system).

For farm work there are plenty of unpredictability as you may not know what you are doing for the next day. It will only be announced on the following day, unlesss if your work has already had a specific role (eg. Picker of fruits, or Packer of fruits).

Most of the farm jobs are outdoor, and that due to the outdoor nature of the farm jobs, when it rains, there may be no jobs for the backpackers to perform.

4) Food and Beverage

For food and beverages you are looking at jobs such as dishwasher, waitress and cashering service. For these types of job they also require a resume and you have to provide evidence of your experience.

Especially for the waitress, the person will need to have very good product knowledge, knowing what type of specials are served today, and what are the ingredients for the specials, and the relevant cooking method ffor the ingredients. There are plenty of trainings being performed for the waitressing job.

5) Hospitality

In terms of hospitality jobs, the jobs are mainly as chambermaids or as a receptionist in a hotel. This jobs are not aplenty, as there are only a few hotels and hostels in New Zealand For those bed and breakfast accomodation or AirBNB accmodation, the jobs are usually not paid and are used to offset the accomodation amount.

For the hostels, the jobs are mainly as hostel manager, the receiptionist and the cleaner.

6) Construction

For construction jobs, the construction jobs mainly pertais to Christcuhrch, as after the Earthquake in Central Christchurch in 2011, the recovery process is still commencing. The work is tough as a construction worker, however they are usaully paid higher then the mniimun wage to compensate for the hard work.

If you are highly skilled, you can find a job as a project manager, or consultant for the construction projects.

7) Travel Related Industries

As NZ is a tourism capital, and 4.9% of their GDP pertains to tourism, NZ always require tour guides who can speak multiple languages. Eg. Japanese and English, Chinese and English) to work with the relevant customer group. However, these jobs are deemed to be cushy, the jobs need to send resume and also need to go for job interview to assess your suitability.

As the travel agent, you can go to places which people have to pay to get in, They will also test you on your product knowledge, for example if you are a tour guide for the star gazing tour, you are required to be knowledgeable about the stars in the southern hemisphere, before going to work as a tour guide.

8) Woofing

Woofing is an unpaid job whereby you are working for a short period of time, maybe 2 hours a day to exchange for your day's accomodation. Some fo the woofing hours may be longer, however, you are compensated with food and accomodation. However, there is no monetary benefit. Woofing is useful for people who are waiting for their work visa extension, or they are on their tourist visa, whereby they are not able to “work” in New Zealand legally.

9) Au Pair

For Au Pair, the job is mainly to take care of the family for the parents when they are working. It is similar to the idea of a baby sitter, however in most cases the Au Pair service, the backpacker is supposed to live in with the host family. In most cases, no salary is given to the Au Pair backpacker, but accomodation and food is given to them. For some cases, an allowances will be given when they have completed one week of AU Pair Services.

For Au Pair Services, th key is that you need a fully qualified driving license, as without the driving license, you cannot send the children to school, as the school is usually driving distance from their home. There is minimal chances of walking to school.