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What's in a Name
Growing up I always thought of my surname as a bit of a curse and often wondered whether I came from a long line of Lipschitz' ( or should it be Lipshi?) or whether some customs official with a nasty sense of humour changed my grandfathers surname from Jones to Lipschitz.
Highly unlikely since my paternal grandparents hailed from Lithuania and prior to that, possibly Germany. Perhaps then my grandfather had the Lithuanian equivalent name to Jones prior to the whimsical humour of a customs official.
I have spent my life spelling my surname to people and to compound matters my first name, Myer, isn’t that common either. If people do know it they know it as a girls name and I often have correspondence addressed to me as Ms.
'I have 150 points, where do I start?'
Occasionally we hear from a potential client stating that they have scored 150 points on the skilled migration test, giving them sufficient amount of points to qualify and wish to start the process for migrating without the need for a consultation. Please forgive my scepticism when someone tells me that they have scored 150 points and meet the criteria when the highest score possible is 125 points. The vast majority of our clients struggle to reach 70 points.
At IMMagine we have a policy that we do not accept a client without first conducting an eligibility assessment so we can be sure that they do in fact meet the requirements (our visa success rate is better than 99%).
A Tough Decision
I know just how tough the decision to migrate can be [the process is even tougher!] but also, of equal importance, is the timing of the decision to migrate. The experience of a recent client emphasized this point to me.
I consulted with Claire [not her real name] in South Africa late last year. She was 49 then, married with two children at School. Whilst she is not wealthy she is comfortable and her daily existence is good. She has a well-paid professional job. She hasn’t been personally affected by violence and crime in South Africa and doesn’t have any concerns about her immediate safety.
She is, however, concerned about the future in South Africa.
Teachers and the Theory of Convergent Evolution
My fellow Director, Iain MacLeod is a fan of the theory of convergent evolution in other words the process whereby organisms not closely related independently evolve similar traits as a result of having to adapt to similar environments or ecological niches.
In an immigration context one could paraphrase this theory to, say given a similar set of circumstances, two individuals faced with certain variables will reach similar conclusions.
I recently returned from a trip to South Africa and my colleague, Kane Downs recently returned from a trip to Singapore and Malaysia...
Last Chance for Accountants?
Accountants, by all accounts, have had a good run as far as far as Australian immigration policy is concerned but is their Indian summer about to end on 1 July 2013?
There is speculation that the occupation of Accountant will disappear from the Skilled Occupations List (SOL) from 1 July of this year. In this regard we refer you to a newspaper article that appeared in The Australian Newspaper which appears at the end of this blog.
The effect of culling Accountants from the SOL would be that they would be relegated to the Consolidated Skilled Occupations List (CSOL).
The principal difference between the two lists is that if one’s occupation appears on the SOL one can, subject to scoring sufficient points, apply for the skilled independent 189 visa or the family sponsored 489 visa.
