PROFESSIONAL CIVIL ENGINEERS SEEKING JPBS IN IRELAND
Keshav P. Bhattarai, Senior Project Engineer (Water), Fehily Timoney & Co., Cork, Ireland

The government of Ireland is spending a huge amount of money for the development of infrastructure of the country, mainly roads, water supplies and wastewater schemes, in its National Development Plan of 2000-2006. The manpower, especially, qualified civil engineers produced by the country is not sufficient to fulfill its requirements, and hence Ireland is bringing in civil engineers from other countries like South Africa and New Zealand. Therefore, at the moment, a qualified Nepalese civil engineer, with the following basic qualifications/requirements can easily get a job in Ireland:

If you fulfill the above criteria, then just visit the website of any Irish recruitment agency, for example, www.hays.ie to find a suitable job for you. You can apply online, through these sites, and can also attach a short (one page) CV. If your qualification / experiences etc. suits to the job, then the recruitment agent will phone you and discuss about your qualifications, requirements, availability, etc.

Based on the initial discussions with you, the recruitment agent will find some suitable employer, and the employer will invite you for an interview. You have to come to Ireland, in a tourist visa, to attend the interview. This entry visa sometimes takes a long time (2-3 months) if you are applying from out of Europe. Such delays in attending an interview will distract the potential employer from giving you a job offer. But instead, if you are in UK or in any other European countries, you can get visa faster and can attend the interview within a month or so.

If you are invited for an interview, that means there is 75-80% chance of getting that job, because an employer invites you only when he is interested to your qualification and experiences etc. Once you are offered with a job, the next process is to get permission to work in Ireland. At the moment, there are two routes to get such permission, namely, a Work Permit (WP) or a Working Visa (WV). If you chose work permit route, you have to provide all the necessary documents to the employer, and you should leave the country. Once the WP is ready, in 2-3 months, you will receive it from the employer. Then, you have to go to the nearest Irish Embassy to get an Irish entry visa. You can easily get such visa, if you have work offer and a WP in hand. The other route, that is, the WV is even simpler. For this, once you get an offer from the employer, you have to go to the nearest Irish Embassy. You can NOT get a working visa from within Ireland. Based on the job offer and your application, you can easily get a WV from any Irish Embassy. With this WV, you can come to Ireland and start working.

Last, but not the least, you can not bring your family with you, when you are coming to Ireland for work. There are some time limits, for example, one year for a person working on the basis of WP, or three months for a person working on the basis of WV visa, before you can apply for your family visa. So, if you are a family man, you have to think point seriously, and be ready to live alone for a period of 6 to 15 months, depending upon the circumstances.