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What’s the Best Hong Kong Visa Option for a Recently Graduated British National?

QUESTION

Hi Stephen,

From  May through November 2013 I was employed in a well known and large company in Hong Kong under the training visa for a period of 6 months.

During the end of this tenure the company decided to offer me a permanent position however I had to apply for this job under the employment visa.

Unfortunately this was rejected, as the Immigration Department feel this is a job that can be taken up locally.

I’m 23 years old with one years work experience after graduating from university but really want to stay in Hong Kong now I have embedded myself within the team I was working in and learning all the appropriate skills and practices for the role I was undertaking.

I have now become a highly valued member of my working team.

I want to ask whether already having a training visa then having a working visa rejected would affect my chances of  getting a working holiday visa?

I also have the option to move to Dubai where I have been granted a visa which can be used as a stop gap to get more experience then look to re-apply in Hong Kong.

But as my primary desire is to stay in Hong Kong can I use the working holiday visa as an additional years experience until the time comes that I need to re-apply for a working visa next year?

And how should I re-apply for that differently?

Can you kindly advise what is the best course of action?

Thanks

ANSWER

In the vast majority of circumstances, whenever you have been able to secure a training visa, usually for six months, sometimes for a maximum of twelve months, depending on the nature of the training that you’re due to receive, it is almost impossible to swap from a training visa through to an employment visa because the issue of the training visa was done on the basis that you would acquire the training and then you would leave.

So it’s natural in many instances where you have undergone that period of training, you’ve inculcated yourself into the working fabric of your team there and clearly your manager at the end of the training, doesn’t want to lose you, recognises your talent, wants you to remain in Hong Kong to work full time, and so you make an application for an employment visa.

Now, two challenges associated with that stated is that as part of your training visa application, there is an undertaking that you will leave Hong Kong at the end of the period of training. And the second challenge is that, to actually convert to an employment visa, you have to pass the employment visa provability test, which is you need to show you possess special skills, knowledge and experience of value to and not readily available in Hong Kong.

And normally this requires, at a very minimum, for you to be a university graduate with two years post graduation working experience in a supervisor in a managerial capacity. And normally if you’re in a training visa situation, by implication you’re not managing anybody or supervising anybody. Quite the contrary, you’re on the receiving end of such management and such supervision.

So when you do make that application to a justice status from training visa to employment visa, uh, in your circumstances, it’s quite, uh, normal to expect that you will be, um, refused in that application. So now the question is begged as to how can you continue to remain in Hong Kong so that you can do the things that you’re doing now.

Fortunately, because of the introduction of british nationals to the list of, uh, qualifying nationals under the working holiday scheme, as of December 2013, you can apply for a working holiday visa which will give you a twelve month limit of staying, uh, and you’ll be able to work for any single employer for twelve months.

So the fact that you’ve had a prior employment visa refused and the fact that you’ve previously held a training visa should not, in normal circumstances, preclude you from accessing the working holiday visa on the basis that you do qualify for the working holiday visa in your own right, which is that you’re under 30 years of age, you’ve got about HKD20,000 in your bank account and you’ve got the necessary medical insurance to cover your staying as a working visa holder in Hong Kong.

And that there’s still a quota available to you. That is that a lot of other British nationals haven’t gotten ahead of you and stolen your opportunity to acquire one of those visas because of the number that are issued each year. So have no fear that you can’t get a working holiday visa so long as there’s quota available and you can meet the conditions.

And then once you’ve got your working holiday visa, you can certainly rejoin your working team, and away you go, so that will then take you twelve months down the road. And then the issue is, well, how do you then get from a working holiday visa through to an employment visa again. And will, in all the circumstances, the time that you spent in Hong Kong as a training visa holder and the twelve months that you had as a working holiday visa holder, will all of that again qualify you, ostensibly for the minimum two years post graduation working experience in managerial or supervisory capacity. That’s a question that can really only be answered at the time that you make your next application, depending on effectively what’s gone on in, in all the time that you were holding the working holiday visa. And frankly, whether or not even one year hence, you’ll be able to argue to the Immigration Department that your skills can’t be found locally, because it may well be that the work that you do there could clearly be a ready pool of local employees, potential local employees, new graduates from university or others that have the necessary skills in the industry that you’re working in department might not be persuaded in any event, that given the nature of the work that you do, that work can’t be uptaken by somebody from within the local workforce.

So that’s always a risk and it’s not something that I can give you any concrete advice upon at this stage in the game. All that I can suggest is that once your working holiday visa expires, go back to the immigration department with a new application for an employment visa and argue your case stridently and forthrightly and see what they make of it as another option.

Given that you do seem to have the ability to go off, in this instance to Dubai, to what I assume is a group company to work there, if all else fails, you could  secure employment in Dubai and go spend maybe a year or two in Dubai working for that group company, building up your knowledge, building up your experience, ensure that experience is gained in managing and supervising others and then at the end of that period, you make an application again to transfer back to Hong Kong from that Dubai Group company on an intercompany transferee basis.

And nine times out of ten, if it is a straightforward intercompany transferee application for an employment visa where you clearly now have the necessary post graduation working experience and that given the nature of the work that you’ve been doing for the group company in Dubai, it’s clear that a local person can’t be expected to uptake that work, then you stand an improved chance of approval next time around on the basis that you have been an intercompany transferee.

So all of this sounds really quite long and convoluted and complex, but, strategically, you do have a pathway to your ultimate end game, which is to be working full time, lawfully, for your proposed employer in Hong Kong, doing the work that you clearly love to do; but, you’ve still got a few sort of months ahead of you and a few applications ahead of you before,  you get the security and comfort of knowing that finally, the Immigration Department deem you professional for the purpose of the general employment policy.

And you’ve created the circumstances where you can definitively argue that the work that you’re going to be doing in Hong Kong can’t be taken up by somebody locally. Okay, I hope you found that useful.

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