As an experienced Australian immigration lawyer I have had my share of involvement in Australian visa seminars in Ireland for the general public. Nowadays, many visa agencies use it as a marketing tool to attract interest and hopefully convert this interest into clients. My own experience of migration seminars or visa information days for Australia have been good and bad.
On the good side:-
1) You get to meet Australian migration agent, Australian visa specialists and any associated parties like banks and removalists in person.
2) They can have a good working knowledge of some of the aspects of moving to Australia that you have questions about.
3) Many have written information booklets, brochures and business cards they can give you to keep as a resource.
On the bad side:-
1) The seminars and information days are very general, the agent or speaker might be trying to address 50 different interested people in the one room, it isn’t possible to be more focused and it can take on a classroom feel where you being talked at. Even question time afterwards isn’t practical because a lot of people don’t really want to announce their query to 49 other listeners who are also complete strangers and let’s face it Ireland is a small country you might not want to bump into anyone familiar, particular from work, save yourself the stress!
2) The inconvenience of driving to a venue, taking the time out of your weekend to attend a 3 hour seminar somewhere in Ireland can be a big ask for families who don’t have much time to spend together and weekends are precious.
The Australia migration and visa agents may mean well by putting on seminars but the exercise is fraught with the possibilities of being a giant waste of time.
Let’s face it once you realise that a seminar is a marketing exercise for the business holding them then you can appreciate your place in the scheme of things. That’s why many will try to make sure they get as much detail as they can when you are asked to register.
I’m not saying Australian info seminars or Australian visas seminars are a bad thing, but you need to ask what’s really in it for you. Are you going to waste a lot of time for not a lot of facetime.
I rarely hold migration seminars about visas for Australia or Australian job market associated with migrating to Australia basically because of past experience that it was time consuming and I was flat out trying to deal with 50 people at once and those individuals who came along didn’t get much out of it either on a personal basis. In addition, I started asking people about whether they would benefit from an Australian visa seminar and a lot of people said that the time was a big factor, getting to and from venue in Dublin and Irish traffic/road conditions was painful.
One big tip for information gathering on a business visa for Australia, business migration to Australia, Australian visa options, migration services to Australia or moving to Australia in general is – USE THE INTERNET – “GOOGLE IT”. Read up about the migration agent, their services through their website, if they are any good, send in your CV and get written advice of what your Australia visa options are and your chance of success. If the written advice is informative and seems like good advice, make an appointment to see them in person for a consultation – just you and them (minus an audience of seminar attendees).
The internet is an endless resource of information, you can get so much fact based information on websites without the market pitch.
