Hi All,
I've recently received an offer for a position in HK. However, now that I'm looking more closely at the work visa procedure, I'm quite concerned and wondering if I should really accept the initial offer.
I'm currently living in China where as long as you have the proper paperwork you're almost 100% guaranteed to get approval on your work visa. However, in HK it does not appear to be the case. So, I'm a little concerned about quitting my current job just to get my visa application rejected by the HK immigration department.
I've done a bit of online research but wasn't able to get all the answers on questions that would help me get a better idea of the work visa application process and decide if accepting this job offer is worth it.
It would be great if you guys could help answer some of the questions below.
1. How difficult is it for the sponsor to justify not hiring a local? My work would be in IT (related to finance but not in engineering) but niche enough.
2. My wife is Chinese and although she wouldn't come until she can secure a job in HK as well, given the tensions between HK and the mainland I'm wondering if this might not work against me.
3. Would a salary of 70k HK$ per month be considered enough to justify the hire?
4. Is a criminal record required? It would take me a trip back home and several weeks to procure this document.
5. Are scans/photocopies of degrees acceptable? I lost the originals over a decade ago and getting duplicatas made might also take a long time.
6. Do degrees in languages other than English or Chinese need to be translated before being submitted?
7. Does a signed contract between myself and my future employer need to be submitted with the visa application? And are reference letters a must? I would rather not quit my current job before knowing if my application is accepted and having to submit these 2 documents obviously prevents that.
Thanks all in advance for any sort of answer(s) you could provide !!