We are a couple of Spaniards who plan to move to Chile. I will be hired there by a Chilean (public) university. This concerns the working status of my wife. She is a nurse.
1) How can my wife get a work permit?
2) How can she get a worker visa?
3) Does she need a job offer prior to applying for the work permit/worker visa? If she does, is there any intermediate procedure to get some sort of "temporary work permit?" I've been told there may be, but I'm unsure.
As she will accompany when you relocate to Chile, she has several advantages, a visa status that enables her to remain long term, Spanish language proficiency, and educational and licensure documentation that don’t require translation.
Her credentials will need to be legalized and might be more easily accomplished once you’re in Chile, rather than in advance through its embassy in Spain. Nursing is among the regulated professions (medicine, dentistry, primary education, translation), so there are quite a few bureaucratic hoops through which to jump, which can be time consuming.
The co-founder of airavirtual.com, Hester Borm, and an expat in Chile, has written an excellent summary on How to find a job in Chile (and get a work permit along the way).
