As we talk, this is happening all around the world; people are looking to move out of their country for a better quality of life and put to use the skills acquired over time. A developed country is always a place people look up to, to migrate for better opportunities, from India. America being at the top for us. But the rules are becoming more tighter and fees higher for US H1 Visa and the Visa to Applicant ratio is so huge. And thus the next countries which are lucrative and open for skilled migration are Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. I am going to speak specifically about my experience of obtaining Australian PR.
So, many of you would have considered migrating to Australia for Job (assuming your skill is in demand in Australia). I would like to share my experience from ground Zero. I feel proud and would like to highlight that, have done everything on my own and did not take the help of any consultancy in Bangalore for getting my PR. Also, maybe I was lucky :-).
About me at the time of applying for Australian Visa, for Skilled Subclass 189:
(As on 20/11/2015)
Age - 31 Years
Years of Experience as a Software Engineer - 10+ Years
Marital Status - Married with a child
Applying with family - Yes. I am the primary applicant and My wife and child are the dependents.
1) IELTS
The first step to apply for Australian and Canada Visa for skilled class starts with IELTS exam. IELTS is an exam to evaluate you English skills and is very important to apply. Try to score 8 and above in all the four categories - Read, Write, Listen and Speak. 6 and above is the minimum criteria to be considered pass.
15 Points if you score 8 in all the four categories
10 Points if you score 7 and above
5 Points to score 6 and above
The scores are valid for 2 years.
2) ACS Verification of Your Skills (Job Experiences)
Our job experiences needs to be verified before we can apply for the Skilled Visa subclass. This can be taken up in parallel to IELTS exams. Rather, its best to have this done in parallel so as to avoid delays. There are various agencies who do the verification depending on which job category you belong from. I am a Software Engineer and thus the agency which does the verification is Australian Computer Society or ACS.
For the detailed list of skills and the respective assessing authority please click the Australian govt. link - Skilled Occupations List (SOL).
ACS charges AUD500 for this job of verifying the skills of the candidate. They do not need any hard copies sent to them. All they require is Certified High Quality Coloured scanned copies of all the documents. In my case a Notary. Notary needs to see the original and needs to certify that the documents is a copy of the original. Scanned copy of this should be uploaded to the ACS site. When you make the payment, a reference number will be generated and that will be used for all your future interactions including the result.
Another thing to remember is that ACS requires the documents in a particular format. They need the following in the document
1) The information should on a company letterhead
2) Designation
3) Start and End dates
4) Job responsibilities - pick this from the professional documentations list.
Problems that you might face - The issue is that even though we have an offer letter, joining letter and relieving letter; they do not suffice the requirement from ACS. They also need Job Descriptions in one of the letters (relieving letter). These kind of documents are not readily available when we join or leave a company in India. I was fortunate enough to get them from my previous and current company without much hassles, by sending HR team a mail. Be sure to provide them a template of what you want.
In the case when you do not have any chance to get the JD on a company letterhead. This is what you can do as I did, for my first job. The company had closed and thus I couldn't get the letterheads. But I had a good relationship with my previous colleagues and thus the networking came to use on this day. I needed to get a JD certified by some previous colleague (preferably a Senior but that's not necessary). And along with a certified copy of the document you need to attach any supporting documents like Relieving letters or Payslips (First and Last months) attached when showing these companies experience.
And for cases where the experience letter cannot be obtained in the format mentioned above, you could get an old colleague to sign in front of the Notary about the experience. The affidavit template should look something like this - Affidavit
NOTE: Please make sure that you provide all the supporting documents certified, scanned and uploaded. They do not get back to you for the missed documents. They would just discard the particular experience and you would lose some points. And you would need to upload the missed documents and to send for review which would cost you another AUD350. The review should be sent for within 60 days.
Update (17/02/2020):
Looks like ACS doesn't need Certified copies any more. Actually they added it as a DONT DO! Please refer to the checklist - https://www.acs.org.au/msa/skills-assessment-guidelines-for-applicants.html
3) Submitting for Expression of Interest (EOI)
Once the ACS result is received, you are all set to make a jump at EOI to apply for the Skilled Visa. EOI application is more of an eligibility check and happens based on how much points you are claiming.
Age - 25 - 32 Year - 30 Points
Jobs Experience - Above 8 Years - 15 Points
English Speaking Skills (IELTS) - Above 7 in RWLS - 10 Points
Education (Graduate) - 10 Points
Once you apply for the EOI, you will get a login into the Immigration account (See link in the references section). This is where you would follow to know the status.
NOTE: If applying with spouse (whose documents are verified by ACS) you can earn some more points. Though 60 is the minimum points required, it's better to aim for as much higher as you could for smoother proceedings later.
4) Applying for VISA on Acceptance of EOI
Once your EOI gets accepted, you are all set for the final step - to apply for Visa. You will need to apply by making the payment for the Visa. This option should be available in your immi. account itself. The fees is as follows (November 2015):
- AUD3600 for Main Applicant
- AUD1800 for Dependent above 18 Years
- AUD900 for Dependent below 18 years
Came to AUD6300 for me.
After this payment, we will be provided with a new view in the Immigration account (see references). All the applicants (main plus dependent) will be listed in this view and the checklist of documents to be uploaded for each of them is also mentioned.
4.1) Documents to be uploaded
You would need to upload the "certified copies" of all the documents. If possible upload the color xerox's certified copy.
Main Applicant
- Evidence of Qualifications - Overseas,
- Evidence of Skills Assessment,
- Evidence of Language Ability - English,
- Evidence of Overseas Police Clearance - State/Local
- Evidence of Birth or Age,
- Evidence of Travel Document
- Evidence of Work Experience - Overseas,
- Form 80 - Personal particulars for character assessment (this was not mentioned in the checklist but later on asked for all the adult applicants)
Dependent Spouse
- Evidence of Birth or Age,
- Evidence of Language Ability - English,
- Evidence of Relationship - Spouse, De facto Partner,
- Evidence of Overseas Police Clearance - State/Local
- Evidence of Travel Document
- Form 80 Personal particulars for character assessment
Dependent Child
- Travel Document
- Evidence of Birth or Age,
- Evidence of Custody,
- Evidence of Character,
