Permanent Residence to Australia - A How-To Guide - Part 1

Permanent Residence to Australia - A How-To Guide

Disclaimer: All opinions/views expressed in this post is my personal opinion and doesn't represent that of my employer. If you choose to act based on what's written in this post, you are doing so at your discretion. What I write here may still hold good or might have changed. Please research on your own before proceeding. You are warned.

Of late, I have been getting numerous calls from friends asking about PR process for Australia. Reason most ask for my advice is because I have already secured my PR (more than 2 years back), but most importantly, I did that on my own rather than spending that money on some consultant to do that job for me. Now, I am not saying that getting the assistance of a consultant is bad. In fact, in some cases, that would be the best approach (if your case is very difficult or rather special). But if you are like me whose application process is quite straightforward without many twists and turns, then most of the time, all you need is the right information to guide you. You get that information from various government sites and there are many forums that help expats answer their questions. The intent for this blog is not to provide all relevant information, but instead to act as a general guideline on what should be done. Before I list them out, once again, this is not a exhaustive list and rules change from time to time. So, use the below list as just a starting step and do your own research/contact the Immigration Department with your questions before proceeding.

As you might be already aware, Australia PR is a point-based visa system and you need to get at least 60 points to be eligible for PR. There are various websites that allows you to test how many points you can score depending on your circumstances. I will try to list some of them here.

So, once you ascertain that you can comfortable score 60 points, what to do next. These are the steps that you could follow (if any of these steps change in future due to rule/law change, I might update them, no guarantees).

Before listing the steps, here is the sequence that you would go through:

Step 1                 ->     Step 2              ->   Step 3             -> Step 4             -> Step 5    -> Step 6
Get assessed                Submit EOI            Visa invite          Perform                Upload       PR granted
and take IETLS           and wait for             Submit visa       medical exam        docs
                                    invite                        application

Step 1: You start the PR process by submitting your Expression of Interest (EOI). Before you can submit your EOI, there are two things (at least) that you need to get.

• A positive assessment letter for your chosen ANZSCO code from the relevant assessing authority.
• A valid IELTS test result with a minimum of 6 in EACH band (please note, you have to get at least 6 in EACH band, average score of 6 will NOT do).

Please DO NOT submit your EOI before you get your positive assessment report and your IELTS score. If you do submit, there is high chance that your visa application might get rejected and you may not get your application fee refunded.

So, let's examine the above two points in detail.

If you have decided to migrate to Australia, you most often would have been working in a profession in your chosen field in your current country and you might already have relevant qualification from your country or another country. The first thing you would need to do is get them assessed as equivalent to Australian standards. You can do this by finding out who your relevant assessing body is and sending them the completed application form along with the attested copies of the all required certificates and application fees. Some of the assessing bodies are given below:

For Computer related qualification and experience, you need to contact Australian Computer  Society (ACS).

For other engineering fields, you should contact Engineers Australia

For other trade qualifications, you should contact VETASSESS

Please note, the above is just an indicative list. Your assessing authority might be different. So, please check department site to find which one your assessing authority is and follow their guidelines for how to obtain assessment letter.

I am from computer background, and hence my assessing authority was ACS. I will list the steps I had taken to get the assessment letter.

1. First, I decided on which ANZSCO code would align with the work I am doing. This is most important since your ACS assessment letter will list your ANZSCO code and you will have to submit your EOI with the same code. So, go through the list of ANZSCO code here and choose the one that closely aligns with yours.
2. I took copy of all my certificates (under graduation (degree) and/or masters), got it attested (for a list of people who can attest, please check ACS site).
3. I got experience letter from all my previous and current employers. Its most important that in the experience letter, in addition to the usual things (like start and end date, full time or part time, last designation etc), the letter also lists the roles and responsibilities. These roles and responsibilities should align with your chosen ANZSCO code. For some of you, getting the experience letter from your current employer could be a headache. If you are unable to get such a letter, try to get normal experience letter from your employer and get a self-declaration of your roles and responsibilities from someone in the role of manager working in your current company. In addition to the experience letter, you need to also get attested copies of your payslips (usually 4 -5 per year would suffice), tax statements and any other documents that would substantiate your claim of experience from that employer. If your previous company doesn't exist anymore, you might give a self-declaration. Whether to accept that or not is up to ACS. Please note, what I have mentioned here is from what I read and from my experience. Your situation and your experience might differ. If in doubt, always check with ACS or your assessing authority.
4. Once you have all relevant documents (please note, do NOT send originals, they need certified copy), you need to make arrangements for the application fee (each assessing authority might have different requirements, you will get details from their site).
5. You then post your completed application form along with the certified copies of your documents and application fee to the address mentioned in your assessing authority's website.
6. Depending on ACS workload, you can expect to get the letter anywhere from one week to three months or more.

Now, let's look at IELTS.

In order to qualify for PR invitation, you need to gain at least 6 in each modules of IELTS (Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing). Please note, you can do your IELTS exam preparation and ACS (or your relevant assessing authority) assessment parallel since they are independent of each other. This will save you some time so that you can submit your EOI as soon as possible.

For IELTS preparation, there are various online tutorials, guides, books that you can refer to. Even if you are from an English speaking country, its always advisable to do a mock test to gauge your ability in each module. While you are preparing, do remember to register for the test since test centers may not be available for the time period you prefer. So, do one mock test, find where you stand, what you want to achieve, see how much time you can dedicate to prepare for the exam and then see when's the earliest you can book a slot for your exam. Also note that you can re-take the test since Immigration Department don't generally track how many times you have attempted for IELTS, as long as you have a valid IELTS test report with the minimum score in each band and with the test date before your EOI submission.

Also note that if you only score 6, then you will be eligible to submit EOI, but you won't get any points. So, aim for higher score. Also note that the department will consider your lowest score for assigning points and not your average score.

There is one more thing you can do to help get your invite faster. Start filling up your EOI application form with all the details you have. BUT PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT THE EOI UNTIL YOU GET THE RESULTS OF BOTH YOUR POSITIVE ASSESSMENT AND IELTS. Now, you might wonder how pre-filling the EOI, but not submitting it would help you. Well, you see, EOI has lots of section for you to fill. Most often, if your case is not very straight forward or if you need to search for some of the details, it would take time. Why not use the time you are waiting for the results to get those details and update your EOI. By doing that, all you would be left to fill would be your positive assessment report details and IELTS score details, which you can fill within an hour or so and submit your EOI. Your date of submission of EOI plays a vital part in deciding whether you get preference in the queue (of equal point holders) for visa invitation. But, just to get an earlier submission date, please don't submit your EOI before getting both your assessment and IETLS results. You have been warned.

That completes Step 1 of the process. If I have missed any point or mis-lead, please do comment.

Also, what I have listed is based on what I have read and from my experience. Please do not depend solely on what I have written. If you do so, you are doing at your own risk.