Lodging an Expression of Interest (EOI)

An IELTS and a favorable skills assessment are the main requirement before you are able to lodge what they call an Expression of Interest (EOI) for a skilled migrant visa.

I feel it is right to give a brief background on this matter first before we proceed; prior to 1^st July 2012, a different process was in place for those who were interested in getting visa to live in Australia - it goes something like, get all your requirements in place, pay the visa fee and wait for the results. They changed the process as of 1^st July this year and introduced the EOI. The main difference here lies on the fact that you need to be invited first before you can be able to actually apply for the migrant visa.

Let me explain how the EOI system works. Once you have your IELTS and your skills assessment, you can log on to the DIAC website to create your profile and begin in the lodgment process. There will be a series of questions that will be asked in the website, your answers to these questions will enable you to gather points (take note: the minimum points requirement by DIAC in order to be invited is 60) which will determine later on whether you will be able to get an invitation or not. The below summarizes the selected data in our EOI and the corresponding points that we claimed.

• Age: 30 points
• English Language Ability: 10 points
• Skilled Employment: 15 points
• Education qualifications: 15 points

From the above, we can see that we claimed 70 points total in our EOI (I will leave it to you to read on this LINK for further explanation on how it goes in order to claim points - please refer to the document under the points tab). Once we submitted our EOI, this was placed in a pool together with the rest of the other EOIs. These are ranked accordingly as per points claimed and the date of submission. As mentioned in a previous posts, getting as much points as possible will greatly enhance your possibility of getting selected.

Prior to clicking the submit button, we did a thorough checking of the data that we have placed in the EOI. As the system does not have any way of verifying the points you have claimed, you can technically claim more than what you really have. It should be noted that erroneous claiming of extra points could be a strong ground for refusal of visa.

DIAC has a selection process scheduled twice a month; a certain number of invitations are given and the highest ranked EOI will receive those invitations.  During the month that we applied, there were a total of 950 invitations given out every 2 weeks for skilled migrant visa.

As our total points claimed was more than sufficient, we were fortunate enough to be invited to apply for skilled migrant visa a week after we submitted our EOI. Happy times! :)

CPA Australia Skills Assessment

CPA Australia is one of the three bodies that have the authority to do the skills assessment of the skilled occupation that is relevant to our visa application. A suitable skills assessment must be received from CPA Australia before we can  proceed with the whole process.

As per the criteria of CPA Australia at the time of our application last August 2012, in order to receive a positive result in your chosen Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) code, you will need the following:

1. A qualification that is assessed by CPA Australia as equivalent to at least an Australian Bachelor degree
2. To have successfully studied in at least nine of the 12 "core knowledge areas", including the four mandatory core knowledge areas that are relevant to your chosen ANZSCO code
3. To have met the English proficiency requirement

We were a bit confident in requirements #1 and #3 – however item #2 was a bit complicated because CPA Australia needs to assess your syllabus versus the 12 core knowledge areas.

According to the forums that we have been reading, the waterloo for most individuals of the same nominated skills is the core knowledge area subject called Accounting Theory. Many people from all over the world have a deficiency in this said subject.

The problem was, for the nominated occupation for my wife, this is a mandatory core knowledge area that needs to be passed. Failure on this would mean not getting suitable skills assessment.

In order to strengthen my wife’s skills assessment, we came out with a tabular document that mapped out each core knowledge area subjects versus the subjects that my wife has taken during her time in college.

Furthermore, we researched from the CPA Australia website on what comprises the Accounting Theory subject and did another tabular document to further illustrate to the assessing authority that these were all taken up already by my wife albeit not necessarily on a sole class in college.

Along with the scholastic documents and the tabular doc that we prepared, we also included the documents pertaining to her work experience (COE and statutory declaration). CPA Australia can provide an opinion of your relevant work experience should you be able to get suitable skills assessment.

We did one final check to see if all documents are in place; we logged in to their website and paid for their assessment fee – another hefty amount at A$475. With all documents prepared and packed in a huge brown envelop, we mailed it first class via Singapore Post on a late Friday afternoon.

One last check before the envelop is sealed...

The waiting time before we got our response was more than four weeks. The agony of waiting and waiting for the results is something I would rather forget.

On 25^th September 2012, we finally received a small envelop in our mailbox that came from CPA Australia. The words inside were the best news that we got since getting the IELTS results several weeks back. Not only did we get suitable skills assessment (completed 12/12 core knowledge area as per their letter), all the work experience of my wife was also determined as relevant hence it can be used to claim additional points as far as work experience is concerned.

Skills assessment result

It was pure bliss during that particular moment; we immediately went out from our condo, grabbed a cab and headed to one of our favorite Church in Singapore to offer a prayer of thanksgiving.

IELTS – English Language Competency Requirement

IELTS or International English Language Testing System, is an international standardized test of English language proficiency. It will test the person’s competency in English in four components namely: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking.

The requirement of DIAC at the time of our application was a test result showing a minimum score of 6 in each of the four components of the IELTS test. Worth noting however is that some skills assessing bodies would have further requirements such as a higher minimum score. CPA Australia needs a minimum score of at least 7 in each of the four components of the IELTS test before a skills assessment can precede any further.

There are two types of IELTS examination, general and academic module. The latter is much harder as it has a longer reading component and a different writing component (that would require interpretation of graphs and data). Normally DIAC only requires a general module however there are some skills assessing bodies that would require an academic module. CPA Australia for this case needs the academic module.

As the application for skilled migrant visa is based on points (this will be discussed further on the topic Lodging an EOI for a 189 visa), it is would be good if you can be able to get the highest score possible in your IELTS as you could claim points in English proficiency as follows:

With this, we wasted no time in enrolling Babes to sit down for an IELTS exam.  British Council was our service provider as they had a better schedule than IDP. An examination fee of S$320 was charged to us; it was a hefty amount so the wife was determined to get it nailed it in one try.

Perhaps the preparation for IELTS will merit a separate post so I will not touch on this for now.

Proud to say, the wife was more than prepared for the examination, she was able to meet the requirements of CPA Australia and at the same time claimed 10 points for English proficiency.

IELTS result

Securing Relevant Documents for Visa Application

Normally getting documents will not be too much of a hassle - however if we consider the fact that we lived in Singapore at the time of application and we graduated almost a decade ago, it made things a bit more complicated.

Amongst the documents that were required, some of them were already with us. The others need to be requested and took a few weeks to be secured.

The below summarizes the documents that we needed for our skilled migrant visa application:

1. Birth certificate
2. Marriage certificate
3. Transcript of record from university attended
4. Diploma
5. Syllabus of the subjects taken during university
6. CPA Philippines certificate of good standing
7. Detailed certificate of employment (COE)

It took us a while to be able to secure item # 5; the university where Babes graduated from did not have a good system of archiving documents hence it took around a month to dig up past documents and collate them all together. Nonetheless, we managed to secure a 99-page syllabus at the start of August 2012.

Item # 7 was another problem we encountered. CPA Australia and DIAC needs a detailed COE wherein it would stipulate your roles and responsibilities from the company. The problem was for company # 2 that Babes worked previously, the HR of the said firm does not issue a COE that indicated the roles and responsibilities.  We tried to contact previous bosses from her firm but none were able to help unfortunately. Left with no option, we decided to execute a statutory declaration that was signed by Babes in which it stated her roles and responsibilities in Company X. It was also indicated in the statutory declaration the reason why she wasn’t able to secure a detailed COE from the company itself.

Once we had all these documents at hand, we had it certified as true copy (CTC) in a local lawyer in Singapore. The CTC’ed copy was then scanned as a PDF.

As mentioned, it was a tough task to secure all these but we are very much thankful to our families for assisting us in getting these documents; without such, we won’t be able to proceed in our skilled migrant visa application.

Australian Migrant Visa - Getting Started

It did not take long after returning from our vacation in Melbourne for us to decide that we want to try and see if we are eligible for an immigrant visa to Australia. In all honestly, at first we were not very hopeful as we were just freshly rejected in our New Zealand immigrant visa expression of intent – for me it was like, if little brother Kiwi rejected us then we probably won’t stand a chance in a more strict immigration criteria of big brother Australia.

We started researching some facts about moving to Australia as Skilled Migrant; in between reading informations published in the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) website and some other miscellaneous informations found in the web, I also became an active member of Pinoy Australia Information Forum (commonly know as Pinoy AU) - a forum managed by a Filipino that discusses anything related to Australia including getting in there.

Thankfully, we found out that the occupation of Babes (Accountant, General) is included in the skilled occupation list – good enough to know at this stage that we might have a chance to get the visa.

The process is tough and long and could possibly take months; we asked ourselves then if we would need an immigration lawyer to assist us. However upon asking about the range of fees being charged in Singapore for such services, we knew there and then that it was simply beyond our budget and it challenged us to do it on our own.

The below outlines what we have done before we were able to secure the coveted visa.

1. Securing of relevant documents
2. IELTS
3. Skills assessment from CPA Australia
4. Lodge an Expression of Intent (EOI) for a 189 visa
5. Apply for a 189 visa
6. Arrange for medical examination
7. Police clearance

It should be noted that for readers who may use this blog entry as a reference for their visa application, I will make this disclaimer that what we have written here are based solely on our personal experience and the fact that our nominated skills is that of  an accountant. It should be noted that item 2 & 3 above are where the difference will come in. Please check specific requirement based on your nominated skills.

By end of June 2012, we began the process to secure our skilled migrant visa.

The Beginning...

It was the 23rd of May 2011; I could recall that I called in sick that day because of a stomach flu. I also recall that there was a seat sale by Air Asia that started on that day as well - on offer was a roundtrip trip to Melbourne (for travel in 2012) for less than S$350. I called my then girlfriend Babes to check if a trip down under would be of interest to her. I had little doubt that she would oblige because Australia is a country that both of us really wanted to visit - it was really just a matter of getting a cheap ticket going there. And it didn't take too long before I booked a ticket for 14th June 2012.

It is not a typo, I did pay for tickets which we won't be using until more a year after...

Little did I know that the by buying those tickets, it would start a series of event which would ultimately lead us to embark on a new adventure.

Fast forward to mid-June 2012; we went on to visit Melbourne and instantly we fell in love with the place. And the rest they say is history.

Enjoying a stroll on a cool winter morning in Melbourne...

I will try to give a recount of how we got hold of our immigrant visa and at the same time I will try to live out the experience of two new migrant from the Philippines as we try to start a new life in Australia.

Bear with me as I am not really a born writer and but I will be doing my best to make this as interesting as possible for all of us...

Regards,
Marvin