Assessing the Express Entry Assessors when immigrating to Canada
As most people already know the Canadian federal skilled worker program was revamped significantly and re-launched at the beginning of 2015. The program currently encompasses two stages. The first requires that candidates receive 67 points which are allocated on the basis of several factors. The second requires that those candidates who attained the 67 points be put into a pool with all such candidates and then the candidates with high enough scores are chosen from the pool to get PR status.
How difficult is it to get in?
Despite what some people believe, the program is really no more difficult than it was previously. The criteria have changed to some extent. However, Canada will not take in fewer workers than previously and, therefore, assuming that that the number of applicants remains similar to previous years, Canada does not intend to exclude more candidates than in previous years.
It is useful to examine the criteria that immigration officers use to evaluate applications in order to determine whether it is possible to improve your score and, if so, then how. The factors considered are the following:
1. English and/or French Language Skills
2. Education
3. Experience
4. Age
5. Arranged employment
6. Adaptability
When looking at these factors, it is worthwhile to isolate those that you actually have the control to change and, also importantly, that you can change relatively quickly and without the expenditure of substantial effort. The only one that cannot be changed at all is age. Education can be changed but only with the investment of much time and effort. Adaptability can also be changed but likely not without significant time and effort.
That leaves us with three: language skills, experience, and arranged employment. All three of these are ones that can be changed without necessarily investing much time and effort. Language skills account for a large number of points, especially at the first stage. Immigration officers assess language based solely on test results from tests such as IELTS. We know from experience working with skilled workers immigrating to Canada than IELTS scores can be improved with practice and study.
How can experience be changed? Well, if you think of experience rigidly as being something that you did in the past several years and have a very specific definition of your professional role then there probably isn’t much that can be done. However, occasionally it is worthwhile to recall back what you have actually done in the past five or so years and you will usually realize that there is much more than what you initially thought. You can redefine your professional roles and experience in a way that focuses on the experiences that will best position you to succeed with an immigration application or to get a job offer from a Canadian company.
Lastly, arranged employment is something that can also be changed. Arranged employment is probably the single most important factor to focus on because there are a huge number of points allotted to this factor and having a job offer could easily tip the scales in the direction of getting PR status. Though getting a job offer takes time and effort it is certainly less than, for example, trying to earn another degree in order to get more points for education.
Though the factors used to assess Express Entry applications may seem fairly immovable at first glance, it is important to realize that through some effort the number of points can be increased.