Express Entry: Education and Work Experience

Question [Holthe Tilleman LLP website]:

Hi Mark, I am in the process of applying for PR to Canada. I am finishing my MBA in December and I am currently working in the IT sector as a Business Analyst (California, US).

My questions are:

Does it matter what my grades were when I completed my Masters?
Is a Business Analyst considered as a skilled job in Canada ?
I have 5+ years of experience in Banking and IT , would that help my case?

[Tweet “Express Entry – Are grades important for ECAs”]

Listen to Mark Holthe’s Answer

In this episode, you’ll discover:

the role grades play in Educational Credential Assessments
whether a business analyst is considered a skilled job for Express Entry
how to determine if your position is skilled for Express Entry
our new Canadian Immigration Podcast song

Explore Additional Resources

In this episode we mentioned the following resources:

Express Entry: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/index.asp
Educational Credential Assessments: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/assessment.asp
National Occupational Classification System (2011): http://www5.hrsdc.gc.ca/NOC/English/NOC/2011/Welcome.aspx

Read the Transcript

You can download a complete, word-for-word transcript of this episode, [spoiler]With Citizenship and Immigration Canada making it increasingly difficult to speak to an officer, there are few places to turn for information that can be relied upon. The Canadian Immigration Podcast was created to fill this void by offering the latest information on Canadian law, policy, and practice.

Please welcome ex-immigration officer and Canadian immigration lawyer, Mark Holthe as he answers a wide variety of immigration questions, and shares practical tips and guidance to help you along your way.

Well hello there, welcome. Today is Friday September the 4th and this is the Canadian Immigration Podcast, the Canadian Immigration Answers edition. I have a question that I’ve received from Grove [ph]. And once again I’m going to encourage everyone to test out that “ask an immigration question” widget on the side of our website ht-llp.com, and you can leave a voice message for me and then I can transcribe it or cut and paste it right into the audio file here for my podcast, so that you don’t have to listen to me mispronounce your name. Grove’s question is as follows.

I am in the process of applying for PR to Canada. I’m finishing an MBA in December and I am currently working in the IT sector as a business analyst in California. However, he says, my questions are as follows. One, does it matter what grades I have obtained in my previous Masters, and he indicates he completed his Masters of Science and Finance from Scotland. He actually has two other questions, but I’ll start with that question.

Fortunately and I haven’t actually been asked this question in the past, Citizenship and Immigration Canada doesn’t concern themselves too much about the grades as long as the credential was received. So if you are to go forward which I would encourage, and obtain an Education Credential Assessment from one of the designated entities that are designated to do that by CIC, they will be able to confirm exactly what that would equate to for the purposes of applying for permanent residence in Canada. But with respect to that question and what grades you received those are irrelevant for the purposes of immigrating.

The second question is, as a business analyst, is this considered a skilled job in Canada. With many positions, it’s pretty straight forward to determine how they would classify in terms of the skilled or low skilled distinction that the department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada uses when determining who they want to apply for permanent residence and who they don’t. In the case of a business analyst, you can go to the National Occupational Classification system, and make sure that you are looking at the 2011 edition, because that is what’s used for the purposes of permanent residence right now with CIC. And you will see that business analysts are classified under the National Occupational Classification system as not code 1122 under the professional occupations in business management consulting.

If you go to the matrix on the NOC 2011 website, and you open that up, and you search for the unit group associated with this position, you will see that it falls under skill level A, which is the occupations usually requiring a university education. So for the purposes of business analysts, yes indeed they would qualify for express entry as being skilled work.

And then the third question is, I have five plus years of experience in banking and IT. Will that help my case? Well in all circumstances, what Citizenship and Immigration Canada is looking at is whether or not you have skilled work experience. So the experience that you’ve acquired here Grove in banking and IT would have to be at the skilled level. And once again you take the job that you performed; you look at the duties that you performed, and find the corresponding position profile that is listed within the government of Canada’s National Occupation Classification system version 2011.

All right, I hope this answered those initial questions for you and anyone else who had similar related questions. Now I want to encourage you to go to my website www.ht-llp.com, and leave a question of your own if you would like me to answer it. If your questions are fairly general in nature, I do try to turn them around in the version of a podcast. However if they are really specific, then often I’ll have to tell you that we would actually need to set up a paid consult, because the type of information I would be giving is related mostly to your specific case and wouldn’t be of general use to necessarily to everyone that’s listening to this podcast.

So I hope you can understand that when you do get that email back, but if you do have general questions regarding anything related to permanent residence or work permits or really anything related to Canadian Immigration. If I don’t have the answer, I can probably figure out who’s best to answer that for you. I also wanted to let everyone know that very shortly we will be releasing a new website called the Canadian Immigration Podcast hosted by myself Mark Holthe. I’m really excited about that. It should be released in the next couple of days. And yes, thank you for that question Grove and I look forward to answering further questions in the future. Take care.

Thank you for listening to the Canadian Immigration Podcast, your trusted source for information on Canadian law, policy, and practice. If you would like to contribute a question for future podcasts, or wish to set up a legal consultation with Mark, please visit www.ht-llp.com.
[SONG]
Oh Canada, greatest country in the world,
We want to share, the richness of your soil,
This place I love my home and native land,
We welcome all and with you we’ll stand,
We’ll set you straight with love, policy, and practice,
Here on the Canadian Immigration podcast.

I am your guy, for info that’s up to date,
Help with your forms, or whatever you might need.
This place I love my home and native land,
We welcome all and with you we’ll stand,
We’ll set you straight with love, policy, and practice,
Here on the Canadian Immigration podcast.

To visit work or learn and grow,
If you need help we’ll meet your goals,
We’ll hold your hand; we’ll make it so,
Here on the Canadian Immigration podcast,
Here on the Canadian Immigration podcast.
Here on the Canadian Immigration podcast.
[/spoiler]

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