Road To Australian Permanent Residency
Posted in Life and Thoughts on Oct 15, 2008
So I have decided to get an immigration agent to help me handle my PR application and hope that it can be done nicely. I’m currently holding a temporary long stay busines visa (457) and will be applying for an offshore skill migration visa (175). For the coming months, I’ll update this post to record my experiences and road to getting my PR.
15th October 2008
1. Sent out the application form to Canberra for IELTS english test. There has been a newly open test session to meet the demand of PR application just yesterday. The test date wil be on 20th November 2008 (for poeple residing in WA only).
2. Signed an agreement with my agent and was told what doucments to prepare including:
- Birth certificate for police clearances from both Australia and my home country
- University letter of completion, academic record and graduate certificate for skill assessment.
According to my agent, police clearances and medical inspection can be done at a latter stage, but the least that I can do now is to apply for an IELTS test and apply for a skill assessment with Institute of Engineers Australia. Ain’t it a surprise that skills assessment for engineers cost $110 but $350 for accountants?
* These experiences are purely mine and are here for your references. Your mileage might vary if you decide to follow through what I’ve done. You should consult a professional or agent if you’re looking for advices.
18th October 2008
It’s Saturday and I went to see my agent. Learnt that I don’t need letter of completion from my Uni since I have more then a year of working experience but do need the official transcript (those with units title and results). I did brought a copy of the transcript which was printed from the uni portal but that wasn’t accepted, I will need to provide an official copy which you probably can get from the University’s Student Services for around 10 bucks.
My agent told me that I will get 10 points due to the fact that I have a year of working experience. It also means that even if I get 6 for all 4 bands in the IELTS test, that would be enough for me to get 120 points to satisfy the points requirements to apply for PR. I’m confident that I can get at least all 7 nevertheless.
My agent asked for a copy of the contract / appointment letter as it will be used as a reference to write some kind of letter. Not sure who is that targetted to but I suspect it’s to Engineers Australia at this stage.
ah i need to apply next year once i finish my degree. im not too sure whether i’ll do it myself or with an agent. doesnt it cost like a thousand bucks to use an agent? *sigh*
It’s not a thousand, most agents will quote you a price starting from $AUS 2K just for the agent fee.
My view on it is to get an IELTS test booked way earlier before you finish your degree, apply for skills assessment once you’re in your last sem, and get a police clearance from your home country. Those things are usually what consume the longest time to get.