on your own
hello,
i feel that i can speak with some authority on the subject of emigrating/obtaining visas without an agent as my wife and myself have canadian & australian residency,(obtained over the last 3 years). without going in the reasons we have two visas,(we are off to oz), i shall tell you how we did it.
basically it depends which visa you are going for, if you have plenty of money a recognised agent would be less hassle,(so i am led to believe), however you don't want to spend the cash,(prices vary), or enjoy a challenge then do it your self.
i am a time served metal fabricator,(on the trade demand list), and my wife is a trained butcher/manager, so we went for the skilled independent 136 visa. this visa lets you work anywhere in oz doing whatever you want for work.
for both our visas,(canadian & oz), we had to submit as much of our work history as possible. this was easy for my wife as she has only worked for one firm, so all her certificates were at hand and references/job descriptions easy to obtain.
my job history was another matter,(i have had 44 jobs,approx...37 yrs old), this goes with the nature of my trade/employment, short term contracts. i am fortunate that over the years i have kept all my trade certificates, and most firms that i have left i have obtained a letter of redundancy/reference/contract copy/wage slip/health and safety course...etc,etc. i have worked in oz before so i have an australian trade cert. this enabled us to put our application straight in and not have to go to the TRA.
i put copies of my wifes certs in with our application even though they had not been assessed by the TRA.
they say they want to know what you have done with the first 4/5 years of your working life and the last 3/4,(unsure). i could account for these times but i also tried to put in a complete work history with references and wage slips or one or the other. were i had been unemployed i tried to find out exact dates but the dss couldn't give me exact dates, so i put in a covering letter explaining the nature of my job and that i had tried the dss and if they do not know if i was unemployed for 1 month in say june 1990 then i cannot say that i was, so my work history is a best guess.
be persistent when contacting ex employers, phone/e-mail first, then write including a stamp addressed envelope, you should get something back. even if it isn't exactly what you want it helps to fill in the gaps. read exactly what the oz authorities want...job description/hours worked/wages..etc,etc, rather than he or she was good worker.
at the end of the day the immigration people are looking for you to prove you are a..........whatever your trade/proffession is....and in my opinion by giving them more than they asked for it presented a better picture of what i have been doing since leaving school. especially in my situation where firms have gone bust etc.
make things clear and type the information when possible, get as much as you can. make sure you get all your photocopied doc's countersigned by a solicitor,(shop around ,prices vary A LOT!).Be persistant & you'll enjoy the challenge. its a good feeling when you get your work history together and you know you have saved x amounts of ££££'s.
all this is just my opinion, other people may disagree, but at the end of the day we have residency for oz and canada, done by ourselves so it can't be that wrong.
hope it helps,(a lot to take in!!).
johnd
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