cuberoot

Noted. I'll wait until I have IELTS in hand then. Thanks for the tip.

I am currently preparing my EOI for a 189 Visa. It will be 70 or 75 points, so I'm pretty happy. Assuming I get lucky in the April or May invitation rounds, I would like to know how long the rest of the Visa process takes. I know that once I get EOI invite to apply, I have 60 days to submit the 189 Visa application. 1) Is the 189 Visa application simply showing positive EOI and then making the payment, all within 60 days of invite? Or is there more documentation that I need to dig up? I'm hoping that with Skills assessment and positive EOI, I've got everything I need? Even if I have to re-upload certain documents that I used for skills assessment? 2) Once Visa application is lodged, what are the approximate timelines and deadlines? A rough look seems to indicate 1 month to get a case officer allocated then another month to get a yes/no on the visa? I've seen I might need medical and police checks etc. All of this can take time. Is there a deadline when all of this must be done? I'm wondering if there is anything that I should preparing for once I hear back about EOI. Or is it all pretty much dependent on the Case officer and not worth worrying about until I get to that point? I just don't want to miss out on a visa because of a technicality. I assume there must be some kind of deadline for dealing with a case officer and getting the full application together? Im sure they don't want to wait months for people to get back with documents and medicals etc. Or is it actually normal that things could take 6 months or more?

I'm planning to apply on 28th as well James. If my IELTS results are not ready in time, I might postpone to middle of May. Although I could take a risk and apply anyway. I'm pretty confident with my results.

Just to update everybody. I got the results of my ACS assessment today. It was successful! IELTS next week, then hopefully EOI in May. I applied 22/02/2014 - so just under 8 weeks. I'm very pleased, it is a month earlier than I expected.

This seems to be working again. Must have been a glitch over the weekend. My application is still in the same status. Guess I'll have to keep waiting.

I submitted my ACS assessment in February. It quickly went to Stage 4 and when I logged in to the status page there was a blue status graphic describing the steps. I logged in today to check if there were any updates, but now I get a message: Content cannot be accessed Anybody else seeing the same issue? Should I contact them or is this just a tech glitch?

Unfortunately, you can only claim the years of experience stated on the ACS assessment. This is a bit of a pain, since it currently takes 3 months for an ACS assessment to be carried out.

Don't mean to make things worse, but I believe IELTS has a 2 year validity period and not 3 years. https://www.ielts.org/institutions/institutions_faqs/test_scores.aspx

I would also be interested in this.

Congrats! Sounds like a very strong case, so doubt you'll have any problems.

Yes, I'm in a similar situation and I've come to the same conclusion. My skills assessment is in progress, but I hope to scrape through on points without employment. You can only claim skilled employment starting on the date you get back from ACS, which is what they call "Skill Level Requirement Met Date". For an ICT diploma closely related to chosen occupation this is Diploma+5 years.

Ok, thanks. That does make sense. I did think that it was too good to be true.

I'm in the fortunate position where I can get 65 points without claiming points for work experience. 30: Age 20: IELTS 15: Degree My occupation is on the SOL, do I still need to submit and wait for a Skills Assessment before applying for EOI?

Hopefully that means you will get the results soon. Good luck.

I'd love to know this too.

I'm guessing you should hear any day now. I know ACS was closed until mid-Jan, so looks like you've had about 10 weeks of ACS time?

I agree. Getting an IELTS now is a good idea if you are confident with the ACS result (otherwise you are throwing away a bit of money). Im waiting for my ACS at the moment, so I'm booking my IELTS in the next few days. I've not seen any mention of ACS taking less than 12 weeks in 2014 in any of the forums that I read. So I think 12 weeks is currently what you can expect unfortunately. Of course, I hope for all of us that we get results earlier.

I believe it needs to be assessed too, but I think that is what the ACS skills assessment does. At least I hope so.

True. I'm May or even June is probably more realistic for me. I'm a little bit worried about squeezing my application in before July, since I believe that is when the new Skilled Occupations List comes out every year. I hope you hear back soon, you are the only person I've heard about that has similar time scale to me.

I've not got a result yet, so I don't know, but I believe that it basically says either positive/negative for your designated occupation and then lists the number of years that they consider relevant work experience. The threshold for relevant work experience can be number of things, but the basic one is a degree + 2 years work experience. If you don't have a degree, then it is much longer work experience and I believe you have to apply for RPL (recognition of prior learning) as well. Don't take my word for it though.

I'm in a similar situation. It is a bit confusing, but I've submitted an ACS skills assessment: http://www.acs.org.au/migration-skills-assessment I'm not getting my Bachelors degree certified since I believe it is considered equivalent to an Australian one. It isn't very clear on their website though: 3 – Skills Assessment This is a general skills assessment application to assess tertiary ICT qualification s and ICT employment. 4 – Recognition Letter The ACS Recognition Letter is NOT a skills assessment. This application is if you already hold a skills assessment and require recognition of your ICT qualifications or ICT skilled employment for migration purposes.

In case there is anybody in a similar situation, I've submitted an ACS skills assessment on 22/02/2014 and it went to step 4 on 24/02/2014. I hope it moves quickly! I hope to submit EOI in April. Perhaps this thread should be a sticky for any other ACS candidates?

Right, that could complicate things for me. I was hoping for skilled independent. I'll have to keep an eye on that. Thanks for the link. Earliest I would be able to apply for Skills Assessment is late February, so if there is some delay with Skill Assessment, I might not get my EOI back in time. I guess I'll just have to submit the Skills Assessment and see how it goes.

Yes, I've looked at the timelines for processing again, and it is long enough anyway. I was just worried that if I did get accepted, I would only have a short time to get all the documents together and move my life to Aus. I think the best approach is to submit the Skills Assessment first. This can take up to 12 weeks for ACS. Then submit EOI. EOI can take about 10 weeks or more. Then if accepted, I've got 60 days to apply for the visa. So in reality, there is about 6 months or more to prepare things.

I am about to start the process of preparing an ACS skills assessment and then submitting an EOI. It looks like the skills assessment is valid for 2 years. How long can I wait before submitting an EOI?