I thought I would share my experiences in sorting my Skilled Migration Visa in the hope that someone in a similar position may find some of this information handy. I have done everything myself so far - lots of reading up and research on the way.
My first step was to get a positive ACS skills assessment for migration under 263111 of the ANZSCO code.
Documents needed: Degree certificate, Degree transcripts listing all modules taken and scores, scanned copy of Passport, Reference from previous job, Statutory declaration for current job.
I graduated in 1999, so while I had a copy of my degree certificate somewhere, I needed to get the transcript. Universities probably deal with requests like this all the time, and mine was no different. I emailed the university’s Student Services with my personal details and with that they found my student number and sent me a link to the web page where i could order certified transcript copies online. This cost £12 and took around 2-3 days to arrive once ordered. Quite a quick process and I'm sure most Universities are efficient when it comes to this sort of thing.
I have been in my current position for over 8 years, and held my previous job for 4, so needed a reference for both jobs to have the best chance of claiming the 15 points for skilled employment I wanted. I emailed the HR department of my previous job asking politely for a reference to be written in the format ACS expect it to be in (http://acs.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/7570/Skilled-Employment-Reference-Example.pdf). They kindly obliged and even sent me a draft to double check it was ok before posting to me. Not all companies will be so obliging, but I guess if you don’t ask you don’t get.
There was no way to get a reference for my current job without risking compromising my position (we don't plan to move for a year or so) so I opted for a Statutory Declaration from a colleague who is in a Senior position (but also a friend so someone I can trust). It took some time to draft up the Declaration with all of my responsibilities and I left nothing to chance making sure each role would match in some way to the duties listed in the ANZSCO description for my chosen job (https://www.acs.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/7641/ANZSCO-Descriptions-2015.pdf). It’s worth taking your time with this. The (UK) Statutory Declaration part was structured like this:
“I [name of colleague, position, company, England] do solemnly declare that:”
[my name, details about my job title, start date to end date (as it is still my current job I put “present date (date in brackets)”]
[Duties/Responsibilities/Activities listed]
“I make this solemn declaration conscientiously believing the same to be true, and by virtue of the provisions of the Statutory Declarations Act 1835”
At the bottom of the page, be sure to include space for the following - I had mistakenly omitted it and had to hand write this which my solicitor thankfully said was fine in the end.
Declared at:
This Day:
Sworn before:
No need to date the document as the Solicitor or Notary will need to do this. After asking around for prices, I went with a Solicitor close to work so I could pop out at lunchtime with my colleague to get the documents certified. Prices in my area (SW London) seem to be quite close - I ended up paying £10 per page to certify, and £5 to witness the signing of the statutory declaration. There is also the option of getting a Justice of the Peace to do this at your local county court, and probably for free or at a nominal cost. I was quoted £25 for everything which was a lot cheaper but the court was not close enough to get to at lunchtime and I had to consider my colleague’s time.
Applying for the skills assessment was easy via the ASC website - I scanned all of the certified documents and submitted them in the application. Turnaround seems to be a lot quicker than the 12 weeks quoted these days. I submitted my application on the 1st March, got an email on the 3rd March confirming my documents had been received and processing of my application was about to commence. I received my result letter on the morning of 10th March, so from application it took 9 days. My BSC Computer Science was assessed as being comparable to a AQF Bachelor Degree with a major in Computing, and I was given 9 years of skilled employment :-)
Next step is to take the English test to get the 5 points I need. I have opted to go with PTE Academic due to the quicker turnaround of results (5 days quoted, but normally in 48 hours) and hope to get my EOI in before the invitation round on or around 10th April..fingers crossed!!
