Henrin

You might be right. I browsed many forums looking for similar cases than mine and found some grants, some rejections and many withdrawals... I decided to give a call to the DIBP in the UK and they advised me to stick on with my application and write a cover letter explaining my situation and attach it to the application. I guess that did the trick and saved me some $$$$$.

Direct grant! After all of advises of withdrawing my application and stuff.... So happy right now! Lodged 4th of May.

Did your agent mention anything about a possible refund?

Thanks for your reply! I understand. The thing what is really annoying is that my qualifications are Microsoft Certifications, basically just a test you can do meanwhile working full time. So you are actually not studying at all, instead you learn by working and then go and do the test. I believe for me it would have been more advantageous for not to claim the MS Certifications as a qualification and try to assess the work experience only. That way I could have gain 15 points instead of 10. I also have a basic degree in IT (compared to TAFE level in AUS I guess) which I graduated 2005. After that I started working fulltime in IT. However ACS did not validate this degree in the assessment unfortunately.

Unfortunately I have just realised today that I have fallen into the same trap! I have my application lodged already and I claimed 65 points in my EOI : -Age: 10 points (30) -Language: 10 points for proficient English (IELTS Result 7+ in each component) -Qualification: 10 points - (An award or qualification recognised by the assessing authority in the assessment of the skilled occupation) -Work experience: 15 (In skilled employment for at least eight and up to 10 years (of the past 10 years) My ACS assessment states the following: Your skills have been assessed to be suitable for migration under 263111 (Computer Network and Systems Engineer) of the ANZSCO Code. Your qualifications have been assessed as follows: Your Microsoft Certified IT Professional from Microsoft completed July 2011 has been assessed as comparable to an AQF Diploma with a major in computing. Your Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist from Microsoft completed June 2011 has been assessed as comparable to an AQF Diploma with a major in computing. The following employment after June 2011 is considered to equate to work at an appropriately skilled level and relevant to 263111 (Computer Network and Systems Engineer) of the ANZSCO Code. Dates: 06/03 - 11/05 (2yrs 5mths) Position: Desktop System Specialist Employer: XXXXXXX Country: FINLAND Dates: 12/05 - 07/06 (0yrs 7mths) Position: Systems Specialist Employer: XXXXXXX Country: FINLAND Dates: 07/06 - 04/08 (1yrs 9mths) Position: IT System Specialist Employer: XXXXXX Country: FINLAND Dates: 04/08 - 09/13 (5yrs 5mths) Position: Technical Architect Employer: XXXXXXXXXX Country: FINLAND -------------------------------------------- So what I completely missed in this letter was the words "after June 2011". Instead of 10 years of experience I am apparently only supposed to claim 2 years and 3 months of experience which gives me 0 points. What is quite confusing is that between April 2008 and September 2013 I was working in the same job in the same role however only about a half of that work is counted towards applicable work experience! After my ACS assessment I have worked in closely related positions in Australia for 11 months, and now I have been working in Finland for 4 months. So there are many options here I guess: -They will follow the ACS Assessment letter which then gives me 5 points for work experience. That will take me to 55 in total and I will not be qualified for 189 and my application will be rejected. -They will accept the whole 10 years and 2 months of work experience that has been mentioned in the ACS Assessment letter. That will keep me in 65. -They could accept 5 years and 5 months of work experience from the ACS letter which would then take me to 60 points in total. However in this case this would still mean that I would have claimed false points in EOI (claiming 65 instead of 60). My opinion is that all of my work experience is directly related to the Network and Systems Engineer -occupation. What are your suggestions what should I do? I have uploaded a great amount of documentation of all the work experience I have. I do not have a CO assigned yet.

Wohoo! I did the test again and received the results today. I didn't do any preparation courses but read some 10 minutes of instructions for the Writing section and had now raised the points in writing from 6.5 to 7.0 which is enough! Here we come EOI.

Thanks, I think I might just do that... I would actually only need to go from 6.5 -> 7.0 to gain 10 points of the test. It would take me to 65 points overall.

Hi! I am an IT-professional looking to reach out for the 189 Skilled visa with 263111 (Computer Network and Systems Engineer) of the ANZSCO Code. I do have an assessment ready from ACS with 10 years of experience and my qualification was assessed as AQF diploma. Taking consideration my age, this would take me to total of 55 points (Age 20, Work Experience 15, Qualification 10). I have completed IELTS test with an overall score of 8, however reading and writing components were 6.5 (I speak English as my second language ) so I did not gain any additional points from the test. So I still need 5 points to make it to 60 for putting my EOI in. I spent 13 months in Australia (12months with Work and Holiday, and 1 month with a tourist visa) and I worked in the IT-industry from November 2013 until October 2014. This experience was not submitted to the ACS assessment as the assessment was done before. How strict is the Immigration with the numbers, I know that this will add up 11 months of Australian experience, not 12 which would definitely give me the needed 5 points... Or could I qualify for "professional year in Australia" and gain 5 points that way? Or do you think my best bet is just to re-do IELTS and try to score better points? Thanks for your help/opinions! -Henri-