justme

Wow - I didn’t realise the jobs list was being updated next week. I’ve currently got an invite for 190 visa that I need to lodge by mid-February. We just got our newborn sons passport delivered, so could lodge now, but I was hoping to organise medicals next week to front load these. But perhaps it’d be better to get the visa application in now in case my profession is removed next week? I’m a construction project manager. What do you think very stormy?

Thanks Ali, will do. The only reason I had to see the specialist was because I couldn’t use the usual cream while pregnant and GP thought leaving me in pain using the toilet for 8 months was a bit cruel! Colo rectal surgeon couldn’t do anything for a pregnant lady either, given he considered it benign. Who’d have thought I’d need to declare a wee bum cut for a visa application. Suppose best to keep things right tho ...

Thanks Ali, it’s appreciated. Breast exam might be interesting given I’m nursing! Would they require consultants letter on anything you’ve had investigated/treated in the past, or would some issues be too trivial? I’ve had some problems during pregnancy with a fissure and saw a colo-rectal surgeon, who reported ‘completely benign’ to my GP. But I may have a small surgery in the next few months to remove a resultant skin tag and possibly administer some Botox there. I’m assuming that sort of thing would be insignificant, akin to something like haemorrhoids?!

Thanks Ali. So what are they testing for? Blood pressure, blood test, hiv, tb? We should be ok for all of that (I’ve been pregnant recently so had lots of tests and husband has had health check recently too for private medical insurance). Kids are just 2 years old and 2 months old so not much of a test for them I don’t think. I’m not really sure what I’m afraid of them finding, but don’t want to pay the thousands of pounds in application fees to then turn out to be ineligible if doctor discovers some hidden health problem. Possibly over thinking things ...

I understand that any doctor would be obliged to tell you if they discover something seriously wrong with you that you are unaware of. They can’t keep that sort of information ‘secret’ for the sake of a visa. We don’t have any health issues that we are aware of, as I said - so no reason to be concerned we won’t pass, but I’m just a worrier.

Hi I'm looking for some advice from someone who knows their stuff ideally. What is your opinion on having medicals carried out prior to submitting the visa application, and how do you go about it? I seem to need a HAP number and I’m unsure how/when in the application process I get that? I’m in the process of applying for the 190 visa sponsored by NSW but can’t get past about page 4 of the online form yet as I gave birth to a new child a few weeks ago and we’re waiting on his first passport arriving, so I can’t complete the details of my dependents yet. Passport should be with us within 3 weeks tops. So we have time to get medicals booked for 3 weeks from now. The reason I like the idea of front loading the medicals is not because we’re in a massive rush, but because it seems sensible to me to check that we’re all going to pass the medical before we pay the visa processing fee. None of us have any ill health that we know of. Look forward to any advice!

Hey, we got our NSW approval and190 invite through on Friday, 22nd December. That was after sending NSW through everything on 30th October. Hopefully yours will be coming soon

I’m hoping someone can advice me. I’m starting to fill in my 190 visa application - I’m being sponsored by NSW. My application is quite a simple one as I’m not claiming points for employment history, so it’s simply my ielts test results, skills assessment and qualifications. However I’ve already encountered a problem. The form asks if you’ve ever entered Australia before on a previous passport. I have, in 1998, for a three week visit. However this was two passports ago. I still have my last passport, but not my childhood one from 1998. It’s asking for the details of this passport. Any idea how I can find this out, given it was nearly 20 years ago? Also, I've not reached this part of the form yet, but when it comes to dependents ... I just had a new baby 7 weeks ago. Am I going to need a passport for him before I complete the visa application? Finally, what are people’s thoughts on doing medicals upfront? Thanks in advance for any help!

Hi, same for me. Invited 20th October and applied 30th October. Heard nothing yet. They do say up to 12 weeks but there were people here who responded to the 20th October invite within a couple of days who got their 190 invite within 3 weeks. Perhaps we’re just in a longer queue now as we took 10-11 days to respond? Fingers crossed not too much longer ...

Hi Stuart and Scubacam just wondering how long it took from you sending off all the info to NSW after their invitation to actually getting the 190 visa invite? It says up to 12 weeks but seems it might be quicker? I responded to the NSW invite on 31st October (invited on 20th Oct) and wondering if we might expect our 190 invite soon ....

Yah - nice one Reubs! I put in my NSW application the other day too. Fingers crossed for a quick turnaround

Nice one, well done Stuart. I got 190 invite from NSW on Friday morning too with 65 points. Construction Project Manager. I also only submitted recently after having no luck waiting for 189 with 60 points. Think construction workers must be high on the NSW priorities list perhaps. Gives some hope for non pro rata occupations waiting on 189s with 60 points. Hopefully you’ll get an invite soon too Reubs.

Yeah, I think if can get an invite for 190 without having to include employment at all then it'd bound to make things easier. That's what I'm thinking ... no need to include all the evidence of employment. Fingers crossed for you

OK, just had a quick check and it is the case that professions that are assessed by VETASSESS have the first year of their employment deducted. "Generally with VETASSESS general professional occupations the applicant is only ‘deemed skilled’ after completing a year’s ‘skilled employment’" It seems that this is different depending on your assessing authority. So it's probable that this isn't the case for electrician, if you haven't seen anything written about it before. Lucky you!! If VETASSESS didn't deduct that year from me I'd have an extra 5 points and have been invited for a 189 by now. Not sure why they do it. Anyway, good luck with the 190. I got an invite from NSW for 190 a couple of days ago, so probably going to go with that too if the 189 invites don't increase for November.

Sorry, I've no idea if it's only for certain professions, I'll take a look now and try and find out. It's definitely the case for Construction Project Manager when assessed with Vetassess - maybe it's different for trades. I studied for 7 years as an architect (and also worked in architecture for 5 years), but nonetheless they deducted the first of the 5 years that I was working in Project Management as my 'qualifying period'.

Hi Reubs Did you get 'points test advice' when you got your skills assessment - i.e. did they tell you how many years of experience they consider you to have? Or did they just assess you as 'positive' to say that you meet the criteria as an electrician? It's two separate parts of the skills assessment - one to say whether you meet the criteria for your professions (this is a positive skills assessment), plus another part to advice you on how many years of experience you can claim on your EOI. But they only give you the 'points advice' for the number of years of experience if you request this service and pay extra for it. Did you do that and, if so, how many years of positive experience does it say on your letter from them? I'm definitely no expert and hopefully one will be along soon, but I think you can only count experience from the time you are officially qualified. And even with that you need to deduct the first year as they take that away as a sort of qualification period. On my skills assessment they accepted 5.1 years of my experience as relevant to Construction Project Manager, but the number they put on my letter was 4.1 years as the first year was deducted. Even then I am not claiming the extra 5 points as they failed to deduct my maternity leave from that 4.1 years and they rounded up a month between two jobs. So if that was all taken in to consideration I'm actually a couple of weeks short of 3 years experience. I don't want to be caught out by not actually meeting the points, so I'm not claiming any points at all for work experience. I understand that you don't get your visa application money back if you make false claims so don't want to risk it! Are you still working as an electrician now? So in 8 months time you will be able to claim the 5 points again, if you are unable to just now? Also, could you apply for a 190 instead to get the extra 5 points?

Hi All Unofficial results from the 18th October round look as if the 65 pointers from non pro rata occupations only moved 4 days forward. So they are getting backed up again, meaning even longer to wait for a 189 invite for 60 pointers. Unless the numbers invited increase a lot. Good news for us - I received an invite from NSW to apply for state sponsorship for the 190 visa this morning. Think that part can take another few weeks and only then you get the actual 190 invite. So I’ll probablt wait a few days to respond to see if the 189 invites are increasing loads in November or anything. Exciting stuff though - would be quite happy to live in NSW! good luck for the next rounds all

From Iscah website, for anyone who is interested: Unofficial Skill Select Results 18th October 2017 UNOFFICIAL skill select results of the 18th October Skill Select round for 189 visa These are our observations on the results overnight. Our guess is that it was a double round (for Accountants only) at least given the invite date has moved forward at least 29 days. And given the likely build up of a few 80 pointers in the system that would have to be cleared first. 2211 Accountants – 75 points – 04/09/2017 2212 Auditors – 75 points – 05/08/2017 2334 Electronics Engineer 65 points – 12/09/2017 (18/09/2017 – not confirmed) 2335 Industrial, Mech and Prod Engineers 65 points 22/04/2017 2339 Other Engineering Professionals – 70 points – 13/10/2017 2611 ICT Business and System Analysts 70 points – 18/07/2017 2613 Software/Applic Programmers 65 points – 15/04/2017 2631 Computer Network Professionals 65 points – 03/03/2017 ALL OTHER NON Pro rata occupations – 65 points – 27/09/2017 – If you have any more recent credible results please email details to us at query@iscah.com, thanks – This table will be updated as we get more info in the next 48 hours (Note these are unofficial results from our own cases, online forums and other sources, they are not DIBP figures).

Iscah news page has unofficial results. It’s based on their own cases.

I don’t think so. The Iscah website is showing that the cut off for non-pro-Rata was 65 points for EOI up to 27th September. Unofficial obviously. I hope this is wrong as the 4th October Round was 65 points up until 23rd September. This would mean that the non-pro-rata only moved 4 days and is therefore getting backed up again, meaning even longer before any 60 pointers from the end of June start to be invited. Apparently, according to Iscah, they invited double the amount of accountants this round ...

Yeh that’s a pain in the ass if you’re ready to go already. I wasn’t that bothered about the wait initially as I’m expecting another baby next month so would have had to wait until after that before doing the medicals anyway. But didn’t think it could potentially take until April/May 2018 to even get an invite. Plus the time for the visa to be granted has increased now too. So could be stuck here for more than a year more. Would be great though get invite before the end of the year. I’ve also had skills assessment since April too and could’ve submitted the EOI in June if I had been able to get booked in to an IELTS test earlier ... Too late now. So I guess we just have to try to be patient. We could really do with moving house as well but difficult to know if it’s worth doing it or not when no idea how soon/if a move to Oz might be on the cards.

Hi Reubs, we spoke about this before. It's so frustrating, isn't it? As a reminder, I'm also on 60 points and non-pro-rata (Construction Project Manager). My date of EOI is 9th July. If the invite numbers had stayed as high as they were in September then I was expecting an invite in October, but with it going back down to 1250 per round in October then it means that they are only just about keeping up with those on 65 points. So basically it's all completely dependent on how many invites they decide to issue each round. If they announce that it's back up to 1750 per round, or thereabouts, for November then I should get an invite in the first round in November (and you probably next). But if the numbers remain at 1250 then I don't think we'll get invited for many, many months ... until the pro-rata occupations reach their ceilings. So it's a total unknown! And meanwhile the whole system could change or be scrapped altogether! Difficult to plan/think ahead when there are so many variables. I've now applied for 190 for NSW too to increase options, but nothing from there yet either. Not much we can do! You would think that it'd be beneficial to the system to have more of a mix of professions going through tho - i.e. inviting the top 20 pointers for each profession before sharing the rest of the places out to those with highest points. That way you might get 20 GPs on 60 points, 20 construction project managers, 20 electricians on 60 points etc ... rather than 1000s of accountants and IT workers on 75 points and a handful of everyone else. But I guess they have the system the way they have for a reason? What will be will be ...

That’s excellent, thank you very much, I’ll do it tonight. Best wishes,

Richard - I wonder if you can confirm that it’s OK to submit a whole new EOI for the 190? Rather than adding to my current EOI? I don’t want my current EOI submission date put back from July to October by making an update. Just in case invitation numbers increase again in November and 60 pointers start getting invites ...

My word, that level of misunderstanding is surprising!