juliaoz01 Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Hello, I'm just after some info from any welders or tradies who have been through vet assess as I know this whole process is like being in a giant tumble dryer and never knowing when or if you'll get out, but I just need a bit if guidance if you are now in oz or have been granted your visa?? Basically we have submitted our paper assessment to vet assess as a welder and should hear back in about 6 weeks. I know then you have to sit a trade test - how long is this usually after? I just want a rough idea of timelines from paper assessment to practical, to eoi, to visa being granted. I know it's different for everyone but if you could share your experiences that'd be a huge help. We are going on a skilled visa or regional visa, tbc at the moment. Any help greatly appreciated! Thank you Julia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Welder Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Hi I completed Vetassess towards the end of last year. Pre- assessment I kept an eye on this page for dates of the practicals. http://www.vetassess.com.au/migrate_to_australia/ts_practical_assessment_schedule.cfm It isn't showing any at the moment, but it does change regularly. My timeline is below to give you an idea. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliaoz01 Posted June 6, 2013 Author Share Posted June 6, 2013 Hi I can't see your timeline or am I being very blonde today?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter bull Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Hi My time line also at the bottom of the page Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliaoz01 Posted June 6, 2013 Author Share Posted June 6, 2013 Hi Thanks to you both for your responses. Well, you have both restored my confidence a bit! May I ask if you did this all yourself or through an agent? All I really want from my agent is a rough idea of how long we are talking about and I know things change, but we the rental on our house ends next March and I just wanted to make some plans, but she is having none of it. She said we will reassess where you are then, which doesnt really fill me with much confidence. We are just waiting on the results fo the initial vetassess application, then it will be the practical which will be no problem, but she sees them all as hurdles which makes me think what am i doing??? I can see from both your turn around that things have gone through in less than a year! We really want to just say thanks for your help so far if the trade assessment is positive, as the trade test for my partner i know wont be an issue. I just feel very frustrated, and yes we are impatient and want to be in Oz like ten years ago, but we just need a bit of hope that we could actually be there this time next year, and not waiting on our EOI this time next year or just stuck here still! Thanks again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Welder Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Hi Thanks to you both for your responses. Well, you have both restored my confidence a bit! May I ask if you did this all yourself or through an agent? All I really want from my agent is a rough idea of how long we are talking about and I know things change, but we the rental on our house ends next March and I just wanted to make some plans, but she is having none of it. She said we will reassess where you are then, which doesnt really fill me with much confidence. We are just waiting on the results fo the initial vetassess application, then it will be the practical which will be no problem, but she sees them all as hurdles which makes me think what am i doing??? I can see from both your turn around that things have gone through in less than a year! We really want to just say thanks for your help so far if the trade assessment is positive, as the trade test for my partner i know wont be an issue. I just feel very frustrated, and yes we are impatient and want to be in Oz like ten years ago, but we just need a bit of hope that we could actually be there this time next year, and not waiting on our EOI this time next year or just stuck here still! Thanks again We didn't use an agent. Has your agent provided you with a rough timescale for the visas you are interested in? The ones we enquired to gave us printouts (general guide) of the process for both the independent and the sponsored skilled visas. I would share them with you, but they were based on the previous (175 and 176) visas, so not relevant anymore. It might be worth having a read through some of the 'visa lodged' threads to give you some idea of how long visa applications are taking just now. Part of the reason we did not use an agent was so we had control over the timing of things. (to an extent) We emailed Vetassess and asked them if we could 'speed up' the first part of the process to make the next practical assessment, which was only a few weeks away for example. They advised us to scan the documents and email them, before posting. By the time the documents had been received by them, (about 1 week) they had processed them all and I was able to book the practical. How does your point score look? Do you need points from IELTS? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliaoz01 Posted June 6, 2013 Author Share Posted June 6, 2013 Hi Thanks for your reply again. No, they are very non committal over timelines etc. it is all IF you get this and things change blah blah blah but to not even be able to say typically our customers similar to you have took x amount of time really puts us in a situation where you have no idea what is going on. The whole gathering of evidence for my partners assessment was a farce. He's not time served but has 7 years skilled experience and asme codings. If it comes back negative I think ill be surprised but you never can tell. Ielts wise he sat it and got 7s but ideally we need 8s as want the skilled visa without regional sponsorship but I think we'd take the offer working in a little fan shop in the back of Bourke at the moment! I've emailed vet assess to ask when the next practical assessment date is for welding in the uk. There isn't any shortly but the last one was may so I'm reckoning September. After that I just done see what the huge drama is. I just think I should say thanks so far and call it a day after that and do it myself. We have another 2k at least to pay them after this and that's money we need. We used them as I thought it'd be faster and more reliable but we are now 5 months in to the process and really still at the start. Pretty depressing. Plus I feel like a pest every time I ask them anything. I just get told cant tell you as each case is unique and kind of you do your job and we will do ours! Is the weld assessment still a practical test or is it a technical interview? Cheers again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliaoz01 Posted June 6, 2013 Author Share Posted June 6, 2013 Ps - so it took you a week to get assessed?! But that's only because of the practical? So why do they not just email them? No, I think I like to know when I'm doing stuff and what's being done, no offence to anyone on here but we are desperate to get out of here! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Welder Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Hi Thanks for your reply again. No, they are very non committal over timelines etc. it is all IF you get this and things change blah blah blah but to not even be able to say typically our customers similar to you have took x amount of time really puts us in a situation where you have no idea what is going on. The whole gathering of evidence for my partners assessment was a farce. He's not time served but has 7 years skilled experience and asme codings. If it comes back negative I think ill be surprised but you never can tell. Ielts wise he sat it and got 7s but ideally we need 8s as want the skilled visa without regional sponsorship but I think we'd take the offer working in a little fan shop in the back of Bourke at the moment! I've emailed vet assess to ask when the next practical assessment date is for welding in the uk. There isn't any shortly but the last one was may so I'm reckoning September. After that I just done see what the huge drama is. I just think I should say thanks so far and call it a day after that and do it myself. We have another 2k at least to pay them after this and that's money we need. We used them as I thought it'd be faster and more reliable but we are now 5 months in to the process and really still at the start. Pretty depressing. Plus I feel like a pest every time I ask them anything. I just get told cant tell you as each case is unique and kind of you do your job and we will do ours! Is the weld assessment still a practical test or is it a technical interview? Cheers again I wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes with an agent like that! What has taken 5 months then...IELTS and documentation for skills assessment? From memory last year there was a practical in May, then I'm sure there was one in July, and I got the next one in September. When I did it you had a choice of practical assessment in London, or technical interview. (via Skype or something I think) I opted for the practical assessment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliaoz01 Posted June 6, 2013 Author Share Posted June 6, 2013 Ha ha I like it - now you see my frustration?! It's just so bloody annoying! It was the gathering of info. They sent me these crappy templates and I ended up doing my own anyway and they wanted originals of company welding procedures which was basically like cadburys releasing their recipe for dairy milk! I just thought come on! So I think I've been pretty patient. Then they needed loads of defacto evidence and we aren't even at that stage yet! Then I'm constantly reminded my partner will be 33 in jan and we need to hurry so I'm a bit demented! I'm tempted to contact vet assess myself but I don't know if I can now they've posted it all. I'm hoping its September then we can lodge an eoi I hope but I think I just need to take control before I lose it completely. The guy we met wasn't anything like this and I just feel like we have been played a bit :-/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliaoz01 Posted June 6, 2013 Author Share Posted June 6, 2013 Ps (again!) what was your weld test if you don't mind me asking? Was it mig tig or fluxcore or a combo? Cheers Julia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Welder Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Ps - so it took you a week to get assessed?! But that's only because of the practical? So why do they not just email them? All docs were emailed over 30th Aug, posted 31st Aug. Email back 6th Sep to say training and employment check complete. I have no idea if it was 'rushed through' for the practical, I just did what they advised when I enquired about getting booked on the practical with only a few weeks to go. They do have to have the hard copies, and I couldn't be booked onto the practical until they received them. They must have processed the scanned copies, as there was alot of documents, and the email came through the same day the parcel showed as 'delivered' on the royal mail tracking system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Welder Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Ps (again!) what was your weld test if you don't mind me asking? Was it mig tig or fluxcore or a combo? Cheers Julia I applied under metal fabricator, so didn't actually do any welding on the day for mine. There should be a fact sheet on the Vetassess website explaining what is involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliaoz01 Posted June 6, 2013 Author Share Posted June 6, 2013 Hi again Thanks for the info. I have asked vet assess for info on when they think the next assessment will be and if its a choice of practical or technical interview (he would choose practical any day if the week!) I notice there's a portal to check the progress but we haven't had this so I am chasing up our agent for this. Soon to be ditched agent but that's something else to pester folk here for again I think! Thanks again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Welder Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 Hi again Thanks for the info. I have asked vet assess for info on when they think the next assessment will be and if its a choice of practical or technical interview (he would choose practical any day if the week!) I notice there's a portal to check the progress but we haven't had this so I am chasing up our agent for this. Soon to be ditched agent but that's something else to pester folk here for again I think! Thanks again Yes we could check the system (hourly!) for progress. Hope all goes well for you. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliaoz01 Posted June 14, 2013 Author Share Posted June 14, 2013 Hi Just to let you know I took your advice! I contacted vet Assess and discovered the next practical was June 28th. They are processing his application as urgent so fingers crossed he might be sitting his practical at the end of the month! That's through me though, I asked our agent and they said they only do it in special cases. All I did is same as you, he wants to do practical not Skype interview and otherwise will have to wait months and they were just like yeah no worries we will put it as priority! So thank you! Fingers crossed this goes ok.... Do you know where abouts in London the practical is at all or roughly where yours was?? Thanks again! Julia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Welder Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 Hi Just to let you know I took your advice! I contacted vet Assess and discovered the next practical was June 28th. They are processing his application as urgent so fingers crossed he might be sitting his practical at the end of the month! That's through me though, I asked our agent and they said they only do it in special cases. All I did is same as you, he wants to do practical not Skype interview and otherwise will have to wait months and they were just like yeah no worries we will put it as priority! So thank you! Fingers crossed this goes ok.... Do you know where abouts in London the practical is at all or roughly where yours was?? Thanks again! Julia That's great news. I know of someone else doing the practical on the 28th. Did the practical here: http://www.cnwl.ac.uk/contact/willesden-centre Hope it all goes through in time for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliaoz01 Posted June 14, 2013 Author Share Posted June 14, 2013 Thanks very much for that, that's great. I just hope there's space and it goes through so keeping everything crossed :-/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Welder Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 After that I just done see what the huge drama is. I just think I should say thanks so far and call it a day after that and do it myself. We have another 2k at least to pay them after this and that's money we need. We used them as I thought it'd be faster and more reliable but we are now 5 months in to the process and really still at the start. Pretty depressing. Plus I feel like a pest every time I ask them anything. I just get told cant tell you as each case is unique and kind of you do your job and we will do ours! Have you seen the new fee structure from July 1st? http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/new-visa-charges-1july2013/proposed-visa-pricing-table.htm That 5 months may have cost you an extra thousand or two already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliaoz01 Posted June 14, 2013 Author Share Posted June 14, 2013 $4500! Well that's just made my mind up about going it alone at the next stage. There's no way we can afford that plus there fees which appear to for nothing anyway! Thanks for the heads up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliaoz01 Posted June 14, 2013 Author Share Posted June 14, 2013 Hi Hope you don't mind me asking but Graeme just wondered what the practical involved and what they get you to do, and if its ut'd or xrayed or anything Cheers Julia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliaoz01 Posted June 14, 2013 Author Share Posted June 14, 2013 Sorry just realised already asked that question - duh! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weldaboy46 Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 Hi....The question didn't get answered. Can anyone describe what is actually involved in the welding practical (First Class Welder) here in the UK please? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.