Dear all, apologies for the delay. I will try to provide some information about my process and what happened.
I am a PhD candidate, and I had decided to apply to Express Entry because I knew that: a) quebec process takes one million years, and b) by the time I finished with quebec process, I would probably leave for another province (higher chances of becoming a professor outside of quebec than inside, pure probability).
I used my experience from Brazil as a research assistant during my undergrad studies as work experience to qualify to the FSW program. After getting my IELTS results and all documents, my CRS was 456 and in December 20th, 2017, I received my invitation to apply.
Since I knew there would be a requirement to provide sufficient evidence that I plan to settle outside Quebec, it took me more than a month to write the perfect letter. I applied on January 27th, 2018. I could have applied without the letter, but I knew they would eventually request, so might as well send it together with your application, it saves time.
I'm not too sure about the timeline, but it was something like that: medicals cleared within 2 weeks, and after one week my background check changed. Then in February my status changed to IP2 as part of the massive glitch. After that I had to wait a loooong period until my PPR was issued on July 20th, 2018.
In the middle of the process I asked for notes because the wait was killing me. In my notes I saw that no officer mentioned anything about doubting my decision to settle outside Quebec. I guess I provided sufficient evidence.
Here is the letter I wrote (all identifiable data was removed):
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25 January 2018
Dear Sir/Madam,
I would like to take this opportunity to explain my interest in applying for the Federal Skilled Worker Immigration Program through the Express Entry pool. As you may notice from my application dossier, I am pursuing a doctoral degree at ________ in Montreal (Quebec), currently at the end of my ____ year, which means I will be able to relocate after Summer 2018. I understand that, under the rules of the FSW program, I am required to plan my settling in any Canadian province other than Quebec, therefore I would like to clarify the rationale for my choice, as well as to provide some evidence of my intention to settle outside Quebec.
1) I am unfit for the academic job market in Quebec
I decided to pursue a PhD at ______ due to its prestige and intensive research tradition. Also, my supervisor is the only professor in Canada doing the same research in which I am interested (______). Therefore, despite my lack of knowledge of French, I moved to Quebec in 2016 to start my current program. However,
my prospects of an academic career in Quebec are virtually inexistent, because the majority of jobs are for French or French ________ which require a deep knowledge of the language proven by standardized tests, even for native speakers. Working in the field of _______, it would be impossible for me to find an academic position in this province.
The only possible place would be _______. However, the three professors in the field of _______ are all tenure-track and joined _____ recently (________). Consequently, according to my program director, the university will not open any positions in the foreseeable future. Instead of staying in Quebec (which would be a requirement if I applied for Quebec immigration), I believe that
moving to other Canadian provinces will be the only way for me to start a scholarly career.
2) I will soon need to look for academic positions
I am currently at the end of my ________ of PhD studies. As part of my program, I am required to finish all my coursework and pass my ________ by ________, after which I will become a PhD candidate. As such, while focusing on my ________,
I will start looking for academic positions because I will be able to promptly relocate in the case I find a suitable position. However, Canadian universities follow the policy of
prioritizing permanent residents and citizens for their positions (it is the law). Therefore, given the competitiveness of the academic market nowadays, it will be hard for me to successfully find a position before becoming a permanent resident, hence my application for PR status at this moment.
3) I am developing a professional network in ________ and ________
Since the beginning of my PhD I realized I was not suitable to work in the province of Quebec in the field of ________, so I have started a number of projects in partnership with different institutions outside Quebec, namely in ________ and ________, the ________ provinces. I hope that such projects will strengthen my connections and make me a better candidate for job positions in these provinces.
First, I am working together with a ________. Together with them, I will ________ as of ________ as well as conduct a research comparing the ________ in ________. This project will be funded by both ________ and
________, a Canadian, not-for-profit organization that has designed and delivered r________ in Canada for 18 years. Despite ________' having offices across Canada, we are directly working with their ________ ________, receiving support from ________.
Second, I have submitted a research project together with my supervisor (________) and another ________ professor from ________ (________) to study the needs of ________. In this project, I will be responsible for the ________ part of data collection and analysis. Through this project I will be in
contact with different ________ institutions and ________ from ________ to meet with ________, ________ and ________. In fact,
I have already been in touch with the ________ (________, ________) during the National Conference in ________ to discuss our interest in working with ________. The ________ coordinator, ________ (
________@________.________.ca), showed great interest in partnering up to develop ________. The project (currently under evaluation) will be funded by the ________, a federal research funding agency.
4) I am eligible for a ________ license in ________ and ________
Finally, I have also developed an alternative plan in case I struggle with finding a suitable academic position in university. As you can see from my application file, I am a certified ________, therefore I am eligible to apply for
equivalence of my ________ license from Brazil in both ________ and ________. In fact, I have already confirmed the requirements from both provinces and will apply for the equivalence to assure myself that I can find a good and fulfilling job after becoming permanent resident. Although any application for equivalence needs to be reviewed, I would like to point out that you may verify the three main requirements from my immigration dossier:
· English level (from my IELTS score);
· An appropriate ________ degree (from both my diploma and the evaluation carried out by WES);
· Experience as a ________ (since I did not claim points for that, you verify from my personal history).
5) Supporting documents
To support my claims in this letter, I attached the following documents:
A. Partnership document with ________ / ________, from ________ (signed and submitted);
B. Email exchanges with ________ supporting our application;
C. Confirmation of ________ proposal submission (supervised by Dr. ________, application number: ________);
D. Copy of ________ Ministry of ________ guidelines for Application for ________ Certificate of Qualification for International Graduates.
Sincerely,
