Clarification on Work Experience

[US1876]

Hi Everyone,

I know the work experience issue has been talked to death, but I've searched through the topics and haven't found quite the right answers to a couple of clarifications I need. I'm a little cautious, as my application was already refuse once for an unrelated discrepancy. My situation is thus:

My work experience is all foreign, acquired while attending graduate school in the US. I believe that means it should all count, as the only restriction on student work experience is if it is accumulated while a student in Canada.

I worked part time as a museum attendant (conducted tours, operated exhibits, etc) from August 2011 to May of 2013 (it comes out to about 90 weeks). I averaged about 26 hours a week. I know this gives me the requisite 1+ year of experience.

From August of 2014 to November of 2015 (approx 65 weeks) I worked in a different NOC Code and averaged about 20 hours per week.
This only comes out to about 1300 hours.

From October of 2015 to the present day, I worked in year another NOC code. Once again, I only worked about 20 (on average- sometimes its 10, sometimes its 40) hours per week. Before that I was working for the same small institution just a couple hours (like 3-5) as needed, so I'm assuming those hours wouldn't count.

My questions are these. 1. Can work experience from many NOCs be counted together to give you multiple years, or must it all be in one NOC to count? And, if the answer to my first question is yes, can work experience from many NOCs be combined if at least 1 year or 1560 hours is acquired in only one of them, or do they all need to be at least at least at that threshold?

The difference would end up being fairly substantial for me. With just 1-2 years of work experience, my score is 451 (dropped by 5 points last month because of my darn birthday). With 3 years of work experience, my score would improve to 476. I just don't want to apply again and get refused. Thanks in advance for the help!

I really wish they would group NOCs by subject or something- all the fields I've worked in are in the same basic field, just different levels.

 

[istari]

You must have at least 1560 hours of continuous work experience in one NOC.
Once that requirement is met, all other work experience can be combined, regardless of NOC or how much time you spent in each, as long as it is skill level A, B, or O.

 

[US1876]

Thank you for the reply. So as long as I have the requisite 1 year (1560 hours) in one NOC of continuous work, the other two jobs which were both part time, in different NOCs, and do not equal the 1 year or 1560 hours may both be claimed for points? I know there is some confusion as to whether calendar year or hours are counted- if I am doing the math right, i have 4,760 working hours between the three jobs, which should give me three years of work experience that I may claim for the purpose of express entry.

 

[istari]

Thank you for the reply. So as long as I have the requisite 1 year (1560 hours) in one NOC of continuous work, the other two jobs which were both part time, in different NOCs, and do not equal the 1 year or 1560 hours may both be claimed for points?
Correct.

I know there is some confusion as to whether calendar year or hours are counted- if I am doing the math right, i have 4,760 working hours between the three jobs, which should give me three years of work experience that I may claim for the purpose of express entry.
It's both; you must have 1,560 hours AND 1 calendar year.
The maximum work experience you can claim in 1 calendar year is 1,560 hours.

 

[US1876]

Right, that make sense- I can understand that they wouldn't want people to "frontload" by working 50-60+ hours a week for a year and a half and then trying to claim it as three. My work experience accumulated over a five year period, so hopefully it should all count. They really need to clarify it better that cumulative work experience in multiple NOCs counts as long as one of them is at least full-time over one or more calendar years.