I am a Cell Biologist.
Yes you have to be very careful with the duties described in your reference letter. You need to match at least 80% of the duties described under the NOC code you are using to apply.
NOC 4011 seems to be for full university professors, for postdocs it is more NOC 4012 (our work permit often have this code). Since we are not teaching (most of us), we should not use 4012 as the duties will not match.
In your case NOC 2121 seems to be the most appropriate since it lists Microbiologists
http://www5.hrsdc.gc.ca/noc/english/noc/2011/QuickSearch.aspx?val65=2121
As you can see there are 9 main duties listed. You have to make sure that you reference letter matches 7 of them.
For example the second duty of 2121 is "Conduct research into the structure and functioning of human, animal and plant tissues and cells" the letter can mention that "Dr you studied the mechanisms by which bacterial cells proliferate in water piping systems or whatever"
Duty 8 is "May supervise biological technologists and technicians and other scientists": if you teach a technique to anyone in your lab, write it to address this duty, your PI can just write something generic like "Dr you was also involved in training/supervising technicians and/or graduate students in my laboratory..."
and you have to do this until you match 7 of the duties...
Yes you have to be very careful with the duties described in your reference letter. You need to match at least 80% of the duties described under the NOC code you are using to apply.
NOC 4011 seems to be for full university professors, for postdocs it is more NOC 4012 (our work permit often have this code). Since we are not teaching (most of us), we should not use 4012 as the duties will not match.
In your case NOC 2121 seems to be the most appropriate since it lists Microbiologists
http://www5.hrsdc.gc.ca/noc/english/noc/2011/QuickSearch.aspx?val65=2121
As you can see there are 9 main duties listed. You have to make sure that you reference letter matches 7 of them.
For example the second duty of 2121 is "Conduct research into the structure and functioning of human, animal and plant tissues and cells" the letter can mention that "Dr you studied the mechanisms by which bacterial cells proliferate in water piping systems or whatever"
Duty 8 is "May supervise biological technologists and technicians and other scientists": if you teach a technique to anyone in your lab, write it to address this duty, your PI can just write something generic like "Dr you was also involved in training/supervising technicians and/or graduate students in my laboratory..."
and you have to do this until you match 7 of the duties...