Received ITA but do not want to include a work experience in application (not able to provide reference letter)

[jchen2020]

Hi all, I got my ITA yesterday (congrats to all who received as well and good luck to the future candidates. we will all get what we want!)
A question on the work experience: In the profile I included three work experience - (a) 10-month full time marketing job between Jun 2016 - Apri 2017, (b) 2-month finance intern between April 2017 - June 2017, and (c) 24-month finance full-time from July 2018 till now. Job (c) is my primary occupation NOC 1112.

As I received my ITA yesterday (07/08/2020), i have 3yr of work experience. However as I messaged my supervisor under job (b), he told me he left the company and is not willing to provide any reference letter.

I understand we have 90 days to prepare the information, and I need to submit my application by Oct,7,2020. By then, without that 2-month internship, I will still be qualified for 3yr work experience and thus my score won't change. Is it ok to put that 2-month work experience under personal history and just include work reference for job (a) & (c)?

When IRCC personal review my docs, do they consider the cut-off timing by the date I received my ITA or the date I submitted PR application? If they considered the cut-off timing by the date I received ITA (which is July 8), then without the 2-month internship, my score will be lower.

And will it look weird to IRCC that I only remoted job (b) which, chronologically, happened after job (a) while I kept job (a) ?

Thank you so much!

 

[Islander216]

This becomes a matter of discretion on the part of the immigration officer, I personally think you should be fine if you explain the situation and the fact you have not been able to obtain a work reference. You should as a matter of record, try to ensure you approach the company and they told you directly they would not be able to provide you a work reference. Even if they were for example be willing to provide you a work reference, but it did not fulfill all the criteria required by IRCC, e.g. salary, duties and responsibilities, if they could confirm your position, and dates of employment and no. of work hours, that would still be good to submit. Make sure this is on record whatever the outcome, in case IRCC attempt to verify this independently.

Other than that, because of the short time frame, and the fact you could cover this period up in your post-ITA work experience before you submit your eAPR, i feel like you should be okay.

But it would be a good idea to get the thoughts of an immigration consultant or lawyer.

It's hard to say if they will be sticklers about you not being able to provide a work reference for a job you listed as part of your work experience but cannot show any evidence of in your application. That's why i would try to get a work reference even if it's a basic one.

But even without it, my own feeling is the time period is not significant enough for them to reject your application when you cover it post-ITA.

You need to write a very good LOE however explaining this situation. I'd also see what other more senior members here think.

 

[jchen2020]

This becomes a matter of discretion on the part of the immigration officer, I personally think you should be fine if you explain the situation and the fact you have not been able to obtain a work reference. You should as a matter of record, try to ensure you approach the company and they told you directly they would not be able to provide you a work reference. Even if they were for example be willing to provide you a work reference, but it did not fulfill all the criteria required by IRCC, e.g. salary, duties and responsibilities, if they could confirm your position, and dates of employment and no. of work hours, that would still be good to submit. Make sure this is on record whatever the outcome, in case IRCC attempt to verify this independently.

Other than that, because of the short time frame, and the fact you could cover this period up in your post-ITA work experience before you submit your eAPR, i feel like you should be okay.

But it would be a good idea to get the thoughts of an immigration consultant or lawyer.

It's hard to say if they will be sticklers about you not being able to provide a work reference for a job you listed as part of your work experience but cannot show any evidence of in your application. That's why i would try to get a work reference even if it's a basic one.

But even without it, my own feeling is the time period is not significant enough for them to reject your application when you cover it post-ITA.

You need to write a very good LOE however explaining this situation. I'd also see what other more senior members here think.

Thank you so much. This is extremely helpful. I did print out the bank statements which had my two month pay. And i have an email which will show the HR conducted a background check before my onboarding etc.
The situation is indeed tricky cuz I dont know any person currently employed in the company.
Will that be risky if I say in the LOE that i have those files on the side and willing to provide if IRCC asks for that?

 

[keebs]

Can you contact any colleague that’s still working at the company? If they can provide you with a letter confirming your employment, that would further strengthen your case.

 

[jchen2020]

Can you contact any colleague that’s still working at the company? If they can provide you with a letter confirming your employment, that would further strengthen your case.

Thank you so much for your time.
I did the internship in my home country and it has been 2.5yr. I am currently in US so hard to find anyone besides the supervisor that I kept in touch (unfortunately left the company already). My communication was very limited to the supervisor and a few others who I dont remember the name.
I started to contact my previous two companies to get reference letter a while ago. I was able to get a letter from company (a) while for this internship, I guess because I was just an intern for a short-time frame, nobody really cared about my profile.
I emailed the HR who processed my onboarding twice while has not heard back (does not feel like i will hear back either)

 

[HardikV]

This becomes a matter of discretion on the part of the immigration officer, I personally think you should be fine if you explain the situation and the fact you have not been able to obtain a work reference. You should as a matter of record, try to ensure you approach the company and they told you directly they would not be able to provide you a work reference. Even if they were for example be willing to provide you a work reference, but it did not fulfill all the criteria required by IRCC, e.g. salary, duties and responsibilities, if they could confirm your position, and dates of employment and no. of work hours, that would still be good to submit. Make sure this is on record whatever the outcome, in case IRCC attempt to verify this independently.

Good enough if its your last resort.


Other than that, because of the short time frame, and the fact you could cover this period up in your post-ITA work experience before you submit your eAPR, i feel like you should be okay.

I think its more of misrepresentation because if you are completing your work experience POST ITA, then you have claimed points for work experience you didn't actually have and that leaves your file at discretion of the officer.

But it would be a good idea to get the thoughts of an immigration consultant or lawyer.

It's hard to say if they will be sticklers about you not being able to provide a work reference for a job you listed as part of your work experience but cannot show any evidence of in your application. That's why i would try to get a work reference even if it's a basic one.

But even without it, my own feeling is the time period is not significant enough for them to reject your application when you cover it post-ITA.

You need to write a very good LOE however explaining this situation. I'd also see what other more senior members here think.

LOE might work but then as i said, you are leaving your file at discretion of the officer.

Expand and Read my advise in RED.


Also I think you should once again contact your supervisor and explain him the situation.

Otherwise you can talk to the current management and ask them to issue the reference letter. It is not mandatory that the letter has to be signed only by immediate supervisor. You can get the letter issued from higher authorities also.

 

[Islander216]

It's not misrepresentation, there are many people who complete their work experience post-ITA for example if they have received an ITA where they have less than a month of work experience before they reach their minimum required for their ITA. They are allowed to just add the time post-ITA because the system calculates experience on a monthly basis. He has not misrepresented his experience, he simply cannot provide a work reference for that period of 2 months.

Where OP's issue is that he has claimed work experience for 2 months which he cannot get a work reference for, and then this is where he should try to complete 2 months of work experience before he submits his eAPR. It's more at the discretion of the immigration officer because he claimed experience which led to his ITA but cannot provide evidence for it, however he can still meet the criteria post-ITA. Now it's up to the immigration officer whether they accept this or not.

If you have a high score, you could contemplate declining the ITA and waiting until you have the 2 months of work experience and then receive another ITA, and submit your eAPR.

Usually i don't recommend this but it might be the safer bet. I still think that if you can prove you were employed during this period by other means such as bank statements, payslips, etc, you should still be okay. But it's understanding that, it's up to the IO whether they accept it, there is an element of discretion involved.

But i still think you'd be okay.

 

[Islander216]

Thank you so much. This is extremely helpful. I did print out the bank statements which had my two month pay. And i have an email which will show the HR conducted a background check before my onboarding etc.
The situation is indeed tricky cuz I dont know any person currently employed in the company.
Will that be risky if I say in the LOE that i have those files on the side and willing to provide if IRCC asks for that?

Upload the bank statements and e-mail under documents for that jobs. Do you have an e-mail from HR confirming you were accepted for the internship?

 

[jchen2020]

Expand and Read my advise in RED.


Also I think you should once again contact your supervisor and explain him the situation.

Otherwise you can talk to the current management and ask them to issue the reference letter. It is not mandatory that the letter has to be signed only by immediate supervisor. You can get the letter issued from higher authorities also.

Thank you again. I guess i am leaning towards just to ignore this experience due to the reluctance of my previous manager.
Also tough to get in touch with anyone else in the authority given I dont know their contact and they are not on LinkedIn. And the major concern for me is even I get a reference letter, likely will be I write and he signs, i cannot leave the possibility of IRCC due diligence (calling or emailing the manager) while he does not respond.

Upload the bank statements and e-mail under documents for that jobs. Do you have an e-mail from HR confirming you were accepted

Upload the bank statements and e-mail under documents for that jobs. Do you have an e-mail from HR confirming you were accepted for the internship?

I think the email somehow covers that part. Do you mean I should still submit this job as a work experience or as a personal history. But the docs will help my LOE?

 

[Islander216]

I think you need to be careful, i'm not sure how wise it is to move it from work experience to personal history post-ITA. I'm sure they must have some type of snapshot system which ensures that people do not materially change their profile in between receiving their ITA ad submitting their eAPR. So the system will take some kind of snapshot of your profile when you receive an ITA, so the immigration officer will know what information you provided when you received your ITA.

I would say keep it and provide whatever information you can.

I think you should have probably left it in personal history originally.

Between providing whatever you have for it, explaining the situation in your LOE, and covering the 2 months post-ITA in your current job, i think you should be okay. But again, it would be a good idea to get a professional's input.

 

[HardikV]

I think you can go ahead. Found IRCC's official stand on the same:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1270099283958792197

 

[Islander216]

Yes, they have confirmed this several times on twitter.