I disagree that interviews are called only because the documentation is inadequate, Robsluv. After the interview with my wife, I asked the interviewing officer what was lacking in our application, what – if added – would have precluded an interview.
He had no firm answer. While he was not the officer who analyzed our application closely, he was familiar with the analytical notes, so it would seem there was no glaring insufficiency in the application.
He then asked me how long my wife and I had been married when the application was submitted. I answered “nine months”, and he guessed that had we been married longer at that time, there would not have been an interview.
I take two points from this: there is tremendous inefficiency on the process, and VOs who assess documentation prefer to pass the buck and call interviews.
1) If being married for only 9 months was really the issue, and being married for (say) 2 years would have precluded an interview, all the VO had to do was ask us for proof that we were still married – before calling the interview By the time of the interview, we had been married a full 27 months! That phone call would have been easy to make (in fact, we did provide a notarized declaration from our landlord that we were a couple.) And that simple phone call would have saved everyone the considerable time and cost of the interview.
Apparently, then, CIC does not keep up with these files, making a little effort at the right time to save a lot of effort later. So a lot of time is wasted.
2) Sometimes no amount of documentation will do, as in this case. If there are differences in age, finances, culture, etc. between the sponsor and the applicant/spouse, it is my impression that the documents VO will gladly pass the burden to the interview officer, rather than risk making a bad decision, which might blot the former’s performance file and slow down the next promotion.
