Working holiday visa Vs Skilled worker migration

[euromelb]

Hello Everyone,

I am hoping i can get some really good advice on this site especially from all those people who have already gone through the migration process. First of all i would like to say that I am 26 years old , got a couple of degrees, a full time job, etc. After some careful consideration I decided that I will initially come to Canada with a two year working holiday visa so that i can experience difference cities, do a few casual jobs here and there, get some connections, etc. After the two years i would come back to Australia and apply for residency under the quebec skilled worker program (I heard it's easier, is it true?)

My initial questions are the following:
1) If i take a working holiday visa for two years, can i put my application in for skilled worker residency at the same time?
2) Is it true that with working holiday visas some unscrupulous immigration officer at the airport could decide to give you 1 year instead 2 year visa? What legal recourse have i got if this happens to me?
3) With the skilled worker program, is it really 100% essential to have a job offer before you apply? I am sure most people don't have a job before they apply
4) After my two years working holiday visa is there a way i can stay in canada if i put my application in for skilled worker residency? Some sort of bridging visa while my application gets processed?
I would really appreciate if many people on here could answer my questions thanks kindly

 

[Leon]

1. To apply for the federal skilled worker program, you have to score 67 points for your education, language, work experience etc. as well as you have to fit one of 3 categories, one of which is having worked or studied in Canada for 12 months so if you make 67 points, you can apply for this after 12 months in Canada.

2. I do not know if that happens but I doubt you would have any legal recourse should it happen because visa officers are at their own discretion if they let you in at all or for how long.

3. No, as in the answer to 1. you have to fit one of 3 categories, one of which is having a job offer. A job offer will give you extra points though.

4. No bridging visa but if you applied after 1 year in Canada, you'd have a good chance of getting your PR by the time your 2 years are up. You could apply for change of status from working holiday to a visit visa if you think you are very close to getting your PR but you would not be able to work on a visit visa.

As for the Quebec skilled worker vs. the FSW, some people may find it easier to qualify for QSW. You would have to speak French at least at a moderate level. Some people prefer it because it has been slightly faster than FSW but with the FSW new rules, they are getting fast too.

 

[euromelb]

Thanks for your response Leon. About the Skilled worker visa (Federal one) by looking at the application form it almost sounds as if having a job offer is an absolute requirement
but i do know of people who have applied without having a job offer and got it, so it is just something they put on applications to discourage people from applying?

and my other question in regard to your suggestion to apply for residency half way through my working holiday visa, will they allow me to apply from within canada or do i have to go back to Australia to lodge the application?

Thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions

 

[MaggieRoo]

Hi Euromelb,

I'm new to this site too, but am in a similar situation to where you might be in a few years - I am Irish, working in Canada for over 3 years and with a year's work permit left (and got my act together) I applied for PR from inside Canada without a job offer but with enough points and canadian work experience, and am here waiting for my PR to come through.

The immigration rules have changed within the year since I applied, such that the fastest PR is the new fast track, IF you have work experience in one of 38 specified occupations, or a permanent job offer. You know all this I'm sure. To apply from inside you need at least one year of valid work permit/legal status left in Canada, so totally dependent on you getting a two year working holiday visa and having all your documents ready to go. And it takes much longer now than the fast track, so if you have one of the 38 occupations Apply Now!

But if you are not eligible for the 38, then definitely come to Canada on lets say a year's working holiday visa, and apply from inside, but like you said you'd have to somehow extend your stay and work once here to get another year's legal status here and then apply - the whole thing might take years, 3-4?, from when you start your working holiday but at least you'd be already moved and living here. It's not that simple to go from one job to another on temp work permit as you probably know about Labour Market Opinion and all that. I work in biomed research which is exempt from LMO, making it much a bit easier.

I do think you're right about them mostly giving out year visas, simply to prevent people using it as a way to apply for PR from inside, they also only give visitor visas, more or less 6 months at a time, for the same reason.

In short, it'd be brilliant if they gave you two years at the border but thats not likely, or, if you are on that list of 38 occupations, apply This Minute and you will have PR much sooner than any other route!

Leon mentioned changing from worker status to visitor while waiting for PR inside, but that's what my original post here was about. I want to do this as my job is finishing up and i want to take a career break while waiting for PR, but I don't think you are allowed to change from worker to visitor from inside. Your first visitor visa must be got from outside Canada, you would have to leave Canada to get a visitor visa and jeopardise your PR application. So I'm trying to sort out what I can do and will let everyone know what the options are.
This is definitely an issue for you if you were applying in the middle of a working holiday visa because I don't think an inside PR application will come through after a year as Leon suggests, i think they prioritise those with permanent job offers, and its a slow process from inside compared to the fast track.

There's always the get-over-here-and see what happens option. Loads of kayaking and ski bums manage to stay through appealing visa extension etc etc. The whole PR thing is different once you get here, and really know you want to stay - but there are limitations on personal freedom while you're waiting for work permit extensions to come through, you cant leave the country while you have implied status etc.
Sorry for being so long winded, good luck with everything -
Maggie

 

[Leon]

Where does it say by CIC that Categories 1 and 2 are fast tracked over Category 3? I may be wrong but I have never seen them say that anywhere.

 

[euromelb]

Hi Euromelb,

I'm new to this site too, but am in a similar situation to where you might be in a few years - I am Irish, working in Canada for over 3 years and with a year's work permit left (and got my act together) I applied for PR from inside Canada without a job offer but with enough points and canadian work experience, and am here waiting for my PR to come through.

The immigration rules have changed within the year since I applied, such that the fastest PR is the new fast track, IF you have work experience in one of 38 specified occupations, or a permanent job offer. You know all this I'm sure. To apply from inside you need at least one year of valid work permit/legal status left in Canada, so totally dependent on you getting a two year working holiday visa and having all your documents ready to go. And it takes much longer now than the fast track, so if you have one of the 38 occupations Apply Now!

But if you are not eligible for the 38, then definitely come to Canada on lets say a year's working holiday visa, and apply from inside, but like you said you'd have to somehow extend your stay and work once here to get another year's legal status here and then apply - the whole thing might take years, 3-4?, from when you start your working holiday but at least you'd be already moved and living here. It's not that simple to go from one job to another on temp work permit as you probably know about Labour Market Opinion and all that. I work in biomed research which is exempt from LMO, making it much a bit easier.

I do think you're right about them mostly giving out year visas, simply to prevent people using it as a way to apply for PR from inside, they also only give visitor visas, more or less 6 months at a time, for the same reason.

In short, it'd be brilliant if they gave you two years at the border but thats not likely, or, if you are on that list of 38 occupations, apply This Minute and you will have PR much sooner than any other route!

Leon mentioned changing from worker status to visitor while waiting for PR inside, but that's what my original post here was about. I want to do this as my job is finishing up and i want to take a career break while waiting for PR, but I don't think you are allowed to change from worker to visitor from inside. Your first visitor visa must be got from outside Canada, you would have to leave Canada to get a visitor visa and jeopardise your PR application. So I'm trying to sort out what I can do and will let everyone know what the options are.
This is definitely an issue for you if you were applying in the middle of a working holiday visa because I don't think an inside PR application will come through after a year as Leon suggests, i think they prioritise those with permanent job offers, and its a slow process from inside compared to the fast track.

There's always the get-over-here-and see what happens option. Loads of kayaking and ski bums manage to stay through appealing visa extension etc etc. The whole PR thing is different once you get here, and really know you want to stay - but there are limitations on personal freedom while you're waiting for work permit extensions to come through, you cant leave the country while you have implied status etc.
Sorry for being so long winded, good luck with everything -
Maggie

Hello Maggie

Thanks for your response (I love long responses to my posts)

I do have a few questions for you though:
-How old are you now? How old were you when you applied for residency?
-What sort of VISA did you get when you first went to Canada? Did you have a job offer?

About those immigration officers giving out 1 year visas does it happen consistently in every city? Or are there any cities that are more lenient and others that are more pedantic? I think that would be a good thing to know so that I can make my initial entry at an airport where I am more likely to get the 2 year visa

About my working background, let me say that I am only 26 years old and I only finished my studies back in 2005 (I have a Bachelor of Arts and a Graduate Diploma of Education) so that is why I am not applying for residency straight away because I know that I would probably be rejected due to the lack of a long work history
I have worked for two years in a call centre as a travel service consultant and now I have been working for over a year at a university in administration. By getting a two year working holiday visa to Canada my plan is to live in several cities over the course of the two years and get a temp job in each of those places so that when I apply for residency they can see that I am easily adaptable and can fend for myself. What do you think of this?

My main concern when it comes to putting the paperwork together before one applies is the fact that sometimes it is very hard or impossible to get a letter of reference from previous employers (for example in the case of the call centre, they have moved location since i have left and even if i track them down who knows if they would be willing to give me such a detailed letter of reference with job description and all)

So If I do manage to get a two year working holiday visa, could you please tell me what exactly i need to do after the first year? In order to be able to apply for PR from within Canada do you need 1 consistent job over the course of the year or can you apply even if you had casual jobs in different cities?

Please reply when you can as this is very important for me

 

[euromelb]

Does anyone else have any thought they might wish to add?

 

[Leon]

If you want to apply for FSW category 3 after 1 year in Canada, just wait until you are one year in Canada and then follow the instructions at http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/index.asp Do not get ahead of yourself and start printing out the application forms now because they may change slightly. What you can do is start gathering information about your history of addresses you've lived, what you've done for each month of your life since age 18, associations you've belonged to etc. since you will need that info. Check if job experience letters have to be recent, I am not sure. If not, you could also start to get statements from former employers. Do you have enough points to apply for FSW? Do you have any skilled work experience?

I do not think it will look good for you to have several jobs over the course of 2 years, actually 1 because you apply after 1. They may see you more as a quitter or a sampler rather than being adaptable. Immigration would not deny you because of it because nobody says you have to work in the same place over the year but it will not look good on your CV for your future. Two of my former bosses have mentioned to me that they had interviewed samplers and were not interested in hiring such people. Ok to do temp work once or twice if you really hate the job or can't get anything else but after a while it starts to show on your resume that you've never hung around more than 6 months in one place and it becomes a liability for the prospective employer who is not going to want to train somebody who is gone that fast which again will limit your future employment to temporary and/or unskilled jobs.

I also don't think it would be a problem to file a change of conditions visa to change work permit to visit status. I am sure I have heard of people who did that. I also don't think it would cancel your FSW Cat 3 application if you left at some point after applying. They say you must have been working or studying in Canada for a year when you apply and are still there when you apply but they don't say you can't leave afterwards.

 

[MaggieRoo]

Hi Euromelb,

Leon gave you much good advice there, so I will be saying similar things.
Count up your points to see if you can apply for FSW once you are here for a year.
Do you have enough points for skilled work or in total? If you need more points then you need to get a good skilled work job for a year or two here and then apply.

I guess you can apply with casual jobs in Canada if you already have enough points for regular FSW, but if you go through the Canadian class experience rules, what do they say about the kind of work you have to do, and that would be 2 years work in Canada?

I agree about not moving round so much, unless you really really want to sample lots of different cities. Besides a lot of job sampling not being good on the CV in the long run, what shows Canada you want to stay is probably staying put in one city, making a home and life, being part of community and associations/clubs. Bringing a partner gives you brownie points in PR for settling too. Bring your birth cert and transcripts, degrees; start making those annoying lists of all addresses and activities etc.to avoid having to make family run round for them.

I came to Canada aged 28 on a temporary work permit for a postdoctoral fellowship position - scientific research doesn't require labour market opinion or permanent job offer, to encourage exchange of ideas and experts around the worlds etc etc - so I am pretty lucky. The university only supports foreigners one year at a time, despite having 3 yrs funding, i only had a letter of a years support from them and proof of funding, and hence I have extended my visa 3 times now on the same funding. So yes, you could say I had a job offer.

I applied for PR when 30 yrs old last year, with a years visa left, before they invented the Canadian experience class CEC route. PhD and just having worked in Canada gave me enough points to not have to run after the small jobs I've had at home that it'd be difficult to get a reference for, they wouldn't remember me etc. to get work points. I decided to only use my Canadian work experience since its one job one reference and much easier for them to check. So thats something to remember, you dont need to include all the jobs you've ever had, if you don't need the points, just the ones you can get references for and count towards skilled work. If work points are a problem, you get in for a year, get a good job, get to extend work visa for another year, you can apply for CEC, and you'll probably have enough points then.

Fair play to you for thinking ahead and getting organised, but i would say, just come over, pick your location, see if you like it, and the minute you are here, there are lots of real live people to talk to about what PR route, and you can also ring CIC with questions, have free 15 min sessions with lawyers etc. Try and organise a non-casual job with the working holiday visa, cos a lot of people waste half a year looking - maybe contact places prior to arriving, saying you have a years open visa coming up etc. Rules and job markets are changing all the time. Just having worked in Canada for two years means you could go home and apply from there too. Also, the best info is from the horses mouth, ie ringing the CIC, if the internet info is not clear. You can get all kinds of answers on forums. They are most useful for people's individual cases and experiences for comparison. For example, about waiting for PR to come through when your work permit ends, i now know from speaking to the right CIC person, that I can extend my stay, using change of conditions work permit form, from worker to visitor - by ticking extend temp residence box. I just have to have funds and some health insurance and proof i will go home may help too. However you would have to check that the holiday visa doesnt say in small print you cant do that, but you should be able to,
Right nuff said for sure,
Maggieroo

 

[euromelb]

Sometimes I really don't know what I should be doing, I have so many questions in my head ....

Do you people think I should take the risk and apply straight away for quebec provincial program even though I don't have many years of working experience? If I did apply for it and after one year or so I want to go to Canada on a two year working holiday visa, will I be allowed to do that?

Of course the other option is to wait until I go on my working holiday visa in 1/2 years and see how that goes
The fact is that I am 26 years old and I would have liked to spend some of my remanining youth in Canada....

I have been there so many times on holiday and i love it so much... i really feel like at home when I am there


What do you people think?

 

[euromelb]

2. I do not know if that happens but I doubt you would have any legal recourse should it happen because visa officers are at their own discretion if they let you in at all or for how long.

But how can an Immigration officer ignore the fact that the piece of paper I have on my hand says two years? Surey there must some legal recourse as this level of abuse is not acceptable/unlawful. Australia and Canada made an agreement that any working holiday visa holder is entitled to a two year visa
so how could an immigration officer override that and what is the point of making an agreement between the two countries if it is not going to be upheld?

 

[Leon]

It is not abuse, it's their job. If you show up looking dodgy and providing unclear answers to their questions, it's their duty to stop you from entering, visa or not.

 

[euromelb]

and why does Canada only gives the visa once a person arrives at the airport?
I have a friend who took a two year working holiday visa to the UK and he got the visa
here in Australia before he departed

 

[Leon]

And even though he already got the visa, I am absolutely sure if he would have shown up in the UK looking very dodgy and not answering questions in the way that the border control believed that he was ok, they would have turned him around and sent him home.

Frankly, I have no idea how often this kind of thing happens, if at all, but I am saying, if it did, they have the full right. The way to avoid it is showing up looking like a normal person, have your return ticket with you and your cash and everything else you are supposed to have and when they ask you stuff, answer them in a normal way.

 

[euromelb]

And even though he already got the visa, I am absolutely sure if he would have shown up in the UK looking very dodgy and not answering questions in the way that the border control believed that he was ok, they would have turned him around and sent him home.

Frankly, I have no idea how often this kind of thing happens, if at all, but I am saying, if it did, they have the full right. The way to avoid it is showing up looking like a normal person, have your return ticket with you and your cash and everything else you are supposed to have and when they ask you stuff, answer them in a normal way.

What do you mean by "having the return ticket ready? :S"
If you are on a two year visa, you cannot have a return ticket
as airlines only issue ticket with 1 year in advance at the most