Migrating to Australia - General Skilled Migration

Every now and then, people ask us, how did we become Australian Permanent Residents. so, here is some info we would like to share. These are the steps and processes we went through to apply for an Australian Permanent Resident Visa (PR).

There are a few ways to apply for it, but we fall under the category of 'General Skilled Migration'. So, we need to have a minimum of 120 points based on their points system. You can refer to the "General Skilled Migration - Booklet 6". This booklet contains all the info you need before you start your application. If you meet the basic requirements then you are eligible

to apply.

At that time of our application we didn't know much about this process, so we engaged a migration agent to assist us with the application. Our migration agent is Ms. Khoo Li Lu, and her company is Ausasia Migration at Sri Hartamas (Tel: 603-23001128)

Back to the steps ... you need to have your skills assessed by the relevant assessing b

ody in Australia. For IT, the assessment is done by ACS (Australian Computer So

ciety). For other professions, please refer to Booklet 6, it will tell you which assessing body you will have to get your accreditation from.

In this step, we prepared our documents and submitted it to ACS. For those who want to know what the documents are, it includes your degree certificate, resume, full transcript of the course (yes, every single subject and your scores throughout the course) as well as

a reference letter from your current employer stating your designation, with detailed description of the work you're doing, and how long you've been with them etc. Anyway, our agent submitted everything for us and after ACS reviewed it, they replied with an official document stating we've got our accreditation, and with that, we can begin our application with the immigration department.

The agent will advise as to when you will need to take the IELTS test, medical tests etc. Altogether, the process took us about 10 months, then we received that long-awaited letter saying we've been approved. From there, we had to get our passports to the Australian Embassy to get the visa onto it. Its basically a big sticker they paste inside that says you've got a permanent resident visa for 5 years. And yes, you have to maintain it. Easiest way (but not the only way) to do that is to stay in Australia for at least 2 years in total (does not have to be consecutive years. Just a total of 365 days x 2 will do)

After that, there's another phase you'll go through when you are coming to Australia, but that would have to be posted as a separate blog =)

To make it clearer, we've copied some of this from another website. These are the steps to apply:Assess your skill with the relevant assessing body in Australia

1. 
   Required documents :-
   1.1 Reference letter from your employer(s)
   1.2 Your current resume1.3 Passport
   1.4 Birth Certificate
   1.5 Transcript
   Note* If your documents are all in English, you can submit them at once. If not, you need to have an australian accredited translator to translate them to English (official translation, stamped by the accredited translator) before sending.
   
   You have to attach the above documents with the application form for your assessing body. If its the ACS form you need, you can download it here. While waiting for the results, you may have a reference number (depending if you're with ACS or something else) that you can go to the website and trace the progress with.
   After you get the letter of accreditation from ACS/whichever assessing body, then you can go to the next step.
   


2. Apply for PR at Department of Immigration and Citizenship.
   If you're with an agent, they will see to this. Again, there are forms involved, not to mention a whole bunch of passport sized photos.
   
   Now you have to prepare yourself for IELTS
   
   You should get the IELTS test result before lodging the application. This is to make sure that your application won't be rejected. You need to get at least 'competent level' of all component of the test. As of 1 September 2007, the minimum band score of competent level from IELTS test is 6 (six) of all 4 (four) components to get a score of 15 for your migration points (of 120). A band score of 7 will get you 25 points.
   
   The documents that you need to prepare ...
   2.1 Passport
   2.2 Birth Certificate
   2.3 IELTS result2.4 Reference letter
   2.5 Evidence of fluency in Community Language
   
   
3. After you have lodged your application, you will receive feedback from Department of Immigration by e-mail. You shall know your file number for further reference.
   
   
4. After your application is assigned to case officer, you may be requested further documents such as, police check and medical check up. At this step, you just follow the request in your email. After all of your documents is complete, your application will be sent to decision maker and you have to wait a little bit more ...