Australian
Permanent Resident (PR) visa
Why Australia?
Australia is
one of the favorable destinations for people seeking better future for
themselves and their families. Better quality of life consisting of good
work-life balance, healthcare, public education, work opportunities, weather
conditions and there are many other factors that pull people towards Australia.
This article
explains the steps involved in applying for Australian PR visa. It is helpful
for the professionals who are looking for work opportunities in Australia especially
in ICT –Information and Communication Technology - area. I tried to keep things
simple and explained only the required topics and mentioned the relevant link
from where you can find more detailed information.
Permanent Resident (PR) Visa:
There are
different types of visas for different purposes. You can find the type of visa
you are interested or eligible from the link below.
PR visa comes
under Skilled Migration programme and it allows candidates to work and stay in
Australia permanently. The purpose of this programme is to attract highly
employable people for migration to Australia to meet the growing demands in
areas like ICT, healthcare, education etc. There are different subclasses to
this Skilled Migration programme; I am focussing on only 2 of them in this
article.
·
Skilled Independent visa (subclass
189)
This
visa is for points-tested skilled workers who are not sponsored by an employer
or family member or nominated by a state or territory government. It allows you
to live and work in Australia as a permanent resident. For more information
follow
·
Skilled Nominated visa (subclass 190)
This
visa is for points-tested skilled workers who are nominated by a state or
territory government agency. It allows you to live and work in Australia as a
permanent resident. For more information follow
Following
are the few steps involved in applying for PR visa.
1.
Assess
your points.
2.
Appear
for IELTS.
3.
Skill
assessment by relevant Australian skill assessing authorities
4.
Applying
for Expression of Interest (EOI)
5.
Getting
medicals and police clearance done
The process
of applying for PR visa is straight forward and everything is online. You can
do it on your own without any help from mediators or consultancies. Only thing
is, you must be ready to invest time in finding the materials.
Assess your points: One can roughly estimate the points
from online resources available, but some cases are not straight forward and
need professional help. It’s better to consult migration consultant in this
regard if you won’t find the required information online. Refer http://www.bobinoz.com/points-calculator-for-australian-immigration/
Appear for IELTS: Appearing for IELTS is compulsory
and one has to score level 6 in each section of exam to qualify for PR visa. The
result is broken into different bands and each band carries different points. You
can apply for IELTS either through British Library or IDP. There are two
modules in IELTS exam i.e. Academic and General. Academic is for education
purposes and General for work related options.
IELTS
Band
|
Level
|
Points
|
8 and above
|
Superior
|
20
|
7
|
Proficient
|
10
|
6 and less
|
Competent
|
0
|
Skill assessment: Assessing your skillset is
important and this needs to be done by authorized agency nominated by
Australian Immigration Department. There are many agencies to assess skills for
different areas of employment like healthcare, computer, education etc. Refer https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Work/Work/Skills-assessment-and-assessing-authorities/assessing-authorities
ICT related
skills are assessed by Australian Computer Society (ACS). Refer https://www.acs.org.au/migration-skills-assessment
You need to
upload required documents to ACS portal and pay the fees. Usually it takes one
to two months to get the skill assessment result depending on number of
applicants and other parameters.
Expression of Interest (EOI): Once you receive your IELTS and
skill assessment result, it’s time for applying for EOI. You need to upload these
results and other required documents via SkillSelect. Refer http://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Work/Skil
EOI result
will decide whether you are eligible to apply for visa or not. This takes one
to two months. Once you receive green signal you need to pay visa fees within
the mentioned duration. After paying the fees you will receive a communication
to send the remaining and final set of documents.
Medicals and Police Clearance
Certificate: You
need to create immigration account via ImmiAccount, refer https://online.immi.gov.au/lusc/login
Upload police
clearance certificate and medical documents. They will mention the name of
hospital(s) from where you can get your medicals done. If everything is fine
you will get your visa documents within a month. Otherwise they may ask you to
provide extra documentation if needed.
The entire
process of applying and getting visa may take from 6 to 12 months depending on skill
requirements and other situations. One needs to be proactive and have patience. Hope this article helps the reader in familiarizing with steps involved in applying for PR visa, however lots of other information missing here. For more information please refer below online materials.
Thanks for
visiting this page and wish you best of luck.
Note: The help links provided in this article may change in future, please google and refer relevant materials.
Resources:
Nice article. Next one should be on how to find your first job :)
ReplyDeleteHehe :) If my experience helps someone, then surely I will try.
DeleteThanks for the feedback.
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