Hello to yo all

And congratulations to those who have had there offer of a job. Has anyone any ideal how ofter they have the final panal stage our references completed on or around 14 Feb and we havent heard a thing since. This has been a long journey and we are getting itchy feet now . Our whole proces has taken 18 months from the point of sitting the tests in London, to going to Canada and doing the Panel Interview, Pare Phyc test and Polly, Ref stage.

When we ring our file Manager the Voicemail keeps kicking in and from experiance we havent left a message for him as he never returns our calls. Has anyone any idea how ofter the File Manager represents you in the final Panal

Marie and Lee

Hello Marie

How did you get on did you get an offer ?

well my refs have been checked now.

got the home visit from the background guy on monday (seems to be the norm if you live in Calgary area)

then should be for selection panel 19th march, and im already booked in for the ex uk officers course starting may 26th...

Hi Lee,

My experience was a lot Quicker 7mnths start to finish, My references were checked last weekend and I went to the Panel on the following Wednesday the 5th March. When I was over in Calgary my FM said they hold panels every two weeks on a Wednesday.

Have you completed all the other additional paperwork that they required?
I.E CV / copy of PDR if police / Drivers abstract / Why Calgary / etc etc, As if you haven't they will not present you!

Hope you hear soon

Gary

Hi Gary

As far as we know all our files are complete (police checks, credit checks, eye test, first aid certificate, all in fact ) i am a bit bemused as to why our file hasnt represented us as yet as our references completed on or around the 9th Feb and we got a email from the guy doing the refences on the 14th to say that the file has been passed back to the FM. Not sure if we should ring our FM to get an update because we dont want to appear that we are bothering him. What was your experience with this ?

Lee and Marie

Hi Everyone,

Had quite a testing week or so over here and wanted to share some experiences and discoveries to help anyone soon to be setting off.

CARS: The process over here is quite clever as far as preventing ununsured or unlicenced drivers taking to the road. However, for unsuspecting and naive lemmings such as us it can be a bit of a chore
Buying a car is much the same as the UK. They have no price tags on used car lots so you HAVE to ask the salesman 'how much'. The hook is set and the battle of wits begins
Our guy started at $16,000 and we got it for $10,000! so be strong.
Next thing to do is get some insurance. No point shopping around until you buy the car because there's nothing to quote on - much the same as the UK.
Here's the thing with insurance companies.. You HAVE to go through a broker for starters. They will only take no claims from the UK if you have proof IN YEARS not %'s or "full no claims" it means nothing to them. British insurance companies will not give you such a letter stating the number of YEARS until your policy has ended or been cancelled. So LISTEN UP - now that you all know you are coming out here within the next year or so MAKE SURE you cancel or allow your policy to end when it comes up for renewal. At the point of it cancelling ask FOR THE LETTER. As soon as they give it to you, go ahead and insure your car again. Many of the money saving pundits recommend you don't renew policies because it's often cheaper to get a new quote, even from the same company?
Once you have the letter you can see your quote go from £750 to about £350.
The Canadian insurance system is geared for speed and faxing, they love it
Registration plates are dished out by licencing agencies that are dotted about all over the place. Sadly, many of the agency staff break from the tradition of happy, helpful and kind natured Canadian hospitality.
The car salesman will give you a Bill Of Sale which will have your name (or in our case the other half's name) on it. That name MUST MATCH the name on the insurance 'pink slip' (cover note) that gets faxed to the licencing agency - usually whilst you are there. Sadly, ours took on a new identity from taking the insurance out to being faxed to the agency, yep you guessed it it went from Mrs F to Mr F.
It took four more phone calls and four faxes get it right. So, what should have taken half an hour rapidly took four hours! We were both there, both had I.D coming out of our ears and they would not budge?

HOUSES:
Many of you may have seen a brief revival of the £/$CAD on Friday, and we are waiting to see why on Monday and if it will survive It makes quite a difference in buying a house believe me. Most of you will have noticed that house prices in Calgary have rocketed in the last two years. This was funfundamentallycause of a very wet summer in 2005. All the builders back then were tied to time-line contracts with humongous penalty clauses. They got behind schedule because of the weather and drafted in labour from all over the world to get them out of the poo! They had massive costs and typically passed them on to the consumer Result? Rocketing house prices. Summer of 2006 saw a 65% rise in 9 months:curse:
A bi-product of this is akin to what has happened in the UK, but over a much shorter period- people got very rich, overnight, but only on paper
Things have calmed down considerably and the tail end of last summer saw the last of the price hikes of recent times. It plateaued and actually dropped during the winter months. Here comes the point of all this... the realtor business had quite a harvest during all those price hikes and seemingly didn't have to work too hard for a fairly affluent period. Brits continued to flood the area and buy houses with haste just in case they lost them or the prices went up further.
The industry has got used to fat commissions for minimal effort. However, the tide has finally turned. Independent pundits talk of an overall year on year price reduction this year of 5%. Notwithstanding it's very seasonal here and the prices might rise a fraction as spring heads our way, but over the year 5% DOWN.
The industry is terrified of reductions, and so they should be! Look what's happened in Blighty As such, the realtors are doing their absolute best to keep house prices UP:curse: It means more commission etc etc..
It should be noted at this point that the industry here has 'Selling' agents and 'Buying' agents, most do both. It's the selling agents that are hanging on to yester year prices and burying their heads in the sand from the independent analysts predictions. The result of all this is there is currently three times as many homes on the market than there are selling. Based on that bit of fact one would presume it's a buyers market? Not so Loads of folk have got the idea they can be property developers and make millions in the process - many have, who did so quickly enough. Those that were a little slower off the mark bought several houses or ordered new ones to be built and paid premium prices for them. Now they can't shift them they face huge debts and naturally are clinging to their dreamy selling prices with grim determination
I heard a comment this week that relates to an offer made by British people. The offer was not accepted and the normal practice of reducing the price by the seller as part of the bargaining process wasn't forthcoming. "Not to worry, there'll be plenty more Brits coming out"!
Yes folks, it seems we are being relied upon to be daft with our money and helping support the housing market that went mad a couple of years ago:thu_Just a few facts and figures for you to chew over... the average list price and average sold price differs by 6.35% at the moment. On a $685,000 home thats a drop of over $45,000 ON AVERAGE (undisputed FACT). Bear that in mind as you look for your dream homes.
Last bit of potential good news on the house front: Builders have been building like mad. They made buckets of money over the last two years and now have more houses to sell than are selling. Because they are all very canny business people, they realise money invested that just gathers dust waiting for an unsuspecting Brit to turn up is NOT good business. So, what they are doing now is passing on the reduced costs to house buyers. Net result? Builders drove the prices up so now they're driving them back DOWN again, yipppeeeee!!!
In a nutshell folks, do your research and make sure you don't be sucked in by a greedy selling agent.

Well done to those through the selection panels etc and hope the immigration stuff goes smoothly

Lee, they spoke with my referees 2 weeks ago and I got a phone call offering me a position last Wednesday. Just had an e-mail from my FM who is moving on and who says, "I am not being replaced as the International Recruiting campaign is being suspended because we have sufficient numbers at present.". Dont know where in the process they are stopping them though

That is not good news.

Apprently most of the backgrounding guys are consultants and all of their contracts end May 31st. These guys arent being replaced either.....

There is another thread on this started by Ann M last week saying pretty much the same thing......that applications in before a certain date will be processed as normal but later ones wont be on a fast track pnp to get here, they are going to start trying to hire more canadians

I just gave CPS recruiting a ring to get confirmation. They say that the international officers recruiting campaign is currently under review and that the results of this review will be posted on the website within the next two weeks.

They are currently still accepting applications from international experienced persons only, no longer inexperienced ones.

I think they've already made their decision, to be honest - just a case of getting someone technical to update the website

That's the feeling I get too. :-(

Lets just hope it doesn't adversely affect those of us already in the process!

If you are already in the system, I am sure they will honour that and process it all as normal (but bearing in mind they have lost one file manager as of today). Fingers crossed and all that - you'll be fine

well ive got my "home visit" today! last stage for me, so i'll sweet talk the guy and see what he knows abut the ongoing process for brits..

does anyone know what the home visit is for? obviously to check out where you live. (waste of time for me really as im temporarily with family)
but is there anything specific i need to do?