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Skills assessment for the IT specialists

Skills assessment for the IT industry is mainly done by the Australian Computer Society and has a potential to reap most points compared to other professionals. All occupations assessed by the ACS are worth 60 points, there is a fairly extensive MODL list, granting additional 15 or 20 points, and in many cases extra 10 points for Specific Work Experience are added almost automatically. So if successful, you could claim up to 90 points on the points test against your permanent residency visa application. How does that work then? Below is a collection of personal experience and common knowledge.

IT Occupations assessed by the ACS Occupation code Description 1224-11 Information Technology Manager 2231-11 Systems Manager 2231-13 Systems Designer 2231-15 Software Designer 2231-17 Applications & Analyst Programmer 2231-19 Systems Programmer 2231-21 Computer Systems Auditor 2231-79 Computing Professionals not elsewhere classified

There is a link to the assessment guidelines with more detailed description of positions that fall into each of those categories at the end of this article.

Computer Support Technicians This occupation is not assessed by ACS. Although it's a skilled occupation, it attracts only 40 points and is assessed by Trade Recognition Australia (TRA).

Alternatives to ACS assessment There are some alternatives to an ACS assessment.

• If your background is in engineering, an assessment from Engineers Australia (as an engineer or engineering technologist) may be possible.
• If you were previously trained in another 60 point occupation, such as accounting or teaching, you could get assessed in that occupation instead.
• If a 50 point occupation is enough, and you have a degree equivalent to an Australian bachelors degree, you could get assessed by Vetassess as a Management Consultant or a Business Information Professional not elsewhere classified.

If you have skill assessment in another 50 or 60 point occupation, then DIAC will not normally ask you to get ACS assessed as long as they can see that your IT experience is at a "skilled" level. However, it may be harder to get 10 points for work experience this way, and MODL points will probably not be available.

Assessment Groups To be assessed as suitable, applicants must demonstrate that they meet criteria in one of the following Groups:

Group A: an IT-major Bachelor Degree, plus 4 years of work experience
Group B: an IT-minor Degree or IT-major Diploma, plus 6 years of work experience. Some vendor certifications, such as MCSE, are accepted by ACS as equivalent to an Australian diploma in IT.
Group C: recent graduates of Australian University, majoring in IT, exempt from work experience if applying for skills assessment within 6 months from graduation
Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL): Non-IT education or no formal qualifications, plus 8 years of work experience. The 8 years is reduced to 6 years if you hold a qualification in any subject equivalent to an Australian diploma.

"Degree" and "Diploma" must be rated as equivalent to Australian standards.

The education background will be assessed against the country educational profiles, maintained by the NOOSR. Bad news is – ACS does not offer pre-assessment advice, neither on the educational background, nor on the suitability of your work experience, so be sure to have everything in check before you dive in – the application fee is not refundable.

Equivalent vendor certifications: ACS considers the following list of vendor certificates to be meeting Group B requirements:
MCSE, MCSD, CLP (Lotus) and CNE gained from 1997, and CDE (Novell, discontinued in March 2004), Master CNE , CNI , CCE (Citect), and OCM gained from 2004, and MCPD and MCITP gained from 2007, CISA and CISM gained from June 2007.

Work experience requirements
Work experience considered by the ACS must meet all of the following: be full-time, paid for, relevant to IT, and post-graduate. “Full-time” is defined as 38 hours per week, so if the employment was part time (20 hours per week or more), it will be pro-rated to the full-time equivalents. If the job description shows that part of the job was not relevant to IT, or not requiring sufficient level of expertise (such as hauling boxes with computer equipment), then the work experience will be deemed “part relevant” and pro-rated. After all this, all that matters, is that you have requisite number of years or not. Note, that work experience prior to graduation may not be considered to be at “professional level” and as such, could be reduced, or even ignored. Same applies to working while studying, so these situations require careful consideration.

Proof of work experience must be provided to the ACS as a basis for your claims, and is arguably the most important part of the application. The job reference letters should be on the company letterhead, signed by someone with authority, with good knowledge of your position – e.g. direct manager is the most solid referee. The descriptions of your duties have to be quite detailed, to show exactly what you did, what technology you have worked with and for how long. Some companies do not provide official statements of the job description, in which case those could be substituted by peer references. It is very important to be descriptive about what you did on the job, because vague statements could lead to making this job either part-relevant or, worst case, not count at all.

It is commonly agreed that the dates of employment should be specific to the date, not just month/year. The latter could be a cause for deduction of a month – and overall could make you fall short of the years needed.

Obviously, the references must be verifiable – the contact details of the referee should be there.

Note that Australian Immigration work experience requirements are not the same as those of the ACS. You must meet both!

Some situations that are unfortunately not that uncommon and that need special consideration:
Company merged and/or changed name: if you could provide a letter from a company, showing this, that would work fine.
Company went out of business:– try to locate your peers/managers and obtain a personal reference from them, write a note the company is defunct.

Self-employment: contracts are not considered by the ACS as a substitute for the work experience claims, according to their website, so references from the customers are best.
No contact with company or referee/company not willing to sign references/too afraid to admit intention to migrate: It so happens that some references can not be obtained. It is a shot in the dark really, but you or your peer could write a self-reference in form of a Statutory Declaration, explaining reasons and providing missing details. Whether it will be accepted as a valid reference or not, is anyone’s guess, but not doing this is denying yourself a chance. It must be said, that an application based solely on self-declarations would look far more questionable than the one with substantial verifiable base and one-two matters being self-declared.

Migration Occupation on Demand List The DIAC lists several occupations in the IT industry on the MODL list. If you can demonstrate work experience in the listed occupation (reference letters, eh?), 1 year out of 4 immediately before your application is made, then ACS will add the statement to the successful assessment advice: “Based on the provided certified documentation, it is my opinion that the applicant has 12 months experience in (name of specialization)”. If you intend to claim MODL points, you must specify the 2231-79 for the occupation code in your application and add a note to the cover letter, requesting consideration of the MODL nomination in (your specialization). Note, that occupation code 2231-79 in itself does not allow you to claim the MODL points, it only works if you have that magic statement in your result letter.

As at May 2008, the following list of specializations is recognized by the ACS: CISSP, C++/C#/C, Data Warehousing, Java/J2EE, Linux, .NET, Network Security/Firewall/Internet Security, Oracle, Peoplesoft, SAP, Siebel (especially Siebel Analytic), Solaris, UNIX.

MODL is reviewed by the DIAC twice a year. Current DIAC policy is such that the MODL points are counted against the point test if your occupation is on the MODL either at the time when you lodge your visa application, or at the time when the decision is made, i.e. it works in your favor.

Recognition of Prior Learning
For those without formal qualifications in IT there is a way to be assessed as suitable if you could provide prove 8 years of experience in IT (6 years if you have another qualification equivalent to an Australian diploma). In addition to the documents required for all applications, there is an RPL form plus project reports. The RPL form is an essay, describing your learning path, rather than repeating what is already said in the reference letters, soit is an additional piece of work, sometimes resulting in 100+ pages. It is advisable to write a detailed essay in chronological order,then chop it up into categories, as prescribed by the ACS’s Core Body of Knowledge.

There are three mandatory groups of the CBOK to be covered in the RPL form:
Interpersonal Communications
Ethics/Social Implications/Professional Practice
Project Management and Quality Assurance

And as much as you can from the rest:
Data Structures and Algorithms
Computer Organization and Architecture
Conceptual Modeling
Program Design and Implementation
Database Management
Data Communications and Networks
Systems Analysis and Design
Systems Software
Software Engineering and Methodologies
Discrete Mathematics
Security

The link to the detailed description of each area is in the current version of the CBOK is at the end of the article. As to the project reports - those should be real relevant cases (projects, career episodes) from your own experience where you should describe in sufficient level of detail what your responsibilities were, how long have you worked and what exactly have you accomplished, to support the claims of your learning experience.

Personal grunt. Everyone’s experience is different. There are some sites in the Net that provide, erm, “examples” of the RPL reports, job descriptions and reference letters, only to be ever slightly changed and shot at the ACS. Not only that is borderline indecent, that makes lives of all other applicants more and more difficult, due to constant tightening of the assessment guidelines. First commandment of the would-be immigrant – “Thou shalt not lie on your application”. ‘nuff said.

Application Process
Now, the real fun starts. Going by the definition of one of the Groups, you will need to send them an application form, accompanied by the following:
Who you are: copy of your passport or, at least birth certificate, resume
Educational background: academic transcripts, vendor certificates. If you had an exemption from a course, an explanation on what grounds that was granted.
Employer references

And an appropriate fee, which from July 1st, 2008 are:
Group A/B: A$400
Group C (recent graduates): A$360
RPL: $450

The application is paper-based, all materials have to be provided in English and be certified, if not provided in original. The ACS does not return materials back, so make sure not to send anything irreplaceable. The fee is payable by the major credit card, EFT or a money order in Australian dollars, payable to the ACS.

Once everything is packaged, it is best to send it off by a courier, then you can be sure the package made it there and have a track of the application date. ACS acknowledges the receipt of the application by email that you specify in your application within a week (plus or minus). The email will also contain a link, ID and password to the web page where you can check the status of your application.

Processing
New applications go in the queue, status shows “to be allocated”. Then it changes to “in progress”, then goes to one of the Assessors for final decision. Normally the processing takes around 10-12 weeks, but it may be more or less, depending on each individual case and their general workload. Note, that the ACS does not provide priority processing, so, if you were to lose points due to age, apply early.

The reviewers can make contact by email, to request additional documents or clarifications. They normally provide guidelines how they want the missing bits sent – electronically or by snail mail – depending on what it is. Once it is all up and done, the assessors make a decision on the result, which is one of the two: suitable or not. If MODL nomination is requested for the 2231-79 code, and the evidence is there, they will also write the magic statement about your 12 months experience in so and so, which will then allow you to claim MODL points on your visa application.

Result letter and what to do next
The result letter is dispatched usually within a day or so after the status changes to “with assessor”. Note, that ACS does not send them off electronically or advise on the results by any other means. Which means that if you did not get your result letter in 21 days, you can request a copy, and, if you wish, specify a different address.

So, what is next? Once you have your positive assessment letter, you can apply for the skilled migration visa electronically - and count your points in the points test like so: 60 points for nominated occupation
extra 10 points for “specific work experience”, if you worked for 3 out of 4 years in the nominated (or closely related) occupation,which is the case most of the time. Since ACS requires minimum 4 years of work experience, that is not hard to get, unless your career took a twist in the past couple of years.
15 points for being on the MODL, if you have no job offer, or 20 points if you have a job offer in your nominated (or closely related)occupation from a suitable Australian employer (which is defined as being more than 2 years on the market with more than 10 employees – basically excludes smallest and short-lived partnerships).
Recent graduates could gain additional points on top of what is shown above, if they complete “Professional year” program with the ACS accredited partner – this will allow you to claim extra 10 points under “Australian work experience” category.

For those, who was unfortunate enough to be classed as not suitable, you could appeal (A$300), if you believe that the job was misjudged to be part-relevant or not-relevant. Should the education be classed as not relevant to IT (or less relevant, putting you into another group), additional details should be provided to support your claim, that the courses taken are equivalent to the group requirements you applied under. The appeal should provide more details on the subject in question, there is no need to re-send any materials that the ACS already has.

So that’s that, for the most. The positive assessment letter is valid for 12 months (24 months for Group C recent graduates) so it is advisable to apply for your visa as soon as possible. If your circumstances did not allow you to apply within its validity period, you can apply for the revalidation for $200 AUD to extend its validity for another year (ex. Group C).

Almost forgot – Good luck. It never hurts to have a little extra good luck.

Useful links:
Department of Immigration and Citizenship: www.immi.gov.au
MODL: http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/gener...-in-demand.htm
ACS website: www.acs.org.au
ACS Assessment guidelines: https://www.acs.org.au/assessment/do...Guidelines.pdf
ACS application FAQ: http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm?acti...conID=skillfaq
RPL form and the CBOK: https://www.acs.org.au/assessment/docs/RPL_Pack_2.pdf
Skills assessment form: https://www.acs.org.au/assessment/do...assessform.pdf
Professional Year Program: http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm?action=show&conID=pyp
Country educational profiles: http://aei.dest.gov.au/AEI/CEP/Default.htm
Statutory Declaration page: http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf...ry_declaration

Kudos: For review and contributions: desperatehousewife; stellaman; AndyR; The_Griswolds
For preparation and compilation of the article: newjersey

Acknowledgments:
Information on here was collected from publicly available sources, discussion boards, other publications, and copyrighted, where source is known. Information referred to and contained in the ACS website is copyright and intellectual property of the Australian Computer Society, and is subject to change without notice from either publisher of this article or the ACS.

Disclaimer: ACS assessment in itself merely provides a basis for the skilled migrant visa application as a way to gain points in the points test and is in no way a guarantee that the visa eventually granted, because applicants have to meet lots of other criteria. This article makes no representation to the accuracy of advice pertinent to any individual or case, and contains no express or implied warranty or condition, including fitness for any purpose in any jurisdiction. It is your sole responsibility to obtain professional migration advice from MARA registered agent and you will not hold neither publisher, nor authors liable for any actions or consequences arising out of practical application of the above materials. Copyrighted materials are property of their respective owners. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without express written permission of the publisher.