haralampi

Hi all,
I want to apply for the "PROVINCIAL NOMINEE IMMIGRATION PROGRAM FOR SKILLED WORKERS" for the province of Manitoba. There is a section in the self assesment worksheet which is about "Guaranteed Employment". This I think is the same with the the general program for skilled workers, for Quebec, etc.
I have two questions:
1) Will my application be refused if I don't have a "Guaranteed Employment", i.e. is this requirement mandatory? Even without this factor I have more points than the minimum required number. I couldn't find anywhere explicitly written that guaranteed employment is a must.
2) How am I supposed to have a "Guaranteed Employment" from a Canadian employer when I don't have a permanent residence visa?
If you were a Canadian employer, would you "guarantee" employment for a person who:
1) you don't know
2) lives on the other side of the globe
3) has not yet applied for Canadian residence (because of waiting for a guaranteed employment) and the approval process may take up to 3 years

I think that I misunderstand something. Please give me some more information on the point.

Thank you

crazydaisy

Ok - I can only comment on our personal experiences! After applying for Manitoba nomination we were told by someone that there were thousands more applicants than visas available so chances of being approved without a job offer were very slim indeed. HOWEVER - we did get approved! We did have to provide evidence as to why we'd chosen Manitoba and the research we'd done on the area. I had a friend in Winnipeg who was also willing to talk to an immigration officer to give us a character reference. So I think the answer is yes you can be approved without a job offer, BUT be prepared to work harder to help push the application through and you may have a long wait. We waited from Feb to Dec before hearing that we'd been nominated and then another 10 months for the visas to be processed. Have you checked out the points for the main Canadian scheme lately? They recently reduced them so you may be able to apply for national immigration and still move to Manitoba without going through the nomination scheme.

haralampi

Thank you very much for the explanation!
You said that you had to provide evidnce why you'd chosen to move to Manitoba, but at what stage of the application? Was there an interview? Is there such a section in the application forms?

crazydaisy

Hiya - we sent in the application and apart from the receipt letter and case number we heard no news whatsoever for 9 months, so I emailed them and that is when they said that as we had no job offer or family present they needed resassurance that we really wanted to go to Manitoba and the type of research we had done on the area. I think our chances may have been slim if we weren't on the skills shortage list and didn't have good reasons to go there. You can understand my shock when we actually got through though! Just celebrating now.. There is usually no need for an interview as that is done during the second stage (ie submitting the application to the consulate who issue the visas). Once you've been nominated for the first stage the second stage is supposed to be pretty straightforward although it took us 10 months for each stage. Most of the delay was on the side of Manitoba making the decision although I understand that if you did have a job offer they would approve straightaway rather than take 10 months to do it. The second stage took 10 months which was mainly waiting around for police reports, medicals and getting paperwork submitted, the actual consulate processing once these papers were in was very quick.

Hope that's been a help,

daisy

haralampi

Thanks!