DPL

Hi

ive been thinking of moving to canada for years and now im actually here i have been going through the details of the skilled worker program route, I have been researching the area of proof of work history and i have a question....

from 02-05 i had worked in quite a lot of different jobs, temping etc and poor choices of jobs, is that going to affect their decision? ive worked for the same company since feb 03 on and off could i just patch it over? i don't wanna start hiding things but also dont want to be refused because i couldn't settle down at a young age!

other thing - they just wanting a letter confirming the dates? or have they access to inland revenue records? am i best off hiring an immigration lawyer to fight them off for me?

Anyhelp appreciated!

bazzz

This would be better off in the Immigration section, but I'll answer anyway. Having had lots of temporary jobs won't affect their decision. However, you will be expected to try and document this employment. The first you need to do is work out for yourself when you were at each job and for how long. Then you need to contact each of these employers and try and get something out of them confirming that you worked there. If you worked through a temping agency, you should contact them as they were the ones paying you.

Also, it would be a good idea to collect together any copies of pay slips, P60s, P45s, contracts, etc that will confirm when and where you were working. Another very useful piece of documentation to get hold of is your National Insurance record - you can request this by phoning up the appropriate office at HMRC. Including a copy of this with your application can be useful in backing up any claims you are making about jobs you held.

You don't need to hire a lawyer to do this for you; in fact they can't really go about contacting your past employers to get this documentation anyway. What you certainly don't want to do is to lie about this.

Judy in Calgary

Hi, DPL, and welcome to the BE forum.

To add to what bazzz has said ...

If you're asking what you should tell Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), you should tell them the truth. Don't fudge things with them. If it's later discovered that you gave them fraudulent information, you could be deported, even after you'd become a permanent resident or indeed a citizen. I don't know that anyone has ever been deported for a slight discrepancy between claimed employment dates and actual employment dates, but I wouldn't want to take any chances. CIC may do background checks on you and find out if the information stated in your application matches your life history.

Now, when it comes to applying for a job in Canada, it's another matter. You shouldn't lie on your resume, but you can leave stuff out. If you have a patchy employment history, your best bet is to create a functional resume rather than a chronological resume. This is explained in the Wiki article on Resumes.

Hope that helps.

Postscript. DPL, do you mind my asking where "here" is? Are you in the UK or in Canada, e.g., on a work permit?

DPL

so they want actual factual records of dates start/end of employment including how much tax paid and how much i earned? apologies for confusion i meant hiring a lawyer to deal with the whole thing!

ya some temping agencies but a lot of the time it was a case not suited to the job so i left ... i know ive sometimes had problems detailing my employment past in job interviews and i dont want the job skipping to potentially cause the refusal of my application. the main thing is ive been in a job recognised in the skilled worker for nearly 18 months now which should help!




after writing that I noticed the second reply .... i live in UK - in canada at the moment on vacation. ya totally i dont want to hide anything but im scared they will look at my history and say no!

Judy in Calgary

DPL, are you aware that applications for permanent residence visas via the skilled worker route are taking around 5 years these days?

You may find it useful to read the Wiki article called Idiot's Guide to Canadian Immigration.

Thanks for the clarification.

bazzz

They want to know when and where you worked, and what the rate of pay was. They don't need to know how much you were paid in total or the amount of tax you paid. The purpose of this is to confirm which NOC categories the jobs fall into so they can see if you're eligible for points due to this work.

They will not reject you because you've had lots of jobs. My girlfriend was the principal applicant for our application and listed 22 jobs since the age of 18. We had no problems getting our application through.

The difficult bit for you is going to be figuring out which jobs you had and for how long. This could take some time, so better knuckle down to it.

DPL

yaaa im not too worried about remembering the dates ... its contacting the companies to obtain proof, that is what could be an issue ... but then again the head office of each company should have those details.

thaanks for your advice, this forum is a LOT better than another one i attempted to get advice out of!

Jay Bird

If, when you worked as a "temp" you were one agency but at different places, just put the name of the agency, with something like..."employed on a variety of different contracts"......the agency was your employer, not the place at which you worked.