nahe123

I am the spouse on a Express Entry EOI and looking for opportunities for extra points.
I completed two years of sixth form college in the UK and received 3 A Levels and 1 AS Level in 2003.
The college does not keep records this far back. The exams were with Edexcel, AQA, OCR and OJEC. I am only certain that AQA have records that far back. The others i am not sure and have not been able to confirm.

From elsewhere it seems that UK A Levels are equivalent to Canadian Secondary School and therefore worth 2 points as a spouse. Can anyone confirm this is correct?
If i can only submit one A Level (AQA) will that be sufficient to get Canadian Secondary School Equivalency? Or would I need to be able to submit all 4 qualifications?
And lastly, does anyone have any experience of submitting these types of qualifications for ECA and of the exam board providing the required information?

Thanks in advance!

christmasoompa

Hi, welcome to BE.

Yes, A Levels would get you points for secondary education. How many points are you at now though, will the extra 2 points really make a difference? Is there any other way to get your points up? If you can give us a breakdown of your score, we can try and see where you can get improve your score.

The exam boards shouldn't have an issue giving you transcripts, even if your college can't. Most people's certs go way further back than 2003 (you young whippersnapper!) and they manage to get them fine. My husband's were from the early 1990's but still no problem. So give it a go, if you can only get one then that's all you can submit and see what happens.

Best of luck.

nahe123

Thank you!

On the specific question of only submitting 1 A Level and not all 4, would that suffice to receive an ECA equivalent to Secondary School education? I have had some feedback that not all of the exam boards hold the records that i need. I am also assuming that as they are different exam boards I would need to submit separate ECAs? We are being careful to balance the work, cost and potential wait involved with it only being 2 points on offer, and all of the ECA bodies seem disinclined to answer queries until a paid request is made (the same seems to apply for some of the UK examining bodies).

Our current score is 464 which is 4 points short of the 468 cutoff for the last Express Entry draw made in late December last year. We originally submitted in October 2020 but have updated the profile a few days ago to update the TEF score following our first retake of that exam.
We have some scope to gather extra points by my spouse (main applicant) retaking either IELTS, or TEF language tests, but we do not know when we may be able to attend any exam due to the UK lockdown and the exams are stressful, especially during covid and we have already retaken TEF once.

My spouse is a few years younger than me, masters educated and speaks fluent english and french.
We have no Canadian Work Experience, no Canadian education, no family in Canada and do not have job offers in Canada. So i believe our only options for extra points are

My A level education - 2 points
My spouse IELTS score - scope for 3 extra points if slightly improved score in one discipline. My spouse is CLB 10 in 3 disciplines and CLB 9 in another.
My spouse TEF - scope for between 3 and 65 points due to the bilingualism bonus. My spouse is CLB 7 in two disciplines, CLB 9 in another and CLB 5 in another.
I have been unable to find any promising sites to connect prospective candidates with job offers. My spouse's field is arts administration and our desired target city is Toronto.

I have copied our full breakdown below.

Criteria Score
CRS - Human Capital - Age 80
CRS - Human Capital - Level of Education 126
CRS - Human Capital - First Official Language Proficiency 125
CRS - Human Capital - Second Official Language Proficiency 13
CRS - Human Capital - Canadian Work Experience 0

Spouse

CRS - Spouse - Level of Education 0
CRS - Spouse - First Official Language Proficiency 20
CRS - Spouse - Canadian Work Experience 0

Skill transferability

Criteria Score
CRS - Skill Transferability - Education 50
CRS - Skill Transferability - Foreign Work Experience 50
CRS - Skill Transferability - Certificate of Qualification 0

Other

Criteria Score
CRS - Arranged Employment 0
Provincial/Territorial Nomination 0
CRS - Additional - PR or Canadian Sibling 0
CRS - Canadian education 0
CRS - Additional - French Proficiency or Bilingualism 0

christmasoompa

No idea I'm afraid if one A level would suffice, but you you pay one fee per ECA, not per qualification.

Although honestly, if you're scoring 464 I wouldn't bother personally. 466 is below the cut off of recent draws as well, so I can't see it making enough of a difference if it's going to be lots of hassle and cost - although please feel free to ignore me, would hate there to be a draw at 465 and you miss out! But just personally I wouldn't do it for only 2 points, and I think I'd focus on retaking IELTS if that will get you more. When does your partner turn 34, have you got a while before she loses those points?

And what do you do? Arts admin isn't likely to lead to a sponsoring employer job offer IMO, but you may be in an occupation more in demand?

nahe123

Her birthday is in mid June. I hadn't even thought about that as a factor.
I am an in a senior managerial role and have been applying for relevant positions but have had difficulty finding interest from employers without already approved immigration status.

christmasoompa

Yes, she'll lose points at her birthday, let's hope you have an ITA by then.

What kind of industry do you work in, and any particular province you want to move to? How have you been applying for jobs?

nahe123

I work in building management for Creative Industries, TV and Film and we are interested in Toronto.
I have been following local job listings in Toronto online.
I did try Job Bank too but found it hard to navigate.

christmasoompa

Forget looking for jobs online, that's just not the way to find that all important job offer. Have a read of the Job Hunting section of the Wiki to understand how vital personal constant is in Canada - obviously you can't fly out and knock on doors at the moment, but you can pick up the phone.

If Ontario is where you want to be, then the Ontario PNP may be an option. What's your actual NOC code?

nahe123

I think my NOC is 0013.
Thanks, I will read up on the wiki this weekend.
I have the Ontario PNP on my list to research this weekend too.

christmasoompa

Any interest in other provinces or does it have to be Ontario? Just that other provinces might mean you could get nomination without needing a job offer, such as Saskatchewan, which included NOC 0013 in the last few draws.

nahe123

We had previously also thought about Montreal but that doesn't feel like a realistic option through Arrima, so we have given up on that and now we are focussed just on Toronto.
Saskatchewan wouldn't work for us, but thank you for flagging it up!

Siouxie

NOC 0013 covers a multitude of job titles but quite specific main duties which you will have to do many of to be able to use it as your NOC.
https://noc.esdc.gc.ca/Structure/Noc...0MBzYTdga72DtW
You mentioned you work in building management for the creative arts - but what is it you actually do - what is the job title? Facilities or Location Manager would probably come under NOC 0714 https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p3V...11&CLV=4&MLV=4
Creative arts are usually under NOC 0512 but I couldn't see anythng to do with buildings - worth checking though https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p3V...11&MLV=4&CLV=4
(check all titles

DigitalGhost

Although you're far more knowledgeable than me when it comes to these things, I'm not entirely sure how true that is anymore. It will obviously depend on background and sector but speaking as someone in IT at least, I've had 2 very good job offers since Christmas and both of those came from finding a job on Indeed, submitting a Canadian-style resume and then attending interviews over Zoom. Now, granted I have PR status but even when I lived in Canada years ago and was initially job hunting, I found the jobs that I ended up doing in much the same way.

Generally, and especially in the age of LinkedIn, you're told that securing gainful employment in Canada is about social networking, attending job fairs and making personal connections but I've personally never found those things to be anything more than a distraction. I attended multiple virtual job fairs starting from last September and apart from a couple of agency screening interviews and one job application that unfortunately fell through, nothing really came out of them.

Again, I'm not trying to dispute long established advice here. It's always going to depend on your circumstances, skills and industry but I would say the requirement to network, grease palms and make your face fit as much as possible might not be as vital as it used to be.

christmasoompa

I think it absolutely does depend, but it may be that your skills are more in demand in Canada. Somebody in something like an admin or a retail job would (I'd imagine) really need to knock on doors to try and find an employer prepared to sponsor them.

Certainly my husband's experience has chimed with that of the general advice on the forums, he's been offered lots of jobs over the years in various countries, every one has been from somebody he's already in touch with. Having a connection with somebody already will make it much easier to convince them to hire you and go through the paperwork than if you were just a resume that landed in their inbox IMO. But as you say, that's a generalisation for most occupations, and not applicable to all, certainly not those who have jobs/skills very in demand.

DigitalGhost

I absolutely agree that personal connections will always be the best way and you should foster those you make as much as you can. The problem is getting an initial foot in the door atm is absolutely brutal. Before March 2020, Brits could technically go to Canada as tourists and attend networking events and job fairs and sell their skills in person. The shift online means you're competing with the whole world and even the specialist virtual job fairs I attended last year were a bit of a meat market with chat rooms full of people just trying to grab as much attention as possible. Literally, people were pasting their entire resume into a public chat room. We Brits aren't generally used to that and from my experience it can be very demoralising.

One thing that I would echo from this thread if you are looking from outside Canada and especially if you need sponsorship is to look outside of the main cities. There are fewer jobs in those places but also a far smaller talent pool to choose from and you might just get lucky with a company who really need your skillset and are willing to go the extra mile. When most international applicants think of Canada, they focus on Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal and thus the number of applications received in those places can be absolutely massive so it never hurts to think outside the box a little.