Hoping to become Canadian

Hi,
I'm hoping to relocate to Canada and at a fairly early stage in the research. I have seen there are loads of immigration consultant companies online promising to improve your chances of getting a visa and speeding up the process (for a fee). Has anyone had any experience using such companies? Where they useful? Any you would recommend or avoid? Thanks

christmasoompa

Hi, and welcome to BE.

An immigration consultant may be useful in improving your chances in that they'll ensure your application is correct, but they can't speed the process up at all. Tbh, now you've found BE, I don't think you'd need to use one unless you have complicated circumstances i.e. criminal record or health issues. Most people on the forum just do it themselves.

But if you do decide to use one, then a search will reveal a couple of companies that you'd definitely want to avoid, and hopefully some recommendations too.

HTH, best of luck.

Shirtback

I'll second Chr'oompa's post and add that if you do decide to use a consultant, make sure the one you choose is a member of the ICCRC*, as well as then doing a search for reviews of their services.

* I wanted to link, but phone is playing dumb today .

Engineer_abroad

Assuming you are looking at PR your chances will depend on how you score in the CRS system. No consultant can improve this score for you so IMO they are charging you a lot of money to do very little.

The only reason to use an immigration attorney (and I have in the past) is if you have unusually circumstances (criminal convictions etc.) or need to be represented on a point of law that is not clear in its meaning. Or of course if someone else is paying (like an employer).

Hoping to become Canadian

Thank you all very much for your replies.

I will certainly check out reviews on all the companies I have contacted and will do more research and think hard before signing up with any as they seem to charge a lot (although sure make the process easier, knowing exactly how to fill in all the forms) and I don't have a complicated case and sadly will be paying my own expenses.

I will probably be posting many more questions on here in the coming months, so thank you in advance for your future help too.

christmasoompa

Tbh, they're really not that complicated! But any questions you do have you can ask on here.

Best of luck.

miss_mp

Yeah I agree with christmasoompa too that it can be done yourself unless its complicated. I started off thinking I'd need to use a consultant since I didn't know anything about applying for immigration. But finding BE and getting advice from everyone has been really helpful to guide me through the whole process and everyone has been really helpful in helping answer questions I had. I didn't end up needing an immigration consultant. It was a lot of things to fill out and lots to learn and find out about but can be done without a consultant, and saved a lot of money too!

Photoplex

As already said here, unless you have complicated circumstances (criminal history etc) you will be more than capable of filling the forms out.

Print the forms, get a post-it note pad, read through and stick post-its on the parts you don't understand, and the parts where you need to get extra information/documents. Then just work through it a page at a time, asking in here along the way for the parts you don't understand.

Hoping to become Canadian

Thanks for your replies. All very helpful. Think next step for me anyway is to book an IELTS soon. Will continue research and review which consultation company would use if any,but think will probably try it alone (with this forums assistance).

christmasoompa

I'm sure you've already done this, but just to mention in case! Before you book an IELTS and get your ECA sorted, do double check that you are scoring enough to get selected and invited to apply for PR - you'll need to be above approx 450-480 as a minimum on the CRS.

Good luck.

Hoping to become Canadian

How do I check my score myself? I've filled in initial inquiry forms for immigration consultant companies and they said I scored well, but won't get exact figure unless I sign up with them.

christmasoompa

That's useful of them! Definitely steer clear then, any reputable immi consultant should tell you exactly what you score and qualify for, I've never heard of one withholding info like that unless you pay them. It's not like it's secret info, given that it's all open for anybody to see on the CIC website, so I'm not sure why they wouldn't tell you.

Here you go - Express Entry – Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) Criteria

Or here - Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) - tool

You'll have to make a couple of assumptions, such as your IELTs score, but as a native speaker you can assume max points, and your education you can guess at as well. It will at least give you a rough score to make sure that you are scoring enough to be in with a chance of PR.

HTH.

Hoping to become Canadian

Many thanks. I used the tool and came out with a score of 467 so hopefully that's reasonably positive.

christmasoompa

Yep. It might take a while, but at that level you should definitely get invited to apply for PR, I think about a third of all draws have been at that or lower, so definitely worth applying for that IELTS and ECA!

Good luck.

Engineer_abroad

I'm going be a sad geeky nerd again. Based on draws so far (excluding the initial period of very high scores for the first 5 months) 467 is 1 point below the overall mean score i.e. approx. 50% of draws have been above this score and 50% have been below.