Lolaid

Hi, we are looking at possibly moving to Canada this year all things being possible. There are a few things we feel stand in our way. We are Brit and our family is made up of myself, husband and our two children (12 and 17). I am a couple of months away from my 49th birthday and my husband is 50 in October. We are both professionals. I have 1 bachelors degree and 2 Masters degrees and my husband also has 1 bachelors degree. We both also have several professional certifications between us and have no criminal records or any adverse credit etc. We are considering the move as we just need a change and believe Canada will give us the reset button we need. My husband's brother (also born in the UK) moved out to Canada 15 years ago with his family and they have permanent residency.
My question is: what are our chances of getting PR? I would love us to secure this ahead of looking for work as we won't then have the hang up of requiring sponsorship.
We would hopefully be moving over with c£100k to help us with living expenses etc and we want at least one of us to have secured employment before we move out if we are successful.
We know our age stands against us - being over 45 but nothing we can do about that. As mentioned we do however have lots of professional experience so so have quite a bit to offer work wise.
Can you please help out with any advice on whether this can possibly work out given our age etc.
I know this pandemic puts a different spin on things and we don't know when it'll be over but I would love to give this a go if possible. Thank you.

christmasoompa

Hi, welcome to BE.

Being older will obviously affect your points score, but it will depend on what you score from other factors. Have you checked that? Start here, you need to be scoring over 67 as a Federal Skilled Worker as the first step - https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration...d-workers.html

Assuming you score enough, then that would mean you're eligible to apply as a FSW and enter the Express Entry pool of applicants. Once in that pool then those scoring the highest are selected and invited to PR, and that's done using a different scoring system. So you need to check your score for that here - https://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigr...d/crs-tool.asp You'll need above approx 460 as a rough guide.

HTH get you started, good luck.

Lolaid

Hi, thanks a lot for your prompt response. Knowing where to start is a good 1st step. I will follow the link and report back with my score. Thanks again.

Lolaid

I hit a boulder immediately. I guess I have the do the English proficiency test even though English is my 1st language. I will look into how we can get this done. I was just trying to avoid much effort and expense till we knew our eligibility chances

christmasoompa

Yes, you'll need to do it if you want to actually apply, but just for points checking purposes you don't need to do it yet - just say you've done it, and assume max scores for now as native English speakers. It's only to give you an idea on if you could apply or not at the moment, as you said no point in spending the money unless you know you'd qualify for a visa.

Zoe Bell

at the moment , assume you score full points on the English test and see where that gets you before you actually shell out money to take the test

Lolaid

OK thanks, I'll do that now.

Lolaid

So.... Did the test (with max scores chosen for the language tests) and scored a paltry 397 😩. Is this even worth pursuing or should I accept defeat at the 1st hurdle?

Siouxie

There may be other routes open to you, what is it you both do for a living? Have you ever considered starting a business?

christmasoompa

No, definitely don't accept defeat. That's just the easiest and quickest way over (plus if you'd scored enough it would have got you PR without a job offer/sponsorship, which you said you wanted).

But there are many other routes, although they well require a job offer first. But as Siouxie has asked, what do you both do? Any business experience? Which province are you looking to move to and which province does your brother-in-law live in?

Lolaid

Thanks to you both for responding. My hubby and I are a Program Manager and SAP MM consultant respectively so wouldn't be able to start a business as that would involve us setting up a consulting firm and then going out touting for business in a new country. We think this would be a tough ask. It's a shame we left it so late to pursue this as we could have fared better if we weren't so age-challenged 😏.
We are obviously not averse to seeking employment and sponsorship as the route in, it is just harder to get jobs even with our years of experience. I have spent a significant amount of time on LinkedIn looking for such roles. They aren't jobs that are in demand such as in the medical field etc so barriers to entry for our profession is lower.
Very frustrating. I don't like to admit defeat where there might still be a chance, I just don't know our next move.

Lolaid

My husband has actually ran a Supply Chain company with some degree of success in the past but he's been out of that for a bit now so not sure if this would be a viable route in.

christmasoompa

Forget LinkedIn (or any other kind of job hunting on the internet), that's just not how it works in Canada, you need to get out there and meet people in person (when this crazy world is more normal of course!). Have a read of our Job Hunting section of the Wiki to understand how to go about finding that all important job offer/sponsorship.

Which province did you want to move to and which does your brother-in-law live in? Also, forgive me for being ignorant but I have no idea what a SAP MM consultant is! Can you find out your NOC codes for both of your jobs and let us know those? That would be really helpful in working out if there is any way for you to get a visa without needing a job offer/sponsorship first.

Lolaid

Thank you so much for your comprehensive reply. I will get the NOC codes. I checked and I think we probably fit under 0213 but I'll check again. We are not fussed about where we live although we would probably want Ontario, Toronto or Vancouver if given a choice. My brother-in-law and family live in Calgary.

Lolaid

Hi again, and thanks so much for all your help thus far. I think we will both fit under the NOC code below:Professional occupations in business management consulting 1122 A

Or my husband can sit under the code below since his field of expertise is SAP Material Management. He works as a consultant for clients to build out their SAP Supply chain module.

So, what do you think? Are there any other routes you think might be worth pursuing?