Hi all,

My partner & I are trying to get together the documents that will be required by our local Visa Office should our application for PR be approved by the CIC. My partner easily qualifies for PR on points and so I will be accompanying her.

The local instructions state that we are required to provide:

For you and your spouse or common-law partner:
• notarized employment contracts from your present and past employers,
accompanied by an English or French translation
• original and up-to-date letters of reference from your past and current employers.
Letters must be written on company letterhead and show the company’s full
address, telephone and fax numbers, and be stamped with the company’s official
seal.
Letters must include all of the following information:
• the specific period of your employment with the company
• the positions you have held during the period of employment and the time spent
in each position
• your main responsibilities and duties in each position
• your total annual salary plus benefits
• the signature of your immediate supervisor or the personnel officer of the
company
• a business card of the person signing

This is slightly problematic; are they really asking for all this information for all our past employers for both of us (when it is my partner's work experience that is relevant)? We're talking 20 years here and in many cases the companies that we have worked for have closed down or been restructured in such a way that getting historical information about our employment will be simply impossible to get. In some cases we might be able to get letters that simply indicate that we worked there, but there's absolutely no chance of getting a copy of a contract.

Does anyone have any thoughts about how much leeway there might be on this requirement? Or how we could handle the fact that there will be bits missing in our application? Or (I hate to say it) should we give up now ?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Phul.

In our experience, we just handed over what we were able to collect from the previous employers. The requirements for documents seem very demanding, in fact if your documents do not satisfy the visa officer, they will contact you for further information, or ask you for an interview. In your case, you can safely submit your documents for your past 5~8 years' detailed employment history, but you have to state your other work experiences in the personal history table.

BTW, we didn't submit the documents relating to employment history for my wife, but we did give the embassy her educational qualifications, because we need the additional points.

Good luck.

kungfupanda: Thanks very much for the reply, that's valuable information.

Hi Phul,

Same for us - It was my hubbie who had all the relevant experience we were applying with, so we concentrated on his file. I still sent as much as I coucld get, but we spent AGES, months in fact working on his.

Where we could only get very minimal information, we got old bank statements which showed he had been paid by the company, and P60's as well, then he wrote a sworn statement which was notarised by a Justice of the Peace here in Scotland to state why we could not get the details, i.e. employer no longer in business, sold to another company etc.

We were very nervous as we could not satisfy most of the requirements over 6 years ago, BUT I am very pleased to say we have been provisionally accepted and have our medicals booked - DO NOT GIVE UP NOW!!!!!

Concentrate on the jobs which are relevant to the experience code you are applyinying under, and do the best you can with the rest.


Best of luck!

Eh, the visa officer, to a larger degree, is very considerate, isn't he?

Of course, as long as we tell the truths about our past.

Cheers

Thanks again to FlyingScottie and KungfuPanda! We're pretty sure we can get something reasonable together based on your advice .
Cheers!