Originally posted by Alborg
Hello. I am from the UK and looking to apply for Skilled Independent migration to Australia specifying "accountant" as my skilled occupation. I have an accountancy degree and am a member of CIMA (Chartered Institue Of Management Accountants) although I'm not fully qualified. Despite this, from the research I have done, I'm confident that I will be able to pass the skills assessment through CPA. However, i'm not at all confident about my recent work experience.



Sorry to let you down, but:

If you apply as an accountant, you'll need skills assessed by the ICAA or another Oz accountancy institute..........they will expect you to be qualified I would have thought.........which you say you are not.

I am a qualified accountant and it's not easy to do........anyone can say they are an accountant without being qualified but a world of difference exists..........bookkeepers maybe ?

Hope this doesn't sound snobbish, but a golden rule of being a full member is you never ever lie about these sort of things......

Originally posted by Alborg
I agree that I shouldn't bend the truth and appreciate the responsibilities of being a CIMA member. In all honestly I don't have any real intention to bend the truth. I am curious however about their vetting process.

Having said that I would like to correct you on a couple of points.

1. An applicant has a choice of three assessing authorities. CPA, ICAA or NIA. The Skilled Occupations List states that accountants who do not hold a degree but are an associate member of CIMA or ACCA are advised to apply to ICAA or NIA. Those that do have a degree are advised to apply to CPA

I have a degree so am taking their advise.

2. Although, by my own admission, I am not fully qualified the CPA website states:

To receive a successful assessment for migration purposes, you must have:

1. A qualification from an accredited educational institution which is assessed by the Australian National Office of Overseas Skills Recognition (NOOSR) and CPA Australia as comparable to an Australian 3-year Bachelor degree.

and

not more than three additional subjects to complete in order to meet the requirements for membership. (See also section Syllabus Details).


Last time I looked I had this. It doesn't mention anything about being fully qualified.

Originally posted by JAJ
1. Any professional body, CIMA included, could well take a dim view if they found out that a member or student had 'bent the truth' in dealing with an authority like DIMIA.

2. For skill assessment as an accountant, work experience is irrelevant.

3. To use professional membership to get a skill assessment, you need to be a full member. If not, you need to rely on your accountancy degree, if it meets the requirements that ICAA/CPAA/NIA set.

If you have a suitable accountancy degree, you do not need to be a member of any professional body to get skill assessed as an accountant.

4. Work experience comes in at the stage you apply to DIMIA. It is a completely different assessment process carried out by your case officer. There are many cases where somone may have a skill assessment as an accountant (for example) and find their work experience is as a book-keeper (not on the Skilled Occupations List). Even with a skill assessment, such an application would fail.
It is however ok if you can show work experience in a different occupation on the Skilled Occupations List, but you will likely not be able to get any more than 5 points for work experience.

Jeremy

Originally posted by Alborg
J.

Thanks for your reply.

I am referring to Management Accountancy as apposed to Chartered Accountancy. Therefore if applying as a Management Accountant wouldn't positions such as Cost Analyst, Sales Revenue Analyst etc. be relevant enough to satisfy DIMIA?. I wouldn't have a clue how to book-keep - neither would my fully qualified chums.

Regards,

Alb.

Originally posted by Alborg
Hello. I am from the UK and looking to apply for Skilled Independent migration to Australia specifying "accountant" as my skilled occupation. I have an accountancy degree and am a member of CIMA (Chartered Institue Of Management Accountants) although I'm not fully qualified. Despite this, from the research I have done, I'm confident that I will be able to pass the skills assessment through CPA. However, i'm not at all confident about my recent work experience.

For the last four years I've been working in IT. Since I have no qualifications in IT I have no chance of applying through this way. However the last time I worked in an accountancy position was in 1999 - approx five years ago. I'm 28. I believe I need to show work experience for 12 out of the last 18 months. I setup my own company over 12mths ago so this doesn't pose too much of a problem. However since the points test has been raised to 120 I need an extra 10 points ie. 3 years work experience out of the last 4. As a result I find the need to bend the truth a little ie. extending my last accountancy position and maybe filling in a bit here or there.

I believe references are needed from all employers. Not in itself a problem. However there maybe a discrepancy in the job title and role.

So considering there are thousands of applicants every year could it be possible to bend the truth a little without stepping on too many toes? Do they check all applications or just those from certain countries? Do they check all references or just recent ones?

Sorry for such a frank post but you can't blame me for trying. I am a good person.....honest! I have no criminal convictions ("yet"...I hear you say) and a clean bill of health. I feel I have everything else in place apart from my work experience I've also exhausted my 1 year working visa.

Hope you can offer some friendly advice/experiences.

Originally posted by Rob Morton-Jone
Hi,

Bending the truth a little, well i do not know in your case.

My wife is using AIM for her skills to be assessed and have been told that they are really strict and one of the hardest assessors to get through.

Detailed job descriptions for my wife and all subordinate managers, including organisational charts have to be obtained, documented on headed paper and authorised and signed by two senior directors. so any bending of the truth is a tad difficult!

Hope it helps

Rob

Originally posted by Rob Morton-Jone
Hi,

It was hard work to get all the information together, especially as my wife holds a high profile position and running a family at the same time.

Think that it has taken around eight weeks to get it upto the stage where all the info needs to be copied onto headed paper. We are just wating for our agent to give us the go ahead to print it all off, get all the pages documented and signed and then we can mail it out to AIM via our agent.


UOTE]Originally posted by Alborg
Struth! Thanks for your reply.

Originally posted by Alborg

Originally posted by Alborg

Originally posted by Rob Morton-Jone
And all this for a skills assessment?!? I guess the AIM assessment would be detailed as you would be applying based on your managerial skills, hence the need for director confirmation. Although I thought skills assessment would be more concerned with qualifications and DIMIA work experience?!?

Originally posted by Big Galah
Someone said in a recent post that his case officer was looking forward to speaking to him as she'd read all about his past on this forum! Is your username similar to your real name?

Be careful what you say, you don't want to give away too many details. Not that I'd ever condone 'bending the truth'.

Good luck.

Originally posted by Rob Morton-Jone
It is best to be honest and straight up front. It is best to look short on the skills assessment rather than to over do your job description and skills. If the assessor calls your employers, then i think that you may come unstuck.

it will look better to your assesor if you were honest.

Just my view anyway.

good luck!

Rob