STOP PRESSES: TRA policy changes to come into effect on 1 September 2008 have been deferred indefinitely. Click here if you wish to be kept up to date with the new policy when it is announced.

GETTING THROUGH THE TRADE SKILLS ASSESSMENT QUAGMIRE

Skills assessment is a compulsory pre-requisite to all skilled migration applications. Trade occupation skills assessments are probably the most difficult of all the skills assessment requirements. Trade assessments for migration purposes are conducted by organisations known as Trades Recognition Australia (TRA) and Vetassess Consortium depending on the candidate’s occupation. Most assessments are conducted in Australia with a small number of specific occupations being outsourced to other countries.

TRA & Vetassess Consortium are required to assess against only one particular occupation when assessing candidates for skilled migration. So if you are a plumber do you also include your experience as a gasfitter or if you are a joiner do you also include your experience as a carpenter etc? Too much information and you may appear as a “Jack of all trades & master of none” or on the other hand too little information and you may appear to lack a full depth of experience in the trade you wish to be assessed against. Both cases will invariably end up in a failed application.

Unlike most assessing authorities, TRA do not assess purely based on an applicant’s occupational qualifications. Individual are assessed against a combination of qualifications, formal vocational training and work experience that must satisfy the strict requirements of the TRA Uniform Assessment Criteria (UAC). This is where the application process starts to get complicated and confusing! What constitutes too little or too much information in order to gain a successful assessment of your skills? This is where most problems start for the skill assessment applicant.

TRA require that applicants provide “decision ready” applications for assessment. What constitutes a decision ready application? Have I provided enough information and proof or have I gone overboard and provided too much. The old adage of “you can never provide too much information” does not apply when dealing with TRA.

The assessing authorities do not provide exact application templates for every trade nor for every individual’s particular background in their occupation. Most individual applicants will have differing levels of qualifications that were gained from organisations with differing levels of national recognition, these factors will be significant in determining what other supporting documentary proof you will need. There are also trades people who have undertaken formal training in their trade and have subsequently lost their papers and cannot get them replaced, what do they do? The weight of additional supporting evidence now becomes essential to a successful application outcome.

Many trades people have no formal qualifications in their particular trade, they were self taught or trained on the job without any formal college training or apprenticeship. Can you still meet the requirements and how would you do it, do you have enough experience and is it the right experience for the occupation? This may require the candidate to consider gaining qualifications from either their country of origin or from Australia via various methods of recognition. Please contact Access Migration for further information of these methods.

In all cases the candidates require proof of employment experience throughout their career in the nominated occupation. What happens when companies are no longer trading and you cannot provide references? How much work experience is sufficient to meet the requirements and what can you do to provide proof of your employment when the company no longer exists?

The honest answer is that there is no set single formula or solution in being able to determine the exact requirements for your particular circumstances. Each application will be judged on its individual merits and the profile of that particular applicant. This is the reason that so many trade skills applications are rejected. The assessors have to be able to satisfy themselves that the person they are assessing would be deemed to be skilled to Australian standards which in many cases will differ from standards set in their home country. There are too many causes for applications to fail than we have space for here, so here are three of the most common reasons:

Lack of appropriate documentary evidence of experience in the occupation

Insufficient proof of extent or duration of work experience to be considered as skilled in the occupation

Insufficient proof of time spent in formal vocational training

Remember that the assessing authorities require a “decision ready” application as at the time of application lodgement.

How Access Migration can assist you in starting the first major procedure of your Immigration application?

If you are in any way unsure of how to tackle the TRA skills assessment application you should contact us now……  here is why:-

• We undertake hundreds of trade skills assessment applications every year so we have the experience of having processed hundreds of trade skills assessment applications in all of the mainstream trades. .

• We have dealt with every situation and circumstance that is likely to arise and has the potential to fail an application. Often the devil is in the detail!

• We particularly specialise in assisting applicants who are unable to show recognised trade qualifications.

• We are very proud of our 99% success rate with TRA applications (97% at the first attempt).

Let us put our knowledge and experience of dealing with TRA to good use.  Let Access Migration gain you the positive skills assessment result that you need to make your migration application.

Call us now on UK 0845 644 5607 or complete our online assessment form (click here)