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Australia’s largest skills-assessing authority

VVET — formally known as VETASSESS — is one of the assessing authorities designated by the Australian Department of Home Affairs,and it assesses more occupations than any other authority.VETASSESS assesses two categories of occupations: the first is professional occupations, predominantly white-collar roles — for example, Construction Project Manager and Marketing Specialist; the second is trade occupations, which are blue-collar — for example, Cook and Pastry Cook.

The occupations VETASSESS assesses are not fixed —the list of occupations and their assessment requirements are updated periodically,so please take note of the publication date when reading any article, to avoid acting on outdated information.

A VETASSESS skills assessment is not only used for skilled migration — it also applies to employer-sponsored migration. VETASSESS also handles Chinese qualifications recognition and provides points-test advisory services.

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Quick occupation search

Here is how to quickly find your occupation’s requirements on the official website.First, confirm your occupation,then go to the VETASSESS official website. Select  “Skills Assessment for Migration”, then choose from the side “Professional Occupations” drop-down list, “Nominate an Occupation”and finally, enter your occupation in the  “Find an occupation”field on the right.

You can start with a keyword search. For example, to look up Construction Project Manager, just type “construction”, click Search, and you’ll find the information sheet for that occupation.

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Getting your occupation right is critical

I mentioned above that “first, confirm your occupation” — in practice, this is both the hardest and most important step in a VETASSESS skills assessment.

Those without specialist knowledge might think: how hard can it be to identify your own occupation? You do it every day, you’ve done it for years — surely you know what you do? The usual approach is to match a job title plus key duties to an occupation on VETASSESS, only to find that several occupations seem to fit. Can you choose any of them? Or do none actually qualify?

1. Understanding how an occupation’s duties are defined

In plain terms, this means understanding what the occupation actually involves —but your understanding may not match VETASSESS’s.Some occupations have fairly clear, uncontested definitions — for example, teacher, police officer, or nurse.But some occupations are very hard to describe concisely, and many people who do them every day struggle to explain exactly what they do.

2. Some occupations are defined differently in Australia and China

For example,Customer Service Manager(Customer Service Manager)— a very common job title in everyday life in China. Walk into any bank and you’ll see many staff wearing name badges that say “Customer Service Manager”. Does that qualify? Under VETASSESS’s definitions,these bank customer service managers do not meet the requirements for the Customer Service Manager occupation.

3. Many occupations have very similar duties, with blurry boundaries

For example,Graphic Designer and Web Designerand alsoMarketing Specialist and Advertising Specialist— these occupations share similar duties but have meaningful differences. Those differences are often subtle and easy to confuse.

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A complex but clearly defined issue

VETASSESS work experience deductions are one of the most frequently asked about issues. How many years get deducted? Why does one person lose one year while another loses two? Is it because the migration agent didn’t write the documents well enough? Some agents claim to have a proprietary solution, and others say they have connections that guarantee only one year will be deducted.

In reality, the rules for VETASSESS work experience deductions are very clear:

1. The number of years deducted equals the years of experience required by the skills assessment — how many years are deducted depends primarily on your qualification and academic background.For example, the table below shows the work experience requirements for the occupation of Video Producer under different educational qualifications (deduction periods vary by occupation).

2. Recent work experience requirement.The years of work experience must have occurred recently —generally within the past five years(as shown in the table below).

For example: an applicant who studied Human Resources at university, worked as a Marketing Specialist for ten years, but has not worked at all in the past five years — that person will not pass a skills assessment, because there is no recent work experience.

3. VETASSESS deductions are calculated in whole years — there are no half-year deductions such as 1.5 years or 2.5 years.

VETASSESS currently calculates work experience by day, and every day claimed must be supported by corresponding documentation — such as payslips, tax records, or an employer-issued reference letter that specifies exact employment dates, and may also need to detail any unpaid leave periods.

4. The number of years deducted has nothing to do with the migration agent or the documentation writer.

That is to say, no agent or writer can turn a case that should lose one year into one that loses nothing, or turn a two-year deduction into a one-year deduction.

Taking Construction Estimator as an example: if your qualification is in a related field, one year is deducted; if it is unrelated, two years are deducted — the deduction will go no lower than that. Of course, some occupations require that the qualification be directly related to the occupation — for example, the earlier example of Construction Project Manager. After a skills assessment is completed, the assessment letter will state the number of years of work experience that can be claimed for the points test.

5. VETASSESS mostly requires post-qualification work experience.

Work experience is divided into pre-qualification employment and post-qualification employment. The former refers to work experience before obtaining the relevant qualification (which is very uncommon and we won’t go into detail here), and the latter refers to work experience after obtaining the relevant qualification.VETASSESS’s work experience requirements refer, in most cases, to post-qualification work experience.

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How relevant is relevant enough?

What is highly relevant employment? In plain terms, it answers the question many people ask:“Does this period of work experience count?” “Can it be used for migration?””

— The applicant must have paid work experience that matches the skill level, skill set, and subject matter specified for the nominated occupation in order to meet VETASSESS’s requirements.Specifically,the applicant’s duties must be consistent with the majority of duties defined for the nominated occupation under ANZSCO; typically, the closely related occupation title falls within the same ANZSCO group as the nominated occupation (same ANZSCO group = same first four digits of the ANZSCO code), with a small number of exceptions, such as Agricultural Consultant (234111) and Agricultural Scientist (234112).

— For recognition of an applicant’s skilled work experience, the applicant’s work must meet the entry-level requirements for the nominated occupation and demonstrate the depth and complexity of that occupation. Skill levels across different ANZSCO-coded occupationsare reflected in differing duties, knowledge, and skills required, which in turn are reflected in differences in remuneration.

— The applicant’s work does not need to be full-time,but it must be paid employment, and the applicant must work at least 20 hours per week, and work averaging 20 hours per week over a year under an irregular work schedule is generally not considered. In some circumstances, casual work hours may also be taken into account, depending on the individual situation.

Note:For applicants with a doctoral degree, who are working in scientist occupations — such as agricultural scientist, physicist, or chemist — if the applicant’s work meets a certain skill level, is at least 20 hours per week, and is paid employment, pre-qualification work experience that meets these requirements may also be recognised. Each case must be assessed individually.

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