Today another S57 + 4020 case was granted after our response submission! This applicant’s situation is a very typical one, and worth sharing with everyone as a reminder.
Application background
Older-age offshore skilled migration applicant. Lodged in 2023, then the Department issued a request for more information followed by a phone interview, and subsequently questioned the authenticity of the work-experience evidence. An S57 + 4020 was issued requiring an explanation. The applicant then came to us, and after our team’s professional response — substantiating the genuineness of their employment from multiple angles — the grant finally came through in 2026!
Timeline
June 2023: lodged through another agent
End of 2024: request for additional work-experience evidence
Summer 2025: work-reference provider was phone-interviewed
Shortly after, the S57 + 4020 letter arrived
November 2025: S57 + 4020 response submitted; just before Christmas 2025, a request for further medicals
January 2026: Subclass 491 granted
Grant notification
Why the S57 + 4020 was issued
Problem 1: the reference provider answered the phone interview poorly — not only was the information vague, they also made some rather “fatal” definitive statements, for example that the reference letter was not written by them personally and so they weren’t clear on its contents, and so on.
Problem 2: in reality the reference provider was only a colleague rather than the manager or direct supervisor they should have been, and therefore did not actually know the applicant’s specific duties. This is fairly common in offshore applications — the applicant doesn’t want their employer or supervisor to know they are preparing to migrate, so they have a close colleague act as referee, and sometimes even the reference letter is drafted by a third party and the referee merely signs it.
The S57 with 4020 attached
The worst-case outcome is that the skilled migration application is refused AND the applicant cannot apply for most Australian visas for three years
This could well be a decision that shapes the entire course of a person’s life.
The applicant had already been waiting more than two years — it had been truly gruelling — and if in the end the outcome was bad, it would naturally be very hard to accept. Frankly, by the time the S57 arrived the applicant was already 40 years old, and under the current skilled-migration climate the chances of receiving another invitation are very slim.
So the applicant came to us and asked, “Can this be saved?”
After we assessed and analysed the whole situation, we believed it was worth giving it everything we had.
So how did we save it?
We tackled it from two main angles.
First, proving the genuineness of the work experience.
Second, addressing point-by-point the discrepancies in the reference provider’s phone-interview answers.
For this we prepared several dozen supporting documents and a 22-page explanation letter of more than 7,000 words.
This is the Nth S57 + 4020 case we’ve handled recently — across both skilled migration and partner migration. We won’t rehash what an S57 + 4020 is here; you can read our earlier piece: After lodging your PR application, the Department suspects that your work/partner/visa-history/information is fabricated and issues an S57 + 4020 letter? There may still be a way out — don’t panic!
Points to watch for skilled migration, especially offshore applications
The reason we’re singling out this case to share with everyone is because of how representative it is.
1. Over the past year, the Department’s scrutiny of work experience has become noticeably stricter, with a higher probability of phone interviews — particularly for offshore skilled-migration applications.
2. Most 190 / 491 applications are now taking more than 18 months to process, and 189 takes half a year to a year. Processing timelines are long — this applicant’s case spanned from 2023 through to 2025. Remember to keep in touch with your reference providers, and if their circumstances change (for example they leave the company) you can update and notify the Department.
3. Handling work-experience evidence has to be done with great care. Offshore applicants generally have long work histories, and for all sorts of reasons it’s easy for “pieces to go missing”. We still recommend getting a professional to look at how to make the evidence as complete as possible — otherwise it won’t stand up to scrutiny, and once problems are discovered, the difficulty of fixing them rises significantly.
