Have overseas work experience? Not an Australian local qualification? You need to read this! It can help you avoid detours in your migration journey — and get twice the result for half the effort!

For many people living overseas, whenever the topic of skilled migration comes up, you’ll often hear questions like: which state should I apply to for my profession? What’s the invitation score for my occupation? Is my occupation in high demand for migration?How do you work out exactly which occupation you fall under, and whether it’s favourable for migration? It mainly comes down to what occupation your final skills assessment nominates.A skills assessment is the foundation of the foundation for skilled migration —you could say that without a skills assessment, there’s no skilled migration at all.

Given how important the skills assessment is, how do we actually go about getting one?

When doing a skills assessment, you must always keep migration as the end goal.For the same field of study, depending on which subjects you chose and where your work experience is focused, the occupation you’re assessed into can differ.For example, two people who both studied accounting might end up assessed into different occupations — one as an internal accountant, another as an external accountant. Likewise, among those who studied chemical engineering, some are assessed as chemical engineers while others are assessed under a different engineering occupation.

So when preparing for a skills assessment, you need to first settle on your target occupation, then prepare your documents around that target occupation. One person can hold several different skills assessments, and when more than one occupation is achievable,you should choose based on your migration pathway — and this is where it’s worth getting advice from a professional.

the three most common occupation categories in Australia areaccounting, engineering, and computing.These three occupations are basicallyassessed based on your undergraduate/postgraduate subjects combined with your Professional Year/work experience/IELTS score.

Then for other occupations, such asnurses, teachers, and social workers,and so on, these need to be assessed through the relevant industry body, and generally requirea highly relevant qualification + work experience/internship experience.

Aside from these occupations and trades with their own specific pathway,most of the common occupations you’ll come across day-to-day are assessed through VETASSESS.VETASSESS is often abbreviated to VET, and it covers more than 300 occupations.for example,marketing specialists, landscape architects, and interior designersamong others, are all assessed through this body.

VET’s skills assessment doesn’t require English, which saves applicants a huge amount of time when preparing for skilled migration. Applicants can complete their skills assessment first while sitting their English test at the same time. When VET assesses an occupation, it mainly looks at the following two points:

Qualification:The level of the qualification (diploma, bachelor’s, or postgraduate), and how long it took. What exactly was studied, and whether the field of study is highly relevant to the nominated occupation.

Work experience:The specific duties involved, whether those duties are highly relevant to the nominated occupation, how many years of experience there are, and whether it was paid at a normal salary. Also whether that work experience was completed within the past five years.

These two points above are the key factors examined when applying for a VET occupation assessment.

If you’re not sure whether your work experience and qualifications are “eligible”, feel free to contact me directly for an assessment!

Having read the above, I’m sure many applicants will have a question, such as:what if I did my qualification in China, or if I’ve worked for many years after graduating —can I apply for the skills assessment directly from within China, to save the time it would otherwise take before coming to Australia to build my future? The answer, of course, is yes.

If a student in China wants to use their Chinese qualification for an occupation assessment, they’ll need their bachelor’s degree certificate and academic transcript,and go through VETASSESS first for a Chinese qualifications assessment to confirm the qualification is genuine — that’s all that’s needed.

But having the qualification alone isn’t enough —after passing the qualifications assessment stage, there’s still the matter of assessing relevant work experience.

So even if your qualification isn’t highly relevant to your intended occupation, there’s no need to worry too much — as long as your past work experience is highly relevant, you can still be assessed into the occupation you want.

Here’s a simple example:

Wang Xiaoming graduated in China with a bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication, then worked in graphic design in China for a year after graduating. He later found graphic design uninteresting, so he changed careers to become a journalist at a newspaper, working diligently in that field for three years. In a situation like this, Wang Xiaoming has two possible directions for his skills assessment:

1,Assess using his Chinese bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication plus 1 year of graphic design work experience after graduatingGraphic designer,his Chinese bachelor’s degree needs a qualifications assessment, and this can only be done through VET.

2,Assess using his Chinese bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication plus 3 years of journalist work experience within the past 5 years, and apply forcopy writerskills assessment,in this case VET will focus mainly on assessing the relevant work experience.

Graphic designer is one of the occupations favoured by many overseas applicants. A graphic designer’s main duties involve using text, symbols, images, colour schemes, and composition to achieve commercial communication goals — conveying the information a project or product needs to communicate to its audience in a creative way. Because this occupation falls under the professional category,it requires a relevant background and work experience.

To obtain a skills assessment for this occupation, you need to meet the following requirements:

— Graphic design, visual communication, or similarhighly relevant bachelor’s degree or higher qualification background+after the qualification,within the past five years,1 year of relevant work experience

—Other bachelor’s degree or higher qualification background that is not highly relevant+ within the past 5 years,3 years or moreof relevant work experience

If you’re unsure whether your qualification counts as relevant or not, feel free to contact me directly for an assessment!

A landscape architect is mainly responsible for the subdivision and planning of land for parks, schools, open spaces, roads, and the external areas of all types of buildings — including planning and designing land areas for commercial, industrial, residential, and other projects.

To obtain a skills assessment, you need to meet the following requirements:

—A bachelor’s degree or higher qualification background highly relevant to landscape architecture, urban planning, or similar fields+after the qualification,within the past five years,1 year of relevant work experience

—Other bachelor’s degree or higher qualification background+ within the past 5 years,3 years or more of relevant work experience

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