From accounting to aged care — permanent residency on the way

Case background

Our client came to Australia as a mature-age international student, and migration was the main goal. Her background was in business, and applying for migration directly from offshore gave her no real advantage. For her child’s sake, she decided to start again. Her English base was not strong, which ruled out nursing, teaching and social work — those courses all set relatively high English entry requirements — so she settled on accounting. She knew accounting had already become a very difficult route to migration in Australia, but she believed that after graduating she could use her years of work experience to find accounting work here, and that a job would open the door to employer sponsorship — perhaps even the Subclass 186 employer-sponsored Direct Entry stream, and permanent residency straight away.

One pivot, then another

In the six months before graduation, however, she felt the full force of competition in the accounting field. She quickly realised that work experience from back home counted for little, and that the points-based skilled migration routes — the Subclass 189 Skilled Independent visa, or the Subclass 190 Skilled Nominated visa — would first demand a high EOI score and then an open-ended wait. Facing that overcrowded track, she turned decisively and set out to explore work as a massage therapist. The work is hard, needless to say, but the flame never went out — for her child, and for the life she wanted them to have.

Building experience as a massage therapist and then going through points-based migration or ordinary employer sponsorship, though, would have taken a long time and carried plenty of uncertainty.

A half-hour conversation opens an aged care chapter

By chance, she came across Newstars. Half an hour of conversation was enough to light the way. We mapped out a more direct route for her — the aged care pathway. Better still, she had planned ahead and already held a Certificate III in Individual Support (Aged Care); that hidden bonus laid a solid foundation under her migration plan.

With that qualification she stepped into the Aged or Disabled Carer (ANZSCO 423111) occupation. In January 2024 she lodged the Subclass 482 employer sponsorship nomination and visa application with confidence, and on 3 March 2025 the approval she had waited for finally arrived.

Nomination approved

After two years with the employer, she can move — together with her child — to the Subclass 186 Temporary Residence Transition (TRT) permanent residency visa.