Skills Assessments
Skills Assessment is one of the important aspects of Australian skilled visa process to determine whether your skills, experience and qualifications meet the Australian working standards. You may have gained qualifications and experience within or outside of Australia or from both. Still, you may require a suitable skills assessment for your skilled occupation from a nominated assessing authority. Skills assessment is mandatory for most of the permanent skilled migration visa categories. If you hold a passport from certain countries, you may require a skills assessment to apply for even temporary working visas.
You may find the relevant skills assessing authority for your occupation from the ‘Combined Occupation List’ provided by the Department of Home Affairs (DOH) on their website. There are two main categories of occupations when it comes to skills assessment. They are called trade occupations and professional occupations.
A positive skills assessment is a mandatory requirement for some visa categories and passport holders from certain countries etc. However, in other matters, case officers of DOH have the discretion to request a skills assessment to determine your relevant skills on a case-by-case basis.
It is the visa applicant’s obligation to provide a positive skills assessment along with his/her visa application if required and if you are unable to provide a suitable skills assessment on time, your visa application may potentially be refused.
Our team can assess your visa matter. You may be unsure of whether you need a suitable skills assessment for your visa. Or you may have questions about which assessing authority to contact to get your skills assessment done and what type of skills assessment you need to submit to Department of Home Affairs? What are the documents required to assess your skills? Is practical assessment required for your trade? Sometime, although you have obtained a skills assessment for your previous visa application, it may not be suitable for your next visa application, and you may need to obtain a new skills assessment under a different program.
Our migration team has expertise to answer your questions and advise you on your skills assessment matters and visa related questions and start your skills assessment only if required.
Book your consultation with Eximius Lawyers today!
Disclaimer: This is intended as general information only and not to be construed as legal advice. The above information is subject to changes over time. You should always seek professional advice before taking any course of action.
Trade Skills Assessment
If your occupation is a trade related occupation, Trade Recognition Australia (TRA) is the assessing authority to provide skills assessment service for most of the occupations. It is a government service that regulates most of the trade related and associated professional occupations for skills assessments. TRA has introduced different programs such as Temporary Skills Shortages (TSS) skills assessments, Offshore Skills Assessment Program (OSAP), Job Ready Program (JRP), Provisional Skills Assessments (PSA), Skills Assessment Opportunities for Migrants (SAOM) Pilot and Migration Skills Assessment (MSA) based on your occupation and visa category, qualifications, trainings completed in Australia and overseas etc. Sometimes TRA assigns Recognised Training Organisations (RTO’s) to conduct skills assessments on behalf of TRA for some occupation types.
Most of the trade skills assessments have two stages namely, documents assessment stage (Stage 1) and technical interview stage (Stage 2). Some license trades like electrical and plumbing require an additional 3rd stage called a ‘practical assessment’
General Skills Assessments
If your occupation is a professional occupation, there are list of professional skill assessing authorities that can assess your skills based on your occupation type. For some occupations, you may combine your experience gained from closely related occupations, if these occupations fall under the first 4 digits of the ANZSCO occupations. You must contact the correct skill assessing authority to conduct your skills assessment application. Most professional occupations have their own nominated skill assessing authority to assess their skills. They have the authority and expertise to assess relevant occupation types. For most professional occupations, both qualifications and experience/training are required to assess your skills. Each assessing authority has their own procedures, systems, guidelines, and time frames to conduct the skills assessments.
