My no non-sense guide to applying for permanent residency under, "Canadian Experience Class"

Oh Canada, my home and native land....woops, not yet!

This guide is super crucial for anyone who:
1) Graduated from UBC as an international student
2) Has a post-graduation work permit and has been working full-time in Canada in a "professional" field for over a year
3) Don't want to pay a lawyer ~$6,000 to do something you CAN do on your own.

Want to know my credentials?
Well, I don't really have any, I'm just awesome.
Also, I happen to work for a non-profit legal education organization (for over two years) and my job revolves around going to legal education conferences and getting updated in the various fields of law, including immigration law. I have also applied for several different visas while living in Canada and am very familiar with the paper work. And finally, I like to try and do things on my own so I decided to conquer this thing by myself.
I am making this guide becasue this was a really tough process and everyone needs all the advice they can get.
Plus, I really like helping people out, so hopefully I'll get some good karma points for this one.

DISCLAIMER: Please know that things change (legislation gets updated, etc.) and this guide should not be your only reference for applying in Canada. This is just a guide for those who don't like guides and need help in this area. Also, you can't get mad at me if you don't get what you want. I'm just trying to help out and ultimately it is Immigration Canada that will decide your fate.

Ok, where does one start?

So, back in 2008 Canada realized they did not have enough citizens of its own to meet the demand for business so they decided to add another category to their immigration list so that more people could apply. This category is called, "Canadian Experience Class."

Click here to read the News release from Immigration Canada about their new category.

Click here to read the Immigration Canada Backgrounder to find out the minimum requirements for applying under Canadian Experience Class.

If you read the Backgrounder and are only confused with the "work experience" part, then continue on. If you do not qualify under the "education" and "language" parts then you're out of luck.

Work experience is tough and I go way more into detail about it further down, so if you have gotten this far, then I recommend you download the Application Package.

Click here to find out "How to apply" for Permanent Residency
and
Click here to just download the PDFs for application (aka all the forms you will need to fill out plus the document checklist).

**You should know that once you download the PDFs, you can only save the blank form, you cannot save your work. They want you to fill out these forms on the computer (and not in your hand writing)! Since you cannot save them I recommend you print them, fill them out by hand and then fill it out on the computer and print it but, ONLY when it is completely and correctly filled out.

The Tough part: Figuring out whether your work experience is good enough
This part sucks. I freaking hated it so at least I'm saving you hours of frustration by making it easier to deal with.
Ok, so Canada has this handy dandy list of how to tell whether your job is attractive enough for Canada to keep you. How does one know if you job is worthy or not.

Here's what immigration Canada tells you:
"Applicants are required to accumulate at least one year of work experience at Skill Type 0 (managerial occupations) or Skill Level A (professional occupations) or B (technical occupations and skilled trades) on the Canadian National Occupation Classification, also known as the NOC."
Ya, that doesn't really make sense now, does it?! So here's how we're going to do this one. I'm going to give you a list of things to do in order to not make this process so sucky. If you cannot do all these things on the list you should:
A) Speak to a lawyer which will cost money
or
B) Don't apply.
List of things to do (re: Work Experience):
The most important thing is to talk to the boss. Do you have a good relationship with your employer/supervisor/boss/slave master?

If not, then sucks for you.
If you do, then you need to make sure your employer is willing to write you a reference letter.

This reference letter must state that you:

• Work at least 37.5 hours a week at this job

• fit the description listed by the NOC to describe you job

Here's an example:
If the NOC states a waiter's job includes
-waiting tables
-cleaning floors
-handling money

THEN your reference letter should state pretty much verbatim what the NOC description says.

After you get your reference letter figured out you need to get copies of a lot of documents, including:

• Birth certificate
• All stamps in your passport
• Your degree (and your high school transcript just in case)
• All your previous study and or work visas you previously had
• Your current work visa
• Copies of any other education or certification you might have
• Most recent Tax assessment and T4 slip
• There is a new addition to the application and its a language test to prove you speak English or French (Canada's official languages). I couldn't find it on the website but I'm sure it exists so just another thing to add to your list. Do you hate me yet?

You need to provide an original copy of:

• Your university transcript
• Finger prints: I know you are thinking, "SAY WHAT?" but you have to get fingerprinted and have them send to your home country for clearance. When you send the document you must ask them to send the results back to you and then you send the results receipt with your application. Canada does not require that you submit finger prints but if you have any kind of criminal record and they find out about, they ain't going to be happy.

Here is a link to How to obtain a Police certificate if you are from the US of A.
If you are from somewhere, I'm sorry just look it up.

There is an electronic service that does fingerprinting and I highly recommend you do that rather then doing manual fingerprints. I did the manual ones and the processing time takes way longer and it ends up being more expensive.

Processing Fees:
One of the last things you need to do is send the application in and pay the fees, which are not cheap ($550). Once you pay and send in your application you can't get your money back, so take that into consideration. Also, $550, might seem like a lot but its one of the cheapest of immigration processing fees just to put things in perspective.
You think it's easy to just send in your application but of course they have specific instructions on how to do this so click on this link to do it the "right" way.

***Super important for Americans****
Ok, so if you are American your application is going  to the Canadian consulate in Buffalo NY, USA. I know this is silly but whatever.
More important is they have specific instructions on how to send the money so click on this link to figure out how to pay properly.

If you know someone who has done this application before I recommend getting them to look it over before you submit it. You can pay a paralegal to do it for $180.00 an hour (I did it once) and then have your fellow peers look it over before sending it to Immigration Canada.

I wish you good luck and may the force be with you.