Season 1 – Episode 2

Welcome to Season 1, Episode 2 of the Canadian Immigration Podcast. In this episode I will be discussing the Top 5 things you need to do to prepare yourself before even thinking about submitting your Express Entry profile.

Opening Tip: Do not take an English Test first as indicated on the CIC Website! 

By following the 5 sequential steps below, you can save yourself up to $500 CDN in the event you are ineligible for Express Entry. Not everyone who wants to enter their profile into the Express Entry pool, will be able to meet the minimum eligibility criteria. If you follow these 5 sequential steps you will be able to know, at the earliest possible stage, whether or not you are ineligible from submitting your profile and whether or not it makes sense to pay the approximately $200 CDN for a language test and $300 CDN for an Educational Credential Assessment. I believe that there is no point in wasting your money unless you know there is nothing preventing you from applying.

1. Assess your admissibility to Canada.


2. Determine if you have at least 1 year of Skilled Work Experience.


3. Take the Language Test.


4. Get an Educational Credential Assessment done.


5. Determine if you qualify for one of the Economic Immigration Programs (FST, FSW or CEC).

[Tweet “When determining eligibility for Express Entry, taking an English Test is not the first step.”]

Listen to Mark Holthe’s Canadian Immigration Podcast

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• How to conduct an initial Express Entry screening to determine if you qualify.


• How to obtain a language test and the minimum scores for Express Entry.


• How to obtain an Educational Credential Assessment.


• How to determine if you meet the specific requirements of the individual PR programs (FST, FSW, and CEC).

Explore Additional Resources

In this episode we mentioned the following resources:

• CIC’s instructions for Express Entry: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/profile.asp


• How to determine if you are inadmissible: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/infORmation/inadmissibility/index.asp


• NOC 2011: http://www5.hrsdc.gc.ca/NOC/English/NOC/2011/Welcome.aspx


• Federal Skilled Worker Points System: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/apply-factors.asp 


• ECA Designated Organizations: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/assessment.asp?expand=designated#designated


• CRS Tables: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/express-entry/grid-crs.asp


• Program Criteria for each PR category (FST, FSW, CEC): http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/apply-who-express.asp

I will be speaking at the follow upcoming events. If you would like to register, please follow the links below for further information. Let me know if you will be attending as I would love to meet you in person.

• Human Resource Institute of Alberta’s Canadian Immigration Law Event (Sept 23, 2015)


• Canadian Institute’s Immigration and International Worker’s Forum (Oct 27-28, 2015)

Question for our Next Podcast

Read the Transcript

You can read a complete, word-for-word transcript of this episode, [spoiler]Welcome to the Canadian immigration podcast season 1, episode 2. With citizenship and immigration Canada making it increasingly difficult to speak to an officer, there are few places to turn for information that can be relied upon. The Canadian immigration podcast was created to fill this void, by offering the latest information on Canadian law, policy, and practice. Please welcome ex-immigration officer and Canadian immigration lawyer Mark Holthe, as he answers a wide variety of immigration questions, and shares practical tips and guidance to help you along your way.

In today’s episode I’m going to be discussing the top five things you need to do to prepare yourself before even thinking about submitting your profile into the express entry pool. CIC’s instructions for submitting your profile into the express entry pool are pretty clear. If you go to the website, they will tell you step one, take your language test, step two get your foreign education assessed. And finally confirm your skill work experience abroad. So three steps, language test, get your education, then confirm your skilled foreign worker experience.

Well I can tell you that if you follow these steps right off the bar, without doing anything else, you’ll be wasting your money. I really don’t want you to do that, so let me help you save $500 before you even get started. First thing I want to indicate is that to take the language test it’s going to cost you between 265 to 300 Canadian dollars to do that. To get your education assessed, it’s going to cost you between 200 and about 226 dollars to get your foreign credentials assessed.

Now I don’t want you to waste that money if you are not yet at a position in which you can even submit your profile into the portal. And the reality is if it’s going to take you a couple of years to qualify by that time your language test could have expired, generally English language test lasts for two years. And the educational credentials assessments are good for about five. So we are not so concerned about them lapsing, and then you not being able to use them later, but the reality is if you want that $500 in your pocket now, if you are not even going to come close to qualifying, then you need to follow my tips that I’m going to give you right now.

My opening tip to save money is one don’t take the language test first. So despite CICs instructions to rush off and spend that money, hold off for now and here are the five most important steps that you need to do first. So number one, assess your admissibility. Let’s face it not everybody is going to be admissible to Canada, sometimes you make stupid decisions when we are young, and we end up with criminal records for relatively small things, but even small things can result in inadmissibility to Canada.

When it comes to assessing admissibility, the government looks at a number of different things, and I’m not going to give you a comprehensive list here because that’s — we don’t really have time for that. But you could be found inadmissible for health grounds, if you’ve had an illness, financial reasons and ultimately the financial will result at the end of the process when they ask you to provide the necessary settlement funds to be able to establish yourself in Canada. And if you can’t prove you have sufficient funds to do so, then that can also scuttle the whole process. So it’s better to assess now whether you think you will be able to achieve