SMC Points

[servantnimai]

Hi everyone on this wonderful forum.

Some history:

From South Africa

I have an uncle and grand parents on my dad's side who have been living in NZ for about 18 years.

I have a wife and three kids (aged 4,3,0).

I have a Bachelors Of Technology Degree: Electrical Engineering(2013), and a National Diploma: Computer Systems Engineering(2012). Both Exempt from Assessment from NZQA

I started working as a Managers Assistant in a Health Store from June 2008 till June 2011.

I then worked as a ICT Support and Test Engineer at a well known computer company worldwide, while I was completing my Diploma, from June 2011 till Dec 2012.

Then as a Lecturer's Assistant at my Uni for the whole of 2013 while I was completing my degree.

Then promoted to Technical Assistant this year.

I have been applying for jobs online without much luck for the past 4 months.
I only recently noticed that my qualifications and occupation is both on the LSST and Absolute Shortage List and could get extra points for that.
Now I am looking at applying directly for SMC without a job offer.

Question

1) Would my work at the Health Store be counted towards work experience? Then I would have 6 years work experience.

2) My wife has a level three qualification, also exempt from assessment, which gives 10 points, but according to https://www.immigration.govt.nz/pointsindicator/ we get an extra 10 for question Did you begin your study for level 3, 4, 5 or 6 recognised qualification on or before 24 July 2011?

3) Seems like https://www.immigration.govt.nz/pointsindicator/ also gives 10 points for
Did your partner begin study for their level 3, 4, 5 or 6 recognised qualification on or before 24 July 2011? but not on
http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra...ts/default.htm

my points are sitting at
Age: 30
Qualifications: 60
Work exp: 25/30(depending on 6 years of work exp)
Spouse:10


Any and all advice will be much appreciated.

[JandM]

The best place to check out what points you can get is here - these are the full regulations that INZ officials work from. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/6954.htm SM6 has a chart showing all the points that can be claimed, and in the last column in each case, it shows you which further section to go to to see the rules governing requirements for claiming those points.

Specifically, here are my thoughts about the questions above. I'm sorry that some of it will be rather less hopeful than you would wish. It's possible that Karen Phillips, who's a licensed immigration adviser who posts on the forum, may have some experience about pushing for the maximum of your work to be allowed to count, as your case contains some grey areas.* They don't count work experience from before you completed your qualifications. Therefore, your health store experience will be right out of the picture, and so, probably, will the work while you were studying for your diploma, although it was obviously using the right sort of skills. If the diploma itself is a qualification that counts for the job you are putting forward as your skill, you may be able to count your Lecturer's Assistant work, but notice that (assuming it was part-time) you can only count the time pro rata, not full years.

*It's a thing often seen with IT, that people who have high level skills don't have qualifications to match, and the INZ regulations aren't formed to be flexible about such things. They work on the model that study leads to qualification, and only THEN the person is doing skilled work, regardless of the fact that the real world often sees clever people doing extremely advanced things although they haven't followed or needed formal training to get to that point.

2 and 3. Your wife can only get 10 points for her qualification, unless she studied in NZ and meets the other requirements here. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/42640.htm

[RedVee]

And potentially not so good news on your qualifications being exempt, either.

To be exempt, the qualification needs to be named AND the institution of study needs to be named AND the year of award needs to match those in the table in the ops manual:

http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/42071.htm
And
http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/45795.htm

I can't see that any of the dates in that table include 2012 or 2013, so that means you would need assessment.

Secondly, the first of those lists says - ** A Bachelor of Technology (Baccalaureus Technologiae) in an Engineering speciality is not the same as a Bachelor of Engineering degree awarded by a South African university.

So, you may not be able to claim the extra points required for the LTSS or ISS.
http://skillshortages.immigration.go...014-08-06-.pdf

That says, for electrical engineers, you need to have:
Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (NZQF Level 7) majoring in electrical engineering AND a minimum of three years’ relevant post-qualification work experience.

So NZQA have already said they don't consider a Bachelors of Technology to be equivalent to a Bachelors in Engineering, and it doesn't look like you have 3 years post qualifying experience yet.

Hopefully Karen will be along soon to give you a second opinion on this, she knows this stuff inside out. But I think you need to go back to looking for a job, as I think your points are sitting around 95 without a job offer.

[peter1234]

hi,JandM , sorry for joining here but I also have sort of same question regarding qualifications in an area of absolute skills shortage points clause (b)

INZ official regulation states that:

SM16.20 Qualifications in an area of absolute skills shortage

(b) If a principal applicant does have skilled employment in New Zealand in an area of absolute skills shortage (see SM8.20) their recognised qualification will be assessed as being in an area of absolute skills shortage if the specialist, technical or managerial expertise required for that employment was obtained through the completion of that qualification.

SM16.20.1 Evidence
If (b) above applies, recognised qualifications in an area of absolute skills shortage will only qualify for points if the principal applicant provides evidence that they obtained the specialist, technical or managerial expertise required for their employment in an area of absolute skills shortage through completion of the recognised qualification.


I have skilled employment in NZ in area of absolute skills shortage and also have recognised qualification but does not meet the specifications in Column 4 of LTSSL yet. (because the criteria for bonus point other than qualification such as number of work experience)

In my case, can I claim for the bonus point if i can show the evidence of obtained technical/specialist required for that employment was obtained through the completion of that qualification ? If so, what types of evidence are acceptable for that?

By the way I still have evidence of job advertisement when got the job and it states relevant tertiary certificate and 3 years experiences will be required. is this good enough for it?

I am really worried about it, so I would appreciate if you could give me some comments...

[JandM]

I think you need an opinion from Karen or another qualified adviser here. What I know only comes from reading the regulations, and what other people have told on the threads about their experiences. Your case is a very particular one and I've not seen anyone else tell about such a thing, to know what happened.

[servantnimai]

Thanks JandM for the link found it real helpful. All the jobs were full time and therefore the years would be correct.
In terms of the work exp from the health store it might be pushing it but the work experience that I got as a ICT Support and Test Engineer might be counted as it falls in iii below:

SM11.10 Requirements for recognition
Work experience is recognised and qualifies for points if it meets the requirements set out at (a) and (b) below:

An immigration officer must be satisfied that work experience is:
i)relevant to the principal applicant's current skilled employment in New Zealand or offer of skilled employment in New Zealand (see SM7); or
ii)relevant to the principal applicant's recognised qualification (see SM14); or
iii)skilled, because it required, or enabled the principal applicant to gain specialist, technical or management skills and experience relevant to an occupation that is included in the lists of occupations held at Appendix 6 or Appendix 7.

Work as a Lecturer's Assistant was skilled because it required that I have a diploma or Degree.


And thank you RedVee, my diploma and degree are on the list NDE and BT and it says "Engineering: speciality stated" that is what I have. My Institutions is on there but the dates for qualifications accepted hasn't been updated. was hoping that INZ might update it some time next year, otherwise I will have to save up for the NZQA Assessment.

and in terms of the LTSS: I fall under Electronic Engineering Technician and i have met the regulations " relevant Bachelor Degree (NZQF Level 7) (for example, Bachelor of Engineering Technology, Bachelor of Technology in Electronics, Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Engineering) and a minimum of three years’ work experience and minimum of three years’ work experience" but I am sure that I would have to prove that my Degree is in Electronic Engineering(My University only recently made the distinction between the two on paper)

Yes I think I should go back to looking for a job in NZ as we wanna move ASAP