CO verification of prior work experience?

[Famed]

Hi all,

Sorry, many questions below and mixed up with concerns.

How does CO verify past work experience, especially duties and responsibilities? I am claiming points for ICT CSO 313 312

I have claimed points only for my current work employment which is permanent, full time approx 1 year 4 months and prior to that only for 5 weeks which was temporary, contractual, for 3 months but I left early owing to look out for a full time role, where I am currently at.

Also, prior to that I worked as a Manager in India for an american MNC which had product related support for their software - will this be counted? My work experience letter does not have duties and responsibilities listed but do CO reach out to employers to verify duties and responsibilities too - I understand that they would verify title and start / end dates of employers. Also, what if the previous manager has left the company or has a bad memory to list the full list of responsibilities. My previous employers had domicile in UK (5 month tenure in India) and others were India based MNCs. Will this experience be counted or only work experience of US, UK, Canada, AU and NZ or MNCs in India is counted?

My previous jobs also had technical support as part of the duties / responsibilities while I worked in a junior position and then the teams had handles were involved in those roles - are both these responsibilities counted as work experience even if the latter was a senior role but involved managing staff involved in customer service which had 50 -60% amount of tech support?

Overall I have work experience in 16+ years but tech support more or less forms 3 to 7+ years either directly or through supervising a team.

I am worried that my commerce degree (assessed as level 7 as per NZQA) will not be counted as relevant qualification so I only have my work experience to bank on. I have my appointment letter, work experience certificate and payslips for most of these roles. My managers and colleagues are more or less in contact but I am worried about the questions they be asked to verify my employment which may jeopardize my case.

Can anyone share their thoughts on how the experience will be counted and verified?

Other than that, I am outside Auckland, have a family member as resident in NZ and my spouse completed level 8 qualification - I have mentioned all this as part of my application.

Also, another thing I wanted views on is in my office 2 people have secured their residency but surprisingly others who applied have been rejected since the CO found the role as not skilled enough. Do CO treat cases differently even though one accepted as skilled employment but others refused to accept it as skilled?

So far CO has only asked me to prove relevance of qualification with my current role and asked for payslips, etc which have been submitted.

I am worried about my chances and progress of case in terms of verifying work experience, along with my role considered as skilled or not, since some were approved but others rejected by COs.

Inputs please?

Thanks!
Famed.

[JandM]

Have you claimed any points at all for past work experience? Anything under SM7? https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/6954.htm

[Famed]

Have you claimed any points at all for past work experience? Anything under SM7? https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/6954.htm

I have only claimed points for my current permanent (1 yr 5+ months) and previous (5 weeks, full time temp role, actual contract 3 months) work experience. I did not mention previous work experience since felt it would not be considered. But now, since was asked to prove relevance of qualification with current employment and just felt it may not suffice as a point (have a bachelor of commerce degree - level 7 as per NZQA assessment vs current employment which is considered as ICT CSO 313 312), I highlighted to the CO about my previous experience. I am sure, these will be verified hence my concerns as listed above - I have payslips, work experience letters, appointment letters but no document listing duties and responsibilities and previous managers / colleagues more or less in touch but not necessarily with the same company. Hence, my queries on what are my chances and how will the experience be verified.

Also, I had received my ITA based on the old SMC policy, prior to Aug 28 so am receiving points for being outside Auckland, and gained points for family member residing in NZ.

Please provide inputs on all my queries above, although jumbled up.

Thanks a lot!

[JandM]

In that context, I think you are right that your CO will feel obliged to investigate your past experience. When someone has claimed points for previous employment(s), the need is to show start date, end date, hours worked, salary, details of responsibility, qualifications needed in order to be appointed to that post. People prove the various aspects in a variety of ways. Some former employers, or the HR department, are willing to write a letter covering everything. If they are not, then most people can show some details by referring to their financial and tax records. Very often, particularly if a business has closed, or the same people are not there with whom they used to work, forum members have asked a former line manager or colleague (someone who had reason to know exactly what work they did) to write a letter for them. This person would need to explain who they are and what their role was - in other words, why they knew about the applicant's job. They need to be going to be available at the contact details they give during the processing of the application, so that the CO can ask them about what they have written. Yes, it DOES get followed up.

I have not heard of anyone in just your circumstances - not claiming points, but referring the CO to their previous work to show their suitability for their present job - so I can't comment about how that will be assessed, only that it will be checked out.

You can't say - nobody can - exactly what happened in the cases of the other people in your office. If you read other people's posts on the forum, you will see accounts of different contacts between the CO and an employer, or the CO and the applicant. Any CO can only go on the information that is provided to them about the particular case that is before them at the time; s/he won't go looking for other cases to make comparisons. So if, for instance, when the INZ questionnaire arrives for the employer to fill in about what the applicant does, someone from the HR department, who doesn't fully understand the details of the work, fills it out, this can give a wrong impression of the level of skill needed for some of the applicant's responsibilities. The CO will almost certainly want to talk to the applicant about their work, maybe to check with them the impression they have from the questionnaire. It has sometimes happened that the applicant did not realize how important this conversation is, and has answered vaguely while trying to deal with something else at the same time, and again, the CO judges from the distracted replies. So you see, the CO's judgement of a job does not depend just on the job itself, but on how they are told about it. It is in your interests to make sure that your employer's replies, and your own, are as full and thoughtful as possible.

[Shubbie1979]

Hi Famed,

Just to add what Janm shared and my experience, I worked in 5 different companies and unfortunately 2 companies (total 3 years working experience) have merged and bought over by giant companies. I am not able to get the employment reference letter since the new HR folks unable to retrieve my information's and reluctant to provide the details. What I did is, search some informations about the company merged in internet, print out and add some supporting documents on my pay slips and income tax documents. At the same time, I managed to get my ex-working colleague to do statuary declaration that we have work in the same company, work in same project and he list down the roles and my responsibilities and provided his working visa to prove on the company name. Lastly, get this stamped and validated by Notary Public. So, it is still not late yet if you could reach your ex working colleagues to help you with the verification on the previous working experience duties.