A new system called Express Entry opened on January 1, 2015 to manage how people with skilled work experience can apply to immigrate to Canada. In order to qualify under Express Entry, an applicant must be eligible under one of the following immigration programs:
- Canadian Experience Class
- Federal Skilled Worker Program
- Federal Skilled Trades Program
- Provincial Nominee (in some cases)
The Canada Express Entry Program depends on a focuses based framework to assess candidates. The fundamental goal of this framework is to recognize candidates who have the most elevated possibility of prevailing after they relocate to Canada. The focuses scale has a greatest score of 1200 and assesses you and your spouse. Anyone who is accepted into the Express Entry pool could get an Invitation to Apply for permanent residence. Draws to invite candidates to apply are expected to take place at regular intervals over the course of each year. CIC will only pick the top ranking candidates regardless of when they were accepted into the pool. The first draw is expected in late January. If you have been invited to apply, you will have 60 days to submit a complete Application for Permanent Residence online.
The Express Entry system has two steps:
- Potential candidates complete an online Express Entry profile. Qualified candidates are placed in a pool
- The highest-ranking candidates in the pool will be invited to apply for permanent residence.