26 July, 2013; Refusal on Mar 2, 2014

[LPS]

Again, education is only part of the picture. Remember that the OP's employment history did not indicate that he/she had experience working in that area.

If you somehow rose to the position of bar manager despite never having worked in a bar, this might cast doubt upon whether you are actually performing those duties.

I'm curious too whether the MR arrived before the refusal letter (I think the eligibility check is done before an MR is issued though).

 

[sordi2006]

If an officer has doubts about the work experience, he/she should:

1) Contact my supervisor and club owner to clarify what my duties are.
- The person from this particular case was a regular employee for several months until he became a supervisor. How can you become a supervisor if EVERY supervisor position requires supervisor work experience????

2) Request additional documents: updated reference letter, 2013 tax filings, etc!

Whatever guidelines NOC provides is only GUIDELINES! Let me tell you something: I work as an investment analyst now and according to NOC - Bachelor degree is a must! 20% of my co-workers do not have university degrees and they are able to successfully perform their duties.

According to your logic, what would be a prerequisite job for a Supervisor at Subway?? Supervisor at MacDonalds or supervisor of what???

 

[LPS]

You're confused. No one is saying that a supervisor position requires prior experience as a supervisor. But I cannot imagine any case where (a) the industry is considered to be a skilled one, and (b) it's possible to be a supervisor without having prior experience in a more junior role.

 

[sordi2006]

You're confused. No one is saying that a supervisor position requires prior experience as a supervisor. But I cannot imagine any case where (a) the industry is considered to be a skilled one, and (b) it's possible to be a supervisor without having prior experience in a more junior role.

Here is an extract from his employment letter:
• Subway Sandwich Artist at our location (Store ####) Address ABC: August 26, 2011 Until April 26, 2012
• Food Service Supervisor at our location (Store # ####) Address ABC : April 27, 2012 Until August 18, 2012
• Food Service Supervisor at our location (Store # ####) Address ABC : August 19 2012 – Present

How is a "Sandwich Artist" for the period from August 2011 - April 2012 (8 months) not a junior position? Supervisor is the next step after a regular sandwich maker. If the officer requested additional docs, he would find out (assuming the candidate is still employed at the Subway), he was with that company for over 2.5 years and over 1.5 years in a supervisor role. He did not claim to be a regional manager right after graduation from college.

If my investment analyst story wasn't convincing enough, here is another one... At the time of my graduation, Target was hiring staff for it's Canadian stores. Briefly, management structure at every Target store is General Manager with 3 assistant managers (one in charge of HR, another for inventories and the third one for internal day-to-day operations). Each assistant manager is in charge of a team of employees. Annual salary: 60,000+ bonuses + benefits. Now, the most important part, job requirements for the Assistant Manager position:
(i) University degree
(ii) Leadership experience (e.g. president of a student organization, etc - not necessarily paid work experience)

I know this for a fact (and I have a job posting if you don't believe me) since I had an interview with them and met hiring HR managers (at the time I had zero work experience and just graduated from a university)
According to NOC 0621, such a position "requires several years of experience". So, according to the logic of that d*ck head officer, a fresh graduate who got accepted to the Assistant Manager Position cannot be working at that position??? But how come HR managers at Target are ready to hire fresh university graduates with zero work experience???
Please tell me how can you find ANY logic in this??

 

[sordi2006]

You're confused. No one is saying that a supervisor position requires prior experience as a supervisor. But I cannot imagine any case where (a) the industry is considered to be a skilled one, and (b) it's possible to be a supervisor without having prior experience in a more junior role.

And not even to go too far - I am another live example. I worked at that club as a busser (6 months, while in university), then as a bouncer (another 6 months) then I was promoted to an assistant Manager (my duties exactly coincide with NOC 0631) where I worked for 1 year and continue working. Now questions:

a) Who can say that managing a team of 30 people is "not skilled"? Who can say that facilitating regular parties with 1,000+ guests and 9 bars is "not skilled"? Who can say that being the second person in charge of the business with revenue of $30,000-50,000+ per night "not skilled"?
Did it require university degree with a specialist in Finance and Economics from the University of Toronto? Hell, no! But life changes - it is not always possible to find a job in your field! And nowhere in the CEC guidelines it is stated that the job must be from the field of studies!

b) How come I got this position with no managerial experience?? Because I knew the ins and out of the club, because the owners had trust in me that I won't steal money, because (I guess) I am a talented (since the assitant before me with 10+ years of experience was not able to perform the duties).
If the office has any issues, he can always contact the references and clarify my real experience.

How on earth, could I meet 2 of your points - a and b??

My point is that NOC provides guidelines only! At the end of the day it depends on an individual if he/she is able to achieve something in this life! This is not a joke, this candidate spent many years in Canada (college education, then several years of work). You can't simply ruin his life like this! Completely different story - trying to verify work experience in the home country of that person, assuming the candidate has never even been in Canada - in this case the office need to be suspicious). But CEC candidates got adapted to Canadian lifestyle already! It's just wrong to ruin people's lives like this. Wrong!

 

[LPS]

I hope you had a good reference letter, because that seems like a rapid rise to assistant manager, but it's definitely plausible.

Subway, Target, Tim's, etc, are private companies free to hire whomever they like and are not bound by the NOC. It certainly doesn't take years to ascend to doughnut supervisor. The processing officer has formed a view that a job you can obtain with months - not years - of experience and no relevant educational history is not properly considered NOC 6311 (food service supervisor) as it is currently defined.

But again, this should not be a deal-breaker and it is a good reason to allow the OP to address the officer's concerns, if ever I've seen one.

 

[sordi2006]

I hope you had a good reference letter, because that seems like a rapid rise to assistant manager, but it's definitely plausible.

Subway, Target, Tim's, etc, are private companies free to hire whomever they like and are not bound by the NOC. It certainly doesn't take years to ascend to doughnut supervisor. The processing officer has formed a view that a job you can obtain with months - not years - of experience and no relevant educational history is not properly considered NOC 6311 (food service supervisor) as it is currently defined.

But again, this should not be a deal-breaker and it is a good reason to allow the OP to address the officer's concerns, if ever I've seen one.

The employment letter clearly states what duties were performed at the job. The officer has a list of duties for this position and he needs to answer a question - are these responsibilities match or they do not. If they do, the fact of how an applicant obtained this job should be irrelevant (leave it for HR managers). Does the applicant work at a skilled position? Is he/she financially stable?
Skilled position is either from class 0, A or B. Does the position described/signed by the applicant's supervisor match with the NOC classification? I am certain that paystubs clearly show the place of employment - Subway Restaurant (not an underground tiny store in a small village). This is class B and he is qualified as a supervisor (that technically doesn't require any post-secondary education).
Again, it is a matter of a few telephone calls to check the credibility of the candidate.

Also, he obtained a college diploma in Business which provides students with "soft skills" and enable them to network and communicate well. That is what needed for a supervisor - communicate well with patrons and train the new staff members (I am certain that any applicant under any NOC class is able to prepare a sandwich!) So when an employer is looking at two candidates - one with 2 years of experience and high school diploma, another one with a three year college dimploma/university degree but with no experience, it is not fully clear on who to choose but as per NOC the choice is clear.

After a quick check, if the candidate still works at the supervisory role, it should be clear if he is performing the duties well enough that the employer kept him for over 1.8 years at the supervisor role.

I can go on and on about how unfair this decision is... The bottom line: explanation provided by the officer is unacceptable! It is nobody's business on how the position was obtained. If you feel something suspicious about the experience, check! If you almost 100% certain that the work experience is fake, provide a proper explanation.

 

[MenicMonday]

I believe that immigration to any country is a privilege, not a right.
Even if you have all the qualifications they can still refuse you, and they are not obliged to explain why.
It may not be fair...welcome to Life 101.

Better to reapply in this case with a more enhanced reference letter.

 

[atuls1317]

That VO must be a retard ! How could you make decision based on your assumption ? Like WTF.. Go for appeal man

 

[naijabelle]

wow even though you met all the requirements, the VO still denied your PR based solely on his/her on discretion??? This is a first for me. Your case is unusual indeed.

I am equally perplexed...if it is suppose to be based on "pass/fail" requirements, then I am even more stumped as it seems that this VO is taking it upon his or herself to decide that you are not qualified for a job you were hired to do....it seems like it could be appealed at the very least.

 

[MenicMonday]

These are speculations but are educated guesses:

1) The VO has all of the information and has made the decision based on the collection of all of these.
We are only seeing a part of the details in this post.
On whether he was able to properly explain his decision is another matter.

2) VOs go through these thousands of times and are more knowledgeable on the proper interpretation of the relevant rules.
We have our own (perhaps even biased) interpretations.
I wouldn't be surprised if VOs are grouped according to some "class" (e.g. by Occupation/NOC/or what-have-you) so they have a more consistent application of the rules.
If you are a VO and see that this application is the only one that is different from the 49 other similar applications you are handling, wouldn't that raise some doubt?

3) In any structured organization, decisions are collegial in nature: there is always a "maker-checker-approver", even though there is only one signatory in the final letter. This is for fairness and also to protect themselves especially in adverse decisions. People are more likely to appeal/contest refusals than admissions, so they need to make sure everything is covered.

(Note: I used to be in the academe: believe me, before I give a failing mark, I make sure I have all the papers to back me up. An unwritten principle is that it's better to "pass" a borderline passing than fail one if you have doubts).

This is not to say it's a perfect process or that there wasn't any error. My point is that let's also give the CIC the benefit of the doubt as they have more info than we do.

 

[Mike1981]

Sorry to heard that. Here is the list of jobs which will get rejected for sure:


Between November 9, 2013 and October 31, 2014, CIC will accept a maximum of 12,000 complete applications under the Canadian Experience Class. Within this cap, there will be a 200-application sub-cap for each National Occupational Classification (NOC) B occupation.

You cannot use work experience in the following occupations to qualify for the CEC:

Cooks (NOC 6322)
Food service supervisors (NOC 6311)
Administrative officers (NOC 1221)
Administrative assistants (NOC 1241)
Accounting technicians and bookkeepers (NOC 1311)
Retail sales supervisors (NOC 6211)

In addition, we are not accepting online payments for permanent residence applications under the Canadian Experience Class at this time.

 

[naijabelle]

Here is an extract from his employment letter:
• Subway Sandwich Artist at our location (Store ####) Address ABC: August 26, 2011 Until April 26, 2012
• Food Service Supervisor at our location (Store # ####) Address ABC : April 27, 2012 Until August 18, 2012
• Food Service Supervisor at our location (Store # ####) Address ABC : August 19 2012 – Present

How is a "Sandwich Artist" for the period from August 2011 - April 2012 (8 months) not a junior position? Supervisor is the next step after a regular sandwich maker. If the officer requested additional docs, he would find out (assuming the candidate is still employed at the Subway), he was with that company for over 2.5 years and over 1.5 years in a supervisor role. He did not claim to be a regional manager right after graduation from college.

If my investment analyst story wasn't convincing enough, here is another one... At the time of my graduation, Target was hiring staff for it's Canadian stores. Briefly, management structure at every Target store is General Manager with 3 assistant managers (one in charge of HR, another for inventories and the third one for internal day-to-day operations). Each assistant manager is in charge of a team of employees. Annual salary: 60,000+ bonuses + benefits. Now, the most important part, job requirements for the Assistant Manager position:
(i) University degree
(ii) Leadership experience (e.g. president of a student organization, etc - not necessarily paid work experience)

I know this for a fact (and I have a job posting if you don't believe me) since I had an interview with them and met hiring HR managers (at the time I had zero work experience and just graduated from a university)
According to NOC 0621, such a position "requires several years of experience". So, according to the logic of that d*ck head officer, a fresh graduate who got accepted to the Assistant Manager Position cannot be working at that position??? But how come HR managers at Target are ready to hire fresh university graduates with zero work experience???
Please tell me how can you find ANY logic in this??

Agreed with what you said minus a few choice words of course . And to the person saying we have to "trust" this officers...granted, most of them know what they are doing but immigration law at the appellate level won't be booming if they all knew what they were doing. Sometimes they do misinterpret these laws and regulations. I am actually a lawyer by profession. Too bad my specialty is NOT immigration law because I would have loved to help some of you (including me! lol) even if on a pro-bono basis. BUT I CAN SAY WITH 100% certainty that a lot of people who are suppose to know how to interpret rules and regulations DO NOT get it right...sometimes.

 

[MenicMonday]

I wonder what the appeal rate (the number of appeals relative to refusals) and the winning % (reversals) is.

I agree that no process (and interpretations) is perfect, this is why there should be controls embedded in the process plus adequate documentation. I doubt that any decision is made by one person only, especially refusals.

 

[naijabelle]

You probably one of the very few lawyers have plenty of time. I never saw a lawyer spending lot if times on forums. That remind me some lawers in our country sit whole day in front of court house for clients , in their own office under the trees, sometimes they check and make sure there is no bird sitting on the tree on top of him. Lol

haha I have some amazing assistants....I mainly do litigation so my busiest times are when I have to prep for court...I am definitely NOT like most lawyers and maybe that is still why I love my job so much...don't hate.