Some questions regarding Express Entry ..

[ahmadka]

Hey guys .. I have three questions to ask about the Express Entry system:

1) Until now I've believed that unlike the FSW program, there is NO quota set for Express Entry. However I was talking to a friend a while ago and he said that even for Express Entry, there is a quota involved. Is that true ?

2) Are lotteries (i.e. when EE applicants are picked from the pool) conducted on occupation basis ? For example, a specific lottery is conducted for only Computer Engineers, etc. ? Or are all occupations equally preferred in all lotteries ?

3) The score threshold which is set for each lottery, is it the same for everyone in the pool, or is there a different threshold for each occupation ?

Thanks.

 

[scylla]

1) There is no real quota (at least nothing like there was for FSW 2014).
2) No occupation based lotteries.
3) Same for everyone in the pool.

 

[ahmadka]

Thanks for clarifying, however does your answer to the first question imply that there is *some kind* of quota system involved with Express Entry ? If yes, can you elaborate ?

 

[spyfy]

I think what the first reply meant was that there is only a certain number of invitations per year. This is an implicit quota since if there is, say 100,000 applicants in the pool but only 1,000 invitations to apply (ITA) over the year, there is a quota.
The numbers above are totally made up, of course. Regarding the actual number of people in the pool and ITAs in the upcoming months, there are many rumours being shared in this forum but nobody really knows anything reliable.

One more remark: You speak of a "lottery" in your original post. However, the EE system is not a lottery (i.e. a random pick) but instead, the highest X candidates are picked each round. And that number X is the kind of quota mentioned above.

 

[ahmadka]

Hmm .. still a bit unclear .. Let's take an example ..

Suppose at a given time, there are 1000 applicants in the pool, of which the top 600 applicants have a score of 450 or above. Now suppose it's time to pick candidates from the pool for CIC, and say they set 450 as the cutoff. So does this mean at ALL top 600 candidates will receive an ITA, or only a subset of them, depending on how many people CIC wants to invite ? If it's the latter, how does CIC determine how many candidates to invite after each round ?

 

[Jefabrown]

Hmm .. still a bit unclear .. Let's take an example ..

Suppose at a given time, there are 1000 applicants in the pool, of which the top 600 applicants have a score of 450 or above. Now suppose it's time to pick candidates from the pool for CIC, and say they set 450 as the cutoff. So does this mean at ALL top 600 candidates will receive an ITA, or only a subset of them, depending on how many people CIC wants to invite ? If it's the latter, how does CIC determine how many candidates to invite after each round ?

As explained above, nobody knows the number of ITA's that will be given. However, the power of EE means CIC has the flexibility to determine how they do the draws. They can see the pool statistics. So, despite what they or anyone says, they will use their annual immigration targets and the current scores to determine how many ITA's they issue each time. They are obviously also doing this in a way to ensure they dont go to a lower score than they need to.

So the answer to your question is there is no published EE quota. But there are annual immigration targets. And based on how the draws are done, CIC has the power to detemine how many applications and the quality of applicants.

 

[ahmadka]

As explained above, nobody knows the number of ITA's that will be given. However, the power of EE means CIC has the flexibility to determine how they do the draws. They can see the pool statistics. So, despite what they or anyone says, they will use their annual immigration targets and the current scores to determine how many ITA's they issue each time. They are obviously also doing this in a way to ensure they dont go to a lower score than they need to.

So the answer to your question is there is no published EE quota. But there are annual immigration targets. And based on how the draws are done, CIC has the power to detemine how many applications and the quality of applicants.

So ... In the last candidate selection, the last CRS score to get an ITA was 453, according to CIC .. So I assume that means that *everyone* who was in the pool at the time, with a CRS score of 453 or above, got an ITA ?

 

[Jefabrown]

So ... In the last candidate selection, the last CRS score to get an ITA was 453, according to CIC .. So I assume that means that *everyone* who was in the pool at the time, with a CRS score of 453 or above, got an ITA ?

Correct! And that's what is explained in the Ministerial Instructions informing of each draw.