Career Assessment - IELTS

Hi everyone!!! Today I want to tell you about the assessment of my career. When I started with the visa process last may, my migration agent gave me a list of all of the documents needed for a positive assessment. She also told me about the two Australian Institutions in charge of the assessments for accountants (Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia (ICAA)) and that my papers would be sent to ICAA. It took me around a month and a half to send everything to Buenos Aires since I went to university in Cordoba which is 1200 kms from where I'm currently living. And I had to ask my sister to go to the university to pick up all of the documents that I had already asked for to the administration and then she mailed everything to me.  Furthermore, I had to write my resume in English!!! so I researched a little bit about specific words related to my career.  People from VEA (Viva en Australia (Live in Australia)) sent me instructions on how to write a resume and I read that australians don't believe that a person can work over 10 hours a day!!!!! For a period of 6 months last year, I had three different jobs!!! so I worked like 12 hours a day!! and sometimes I worked on Saturdays and Sundays. As you can imagine, I had to cut off one my jobs so the resume would be according to australian standars.

Once everything was in VEA, they had to translate the documents and this task took them around a month and half. My agent sent my an e-mail on July 29th telling me that everything was sent to Australia. On August 13th, I was working when I received the good news that  the assessment outcome was positive!!!!!!!! You have no idea how happy I was!!!! I wanted to jump, run, scream!!!!! I was soooo happy!!! I felt a little bit closer to the visa!!!!!!
The next step is to sit for the IELTS (International English Language Testing System)!!!!! Because my career is in the CSL (Critical Skills List), Department of Immigration And Citizenship (DIAC) demands a band score of 7.0 in each module of the exam. This is require in order to have a priority on the visa processing and apparently you can have your visa in 12 months since you entered your visa application. In case I don't get that 7.0, DIAC says that accountants must get a band score of 6.0 to be eligible for the Independent Skill Visa and in this case it can take up to 3 years to finally have the visa. There is a third posibility to have a priority and it's to be sponsored by a state or territory, but in this case they also ask for a 7.0. To sum up, if I want to have my visa within a year, a year and a half, I must get that famous band score of 7.0 and if I'm not lucky enough to get it, I will have to be veeerrryyyy patient and wait three years for the visa.

Right now, I'm studying and studying and by the time I sit for the exam and have the results I will be telling you all about it. For the day of the exam, my mom has specific instructions to pray to every Saint she can think of!!! :) Although we know that in order to have good results, you need to study and practice...praying a little bit to have an extra help doesn't hurt anybody!! don't you think??? :)

Cheers!!!

Maitena