To immigrate to Canada, it may be necessary to confirm work experience. However, a work contract will not be enough. What can be proof of formal and informal work experience for immigration to Canada?
To be able to immigrate to Canada, you may require to prove your work experience providing supporting documents that will confirm that you have really worked and gained experience in the occupation that is relevant to your immigration. It may seem simple, but immigration officers are not particularly interested in your employment contracts.
What Is Reference Letter
In Canada, proof of work experience is a reference letter from an employer. It is a certificate that confirms the work experience and should meet several requirements:
- Should be an official document printed on company letterhead
- Must include the applicant’s name, the company’s contact information (address, telephone number, email and website addresses)
- Must include the name, title, and signature of the responsible supervisor or officer at the company
- Must be stamped with the company’s official seal (if applicable)
- Should indicate all positions held while employed at the company and must include the following details:
- – Job title
- – Duties and responsibilities
- – Job status (if current job)
- – Dates worked for the company (the specific period of your employment with the company)
- – Number of work hours per week (this determines whether you have worked full-time (more than 30 hours a week))
- – Annual salary plus benefits (it is better to indicate the average monthly salary in your home country’s currency)
Reference letters should contain only truthful information: immigration officers often call the company to make sure the letter is correct.
You need to provide a sufficient number of reference letters to cover all years of work experience you want to confirm. In the ideal case, you need to provide letters of reference from all your employers for the past 10 years.
Additional supporting documents may include copies of work contracts and pay stubs.
If reference letters and supporting documents are not written in English, they must be translated and notarized.
Sample Reference Letter
Sit Quod Corporation
100019, 15hao Lou, Fengtai District, Beijing, China
Phone: 13004566232
Email: sit_quod@mi.net.cn
Website: website.net.cn
Here may be a company logo
March 24, 2019
№7238-324а
This certificate confirms that Yong Yu was hired by Sit Quod Corporation as a software engineer on 05/03/2012 and worked in this position until 12/12/2018.
Yong Yu’s working day was 40 hours a week. The average monthly salary was CNY 4,200. The average annual wage was CNY 50,000.
In this position, Yong Yu performed the following duties:
- Collecting and documenting user requirements and developing logical and physical specifications
- Studying, evaluating, and synthesizing technical information for the design, development, and testing of computer systems
- Developing data models, processes, and networks to optimize architecture and evaluate the performance and reliability of structures
- Planning, designing, and coordinating the development, installation, integration, and operation of computer systems
- Evaluating, testing, troubleshooting, documenting, updating, and developing maintenance procedures for operating systems, communication environments, and applications
CEO Feng Wen
Signature and seal
If you require any further information, feel free to contact me.
Kind regards,
Feng Wen
Phone: 13004566232
Email: sit_quod@mi.net.cn
If You Cannot Get a Reference Letter
If your company does not provide reference letters, you can get an ordinary job certificate from your place of work, but it should be supported with additional documents.
Job duties can be confirmed by providing the following:
- Stamped job description from your company’s human resources department or accounts department
- Job description letter compiled by your colleague
- Letter of Explanation specifying your situation. You can even state that your job duties are a trade secret. However, you need to list your job duties at least in a general form
Salary can be confirmed by providing the following:
- Income certificate
- Bank certificate on the movement of funds on your account, if your salary was transferred to a bank account
Self-Employed Work Experience
If you were self-employed, your work experience may be hard to confirm. You need to convince your immigration officer that your work experience is real using references from clients and to prove all tax actions, receipt of funds, and more.
If you are self-employed, you need to provide the following:
- Articles of incorporation or other evidence of business ownership
- Evidence of self-employment income
- Documentation from third-party individuals indicating the service provided along with payment details (self-declared main duties or affidavits are not acceptable proof of self-employed work experience)
Work Experience While Studying
Work experience gained during full-time studies (more than 15 hours per week) may or may not be counted for the federal Express Entry and Provincial Nominee Programs. A detailed Letter of Explanation on how you managed to work and study at the same time can lead to the fact that work experience would be taken into account, but all this remains at the discretion of the immigration officer.
Work Experience and Time in Employment
Work experience and time in employment are two different things. While you are on maternity leave, you have time in employment, but you do not get years of work experience.
For example, if you have been working in a company for 5 years and of which 3 years have been on maternity leave, only 2 years are accounted as work experience. It is advisable to specify in reference letters only relevant information (in this example, 2 years of work experience). If you immigrate with a child, the immigration officer may have a reason to check the data on your work experience. If it turns out that you have attributed the maternal leave to work experience, the officer may consider this a misrepresentation crime, and this may entail a ban on entering Canada or other consequences.
Also, do not forget that officers can legally look at information about you on LinkedIn (by creating a LinkedIn profile you agree that all the data that you enter is true) or on other social networks. Therefore, before indicating work experience, check all the job data that you provided on the Internet — all information must match.