VETASSESS – Skill Assessment for Australia Migration Under Skilled Worker Visa

VETASSESS is an Australian skill assessment body that assesses your skills for migration, education and sponsored employment purposes. Basically, VETASSESS stands for Vocational Education and Training Assessment.

Occupations that VETASSESS assesses are classified as either general professional occupation or trade occupation. While reading this article, you will learn in detail about these classified occupation classes and learn how VETASSESS assesses these occupations.

General Professional Occupation for VETASSES

Before applying for an assessment of your occupation, you are advised to find out whether your job is enlisted in the General Professional Occupation Class. Once you are clear about your occupation class, you can go ahead for assessment of the same. To determine if your occupation falls under the General Occupations List or Trades Occupation, please visit the skills assessment page of VETASSESS.

Also, note that VETASSESS will not provide assistance for any visa category and you are advised to consult a professional migration agent or DIBP for any visa related assistance.

Applications for General Professional Occupations can be submitted online or by post.

Skills Assessment Support for VETASSESS

The Skills Assessment Support can provide you support in completion of your Skills Assessment application. For applicants who are not aware of the process of VETASSESS can go ahead to take up the Skills Assessment Support.

The Skills Assessment Support helps applicants to make their documents ready so the same can be used for general professional occupation with VETASSESS. You can use the Skills Assessment Support for Priority Processing of your application.

There are two ways on how you can avail the Skills Assessment Support service:

1. Document Checking Service: This is a systematic service where an applicant’s documents go through a checking phase. The checking service assists you for documentation requirements for VETASSESS skills assessment applications.
2. Telephonic Consultation: Applicants can also avail the telephonic consultation service, which generally lasts for 30 minutes. As an applicant, you are required to provide accurate information about yourself to an experienced assessment officer.

What if you do not meet the requirements of your nominated occupation?

In case, you do not meet the requirement for your nominated occupation, you will be issued a letter that states that you did not meet the requirement and the places where you lacked to qualify.

If you disagree with the result, you can discuss with the skills assessor and learn on how you can apply for a reassessment.

How VETASSESS classifies occupations?

VETASSESS has classified its general occupations into groups of A, B, C, D and E. The table listed below will give you an idea how these classes work with VETASSESS.

Priority Processing by VETASSESS

The VETASSESS priority processing is for new applicants who wish for full skills assessment for general professional occupation. Also, note that applications that are already with VETASSESS for full skills assessment are not eligible for priority processing.

With priority processing, applicants can quicken up their application processing duration in exchange for an additional fee. VETASSESS assures applicants that it will complete processing of the documents within 10 business days for the applications that meet the eligibility criteria.

These 10 days as mentioned above will only begin after:

• VETASSESS confirms that the submitted application meets the eligibility criteria; and
• Payments for the priority processing have been received along with taxes.

VETASSESS will take up to 2 business days upon receipt of the applications and payments. An email will be sent to the applicant about the status update upon the completion of the process.

Applications that meet the eligibility criteria will be assessed within 10 business days.

How to Apply for Priority Processing?

In order to begin with the priority processing, your application should meet the eligibility criteria.

Applications for priority processing need to be submitted online. Priority processing does not accept paper-based documents.

Before applying for priority processing, you are advised to go through the VETASSESS website and confirm your eligibility for priority processing. Upon reaching the fees and payment section of priority processing, you can select the option for priority processing.

Once an application is submitted for priority processing, you are unable to submit anymore document upload. It is highly advised that you double-check your documents before uploading them for priority processing.

Nominate Your Occupation

You are required to nominate yourself for an occupation as a part of applying for Skilled Assessment. You should nominate yourself for an occupation that is closely relevant to your skills and qualification.

Skills assessment for Employer-Sponsored Nomination, General Skilled Migration, Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme and 457 Visa will require a qualification that is closely relevant to the nominated occupation.

Along with that, applicants are also required to have one year of highly relevant work experience in the last 5 years of employment. In some cases, additional years of highly relevant work experience can compensate for the lack educational relevancy to the nominated occupation.

Applicants who meet the skilled assessment, VETASSESS will also determine the date when his work experience was considered as skilled in the nominated occupation.

Skilled Occupation List

Any occupation from the Short-term Skilled Occupations List (STSOL) or the Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List (MLTSSL) can be removed at any time without any prior notice.

It is up to the applicant to ensure that his nominated occupation is still available in the mentioned skilled occupations list at the time of submission of documents to VETASSESS. If your occupation has been removed from the skilled occupations list, VETASSESS will continue assessing your application for the nominated occupation.

Eligibility Criteria

Here is the list of eligibility criteria that you are supposed to meet for submitting your application for skills assessment. Also, note that VETASSESS will not contact you in case the documents provided by you are not clear. Your application will be rejected. So it highly advised that you provide all the necessary documents to VETASSESS for easy and quick assessing.

While applying for priority processing, you must provide evidence that satisfies VETASSESS about your Fee payment, proof of identity, qualifications and employment. These proofs should be uploaded in the online priority processing application.

You are not required to submit original documents for the process. However, you must provide a high quality of coloured scanned copies of your documents in the priority processing application.

List of Required Documents

All documents mentioned below are required in high quality and original color. Any document that is not in English should be translated by a registered translation service.

1. Fee: You are required to pay the mentioned application fee at the time of submitting your application for assessment.
2. Photograph: Provide a passport-size color photograph. The photograph should not be older than 6 months. Self-taken photographs are not accepted.
3. Proof of Identity: Your passport’s bio page can be used as a proof of identification. In case, you do not have a passport, a birth certificate is acceptable.
4. Change of Name: Anytime, you changed your name, an evidence of name change should be provided.

Qualification Evidences

Your qualification evidence includes your qualification award certificates and transcript of marks. Before assessing your application, VETASSESS will need to determine if your qualifications are comparable to Australian Qualification Framework standards.

If VETASSESS thinks that your qualifications require in-house assessment, your application will be considered not eligible for priority processing.

Award Certificate

The award certificate denotes that you have completed a professional award course of study. If you have not received an award certificate, a provisional award certificate issued by the awarding body or an official statement of marks from the Registrar’s department of the awarding institution will be accepted.

Academic Transcript

You are also required to submit your academic transcript. An academic transcript is a document that outlines the courses you undertook through an awarding institution. Along with the courses on paper, the academic transcript should also mention your grades attained as part of your academic qualification.

Employment Evidence

It is crucial that you provide proofs of all your previous employment evidence while submitting your documents.

If you are assessing your application through Priority processing, VETASSESS will need to determine if your employment details can be verified within 10 business days. To quicken up the process, here are some key information and documents that you need to keep in mind while applying for priority processing.

Statement of Service

A statement of service is a written statement by your employer on the company’s official letterhead. The official letterhead should include the company’s name, full address, telephone number, email address and website link. Your direct supervisor/manager or the manager of Human Resources department should sign the letterhead.

The statement of services should include:

• Your full name
• Working hours per week
• Your designation held in the company
• Exact period for how long the position was held in the company
• Description of your main duties performed for each designation
• Salary earned
• Official details and the signature of the person writing the statement of services

Payment Evidences

Payment evidence can include the following:

• First and the last payslip
• Taxation records of assessment bearing company’s and applicant’s name
• Bank statement showing at least two salary transactions, your name and employer’s name
• Employment-linked insurance evidence

Self Employed

If you are a self-employed individual, you are required to provide proofs of sole trading such as business registration details and official statements issued by your accountant or legal team. The statement written on the letterhead by your accountant should include your accountant’s name, your name, the nature of your business and signature of your accountant.

Resume/ Curriculum Vitae

If you are applying for formal skills assessment, submitting your CV may benefit in the assessment of your application. Your CV outlines the education you pursued and completed and your employment records.

Fees and Payments

Mentioned below are separate fee structures for separate assessment carried outside and within Australia.

Full Skills Assessment

Points Test Advice (Pending or Returning VETASSESS applicants)

Points Test Advice (Pending or Returning non-VETASSESS applicants)

Qualifications Assessment to support 485 Visa Application

Post 485 Assessment under the same occupation

Post 485 Assessment under the same occupation

If you are applying for a 485 assessment and wish to change your nominated occupation, you will need to lodge a new occupation.

Reassessment – Review of assessment outcome

Change of occupation

Reissue/Printed Outcome Letter

Appeal

Making a Payment

VETASSESS has different payment methods available.

Payments must be:

• Made payable to VETASSESS
• In Australian Dollars
• Should be paid and cleared before 7 days of assessment

Payments can be accepted online, email or by person.

Apply or Track Application

By applying online for VETASSESS skills assessment, you can be benefited in two ways. Firstly, your application can be assessed faster and secondly, you can track your application.

Reviews

If you are not satisfied with the outcome, you can ask for a review of your application. The review of the application involves experienced assessing officers not involved in the original assessment. Review of application would though attract a fee.

Request for a Review

A request for review begins with an applicant setting grounds on which the review is sought. The review request should also include additional information to support the claim. You are also advised to provide additional evidence to support your claim.

Appeals

If you believe that the review of your application is incorrect, you can apply for the appeal of the decision. No information from you will be considered during the appeal stage. The appeal stage is the final stage after which you cannot appeal.

Change of occupation

You only have 10 business days from the date of applying your application for the change of your occupation without paying any extra fee. Any request for change of your occupation after those 10 business days will incur additional fees.