DHA have changed the way that they will assess work experience points for some occupations.

In the past if a person was assessed by some skills assessment authorities (Vetassess, ACS (offshore) etc) the assessing body would determine a “deeming date”. Any work experience that was undertaken prior to this “deeming date” was unable to be counted as skilled for work points.

DHA have now CHANGED this policy and instead will allow any work experience that takes place after obtaining the qualifications/work experience (as determined by ANZSCO) to count for points.

DHA now policy:

When assessing periods of skilled employment for the purpose of awarding points, the following must be taken into account:

• The opinion of the relevant skills assessing authority on the period of skilled employment includes the date when the assessing authority deemed the skilled applicant.
• The ANZSCO (Australian and New Zealand standard Classification of Occupations) contains any pre-requisite work experience and academic qualifications that are relevant to claimed skilled employment and any other appropriate information like employment records and reference.
• If the opinion of skills assessing authority would result in applicant to award fewer points than claimed by applicant in EOI, then decision makers will consider the information in ANSZCO while determining the applicant was working at a skilled level.

In most cases this will mean that all work after obtaining the ANZSCO skill level (usually a relevant diploma or degree or in some cases 3-5 years work experience) will count as skilled work experience. If you do not have this skill level directly related to your occupation, you will not benefit from this new policy.

For example if a person has an acceptable degree in Marketing, and works the required 12 months for a Vetassess skills assessment as a Marketig Specialist, DHA would not count this 12 months as skilled work in the past. Now they will as ANZSCO says only an acceptable degree is needed to meet the Australian standards for that occupation.

Similarly if an overseas IT graduate works 5 years as an ICT Security Specialist. The ACS would use the first 2 years to meet their own skills assessment standards, leaving just 3 years counting as skilled for DHA points. Now the whole 5 years will count as skilled for points as ANZSCO requires just a relevant degree for that occupation.

If you do not have the ANZSCO skill level for your nominated occupation, you are unable to benefit from this ANZSCO definition change in policy.

This will likely assist many people in claiming work experience to meet any state sponsorship requirements. As in the past many states copied DHA policy and did not count work obtained prior to a deeming date.

(Note that you still need to meet any work experience required for the skills assessment from Vetassess or ACS, this has not changed for the actual skills assessment stage).

For more information regarding the changes of skills assessment, please get in touch with our migration agent at info@australasiaeduconnect.com.au