Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performace

– a military adage

When my cousin suggested that I consider moving to Canada, her reasons were simple:

• I had the education
• I had the work experience

Those were true. I was thirty years old then, a decade out of college, with a postgrad under my belt and my resume would make it seem like I left for another job once every two years. I knew millenials got a bad rap for being flighty. But I figured that after Japan, if I were to really relocate for the nth time in my life, moving to Canada would make sense. From one first world country to another, that does make sense, right?

So I proceeded with my preparations, got Jade to agree to try with me then we started the grind work.

My previous post was succinctly about Express Entry and its minimum requirements. And I have said that that was just the tip of the iceberg. The truth is there are more factors that play into a successful immigrant profile. And for this, IRCC employs its CRS or Comprehensive Ranking System – at least for the Express Entry program – to filter and select candidate they’ll invite to apply for permanent residence.

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The Comprehensive Ranking System  (CRS)

• a points-based system
• used to assess and score your profile and rank it in the Express Entry pool

How CRS Works for You

About once or twice a month, IRCC gets ministerial instructions to guide the Express Entry draws. These instructions set:

• the immigration programs covered
• the number of invitations to be issued
• the schedule for the next draw
• the tie-breaking rule

The short version looks like this:

In summary, this draw held on September 4, 2019 at 13:36:34 UTC, issued 3,600 invites to the top 3,600 candidates in the Express Entry pool.

The lowest ranked candidate for this draw had a CRS score of 463.

Now, with the number of people who have created Express Entry profiles, there must have been more than one candidate with an CRS score of 463, making n number of candidates tied at rank 3,600.

How did IRCC decide who got the last invitation?

At this point, IRCC applied the tie-breaking rule, with a specific criteria. Particularly, the applicant who came into the pool on August 23, 2019 at 13:33:34 UTC with a score of 463 got priority over later 463s entrants to the pool.

What all this tells you is

• Your CRS score essentially tells how good your chances are in getting an ITA or an Invitation to Apply (for Permanent Residence)
• The higher your CRS score, the more comfortably you sit in the rankings, assuring you of an ITA
• Being at the lower end of the rankings, makes the journey to Canadian PR a little more complicated – NOT virtually impossible, but more tasking.

In my next post, I share how you work with CRS, which of you personal circumstances help you ace this thing called immigration.

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This is my first of three posts about IRCC’s Comprehensive Ranking System. The topic will be divided into three posts to offer you two perspectives on this important aspect of Canada’s immigration process, plus a briefer on the tools you can use to calculate your CRS score.

The short form is CRS. IRCC uses the CRS to filter and invite candidates to apply for Permanent Residence in Canada.

Planning to move to Canada through Express Entry means ranking versus other candidates with your CRS score. Don’t fret – This blog exists to also help DIY immigrants through their journey. Connect with IRCC if needed. And then Keep Calm, Read the Application Guides and Be Honest.

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This post is part of a batch on the Canada Story. It is possible to get to know more about CRS and Express Entry as you follow the narrative.