Take the pain out of the Canadian working holiday visa

When I told people I was going to work overseas almost everyone asked, ‘why Canada?’

Naively I answered, ‘because we heard it’s easy for Australians to get visas there’.

Some part of this is true yes, Australians are lucky in the way that we have an unlimited quota of people aged 18 to 30 permitted to enter Canada on International Experience Canada (IEC), or the working holiday visa.

However, in 2014 the Canadian Government changed the visa application online system, I can’t speak to the visa application prior to 2014, but the new system can be confusing and at times frustrating.

We found it difficult because there is no contact whatsoever for Australians outside of Canada to get help about this visa.

Statement on the IEC website:

International Experience Canada (IEC) applications are now processed in Canada. Canadian offices abroad, including embassies and consulates, will not respond to questions about IEC.

This ‘how to’ is for Australians wishing to fund a vacation to Canada with temporary work. The work portion of your trip lets you earn money so that you can fund your travels during your stay. (The working holiday visa)

There are three main steps to applying for the IEC.

1. Obtain a Kompass account and get your Conditional Acceptance Letter (CAL).

2. Use letter to open your MyCIC account.

3.Upload all documents within 14 days of obtaining your Conditional Acceptance Letter.

The CAL costs $150 and the full application $100. $250 may or may not be a lot depending on who you are and what you do. But between my partner and I two applications has cost $1000.

My tips when applying

Start your application process about 6 months in advance of your estimated leaving date. We started ours 5 months in advance and, having to apply twice, recieved them about 1 month before our departure. You have 12 months to arrive in Canada to activate your visa so it doesn’t matter if you have it early.
Have all your documents (which I will list below) ready BEFORE applying. Even the documents you need for MyCIC. Because your CAL expires within 14 days, it’s often not long enough for you to obtain all the documents you need.
Keep a record of your user names and passwords and any confirmation numbers (E.g. World Tracking Number) because you will need two for each application and if you forget it’s a pain to get another, especially for the MyCIC part.

What you need* * This list is based on what I was required to supply, it can differ, depending on a survey you complete at the beginning of your MyCIC application.

KOMPASS:

a version of your resume to their template found here
a scanned copy of your passport (page with name and address) (Make sure your passport is valid for the duration of the time you want to be working in Canada.)
You will also be asked to complete a personal information form which is fairly simple and you can do once you have your account.

MyCIC

A photo of yourself. The measurements can be found here. We were so paranoid about getting this wrong that we went to the one place in Perth that took international visas. I have asked other people in Canada what they did and they said a Post Office photo would suffice but it has to be altered very slightly to include the shoulders in (Australian standards don’t require this). Digital submissions need to be at least 420 x 540 DPI and file size ideally 240KB and no less than 60KB.
Your Passport with name page and any pages containing stamps (I scanned mine into word and converted the document to a PDF).
A national police clearance. $65 from the post office. You fill out the form and they send it away. Mine took about 4-5 working days, it can take longer. Also note some people require multiple police clearances depending on if you lived in a different country recently, you need a police clearance for there too and this is where delays happen and you miss the 14 day window. If you’re reading this after submitting your MyCIC and don’t have your police clearances and you’ve realised they won’t come on time. Submit everything you can and then upload a ‘letter of explanation’ (possibly with the receipt of your police clearance) explaining that it is on its way and the reason for the delay (getting UK and New Zealand ones do take longer). I’ve read that in most circumstances the deadline is extended.
A full copy of your resume.
Once in your MyCIC application you will need to fill out two extra forms a ‘Personal information form’. Takes about 10-15 mins.
And a family information form. Really easy one.

If you have all these things ready (bar the last two) before you start your Canadian Visa Application the process is actually quite quick. Our first app unprepared = 3 months and one rejection. Second app all prepared = 2 weeks and an approval.

The standard time is about 8 weeks (2 weeks for your CAL and 6 weeks for your application).

BEWARE

The reason ours has taken so long is that, although your CAL expires in 14 days, your actual application gives you 60 DAYS to complete. This was very misleading for us and many others who thought you only needed the letter to get through to MyCIC when in fact you must complete your whole application by then.

INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE CANADIAN WORKING HOLIDAY VISA APPLICATION STEPS

1. Go to http://www.cic.gc.ca/iec-eic/ Select foreign youth.

2. Select Australia < working holiday

3. Under the Apply heading select complete application

4. Big blue button click register or log in to Kompass.

5. Follow To create your Kompass account you need to register

6. Create Your “IEC Kompass” Account. Fill in your details and create a password.

7. When you have your account there are six information forms to fill out including personal information, contact information, if you’ve participated in IEC previously, declarations (I am not a criminal etc etc) and lastly whether you wanted to be contacted in the future by IEC.

8. Congratulations! You now have a World Tracking Number! (keep that away somewhere for later) Wait until you get a Notice of Submission in your messages. I think we got ours quicker because we’re Australian and there’s no quota to be filled so it literally happened instantly. Now you can start uploading your prepared documents.

9. Fill in your application requirements starting with the required documents. I don’t know what happens if you pay first but when I paid after submitting my documents it submits your whole application for consideration for your CAL and there was no turning back. The third one, the IEC application has all the details you submitted just previously.

10. Once this is done you wait for your Conditional Acceptance Letter, this can take up to 14 days. (ours took only 2-3 days in both our applications).

11. Your CAL will be sent to your Kompass messages and look like this.

11. It will tell you to follow this link: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/my_application/apply_online.asp?d=1amp;q=n

12. Select Continue with GCkey then register and follow the prompts. Create Your Registration Information Create a User ID; Create and choose Recovery Questions, Answers and Hints; Create and confirm a Password.

Apologies I don’t have screen shots for this part as I only started screenshotting during our second application and I didn’t need to do this part a second time.

14. When you have your MyCIC account scroll to, What would you like to do today, and choose Visitor visa, Study and/or work permit.

15. In this step you have to answer a series of questions to determine your eligibility for the application. This is how they also determine which forms you need to fill out.

16. After you've filled out the eligibility questions you will have a chance to review your answers.

17. Next! upload all those documents you prepared earlier and fill out the two additional forms. If you didn't prepare them earlier then start gathering everything you need and submit within the 14 day deadline on your CAL.

18. There is no need to sign each document. You will be prompted to do this as you move on to submission and payment.

19. Payment time and then you will recieve a message on MyCIC when your application is succesfully submitted.

20. Waiting game again.

21. If your application is approved, you will receive a Letter of Introduction (LOI) or Letter of Entry confirming the approval through your MyCIC account. You must present the LOI at the border on your arrival to Canada. If the Border officer determines you remain admissible to Canada, they will issue your work permit.

There a few things you need before you arrive in Canada, which we are still working out ourselves. so watch this space for an update. The LoL tells you to go here: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/work/arriving.asp

However this link take you to what you need for another visa, the young professionals one I think where you need to have your employers details.

A Letter of Introduction is not a guarantee of entry into Canada. The final decision to allow you to enter Canada rests with border services officers of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) when you arrive at a Canadian port of entry.