I am processing my PR for Australia. I did it all by myself without any consultants/immigration agency. I would like to say that its possible. i.e., getting a PR while sitting here in India.
My advice:
a) read all the FAQs on the immigration site of that country.
*Most important*
b) check your points score by using points calculator on the site.
c) check if your occupation is listed in the occupations list of that country.
d) do
NOT go through a consultant. its just a waste of money. because for countries like Canada, the process is completely online and your consultant cant do jackshit about anything except telling you whats there in the FAQ and then charging money for doing such stuff. The Australian immigration site advices you not to go for a consultant unless they are listed in the registered consultants list of Australia due to the loss to the applicant because of the consultant fraud.
My example:
a) read all the faqs on
www.immi.gov.au for visas. actually it took me about
few weeks to completely understand the available visas and my eligibility and which visa type to choose. I read the faqs like atleast 10 times. After reading the faqs I found that
i) The suitable visas for me were Skilled Independent, Skilled employer nominated, Skilled Regional Sponsored.
ii) I needed 60 points to get a visa, 30 (age) + 0(ielts 6) + 15 (bachelors degree-bca) + 15 (8+ years of exp in your field) = 60
iii) my job description was listed in
SOL(Skilled Occupations List where there is shortage in the country) of immi site as
Analyst Programmer. for this I sent the Xerox copies of all my education and experience to Australian Computer Society to get certified by them. (this process is again explained in FAQs) Took 45 days for them to send me a certificate certifying me that I was ok.
iv) took IELTS and got a score of 8.5 listening+8 Reading+ 6.5 Writing+ 7 Speaking. average was 7.5 but since they consider the lowest score as 6.5 I did not get any points for my ielts score. if I would've got all 7 in all sections I would've got 10 points and 20 points for 8 in all sections.
v) submitted an online Expression of Interest (
EOI) and got an invitation to apply for visa. (Also explained in the FAQs)
b) There is a points calculator for every country. Just start checking it. you may not have enough points for the first time. but after you start reading the faqs and comparing it against your strengths you might tweak it. e.g., at first time I did not have enough points, so I decided to write IELTS again to get 10 extra points. but now its not required.
c) Check if they give visas in your field. (I checked Canada's site and UK's site and they were not allowing programmers at that time, only Australia was allowing). I am referring to SOL here. UK's SOL was allowing only 3D graphics programmers and graphics designers last year. Canada wasn't allowing any type of programmers.
d) y-axis was asking some 50k for processing this stuff, apart from the fees, i.e., 300AUD for ACS + 10k for IELTS+ 3060AUD for visa+ 50k for processing. So I decided that 50 for processing is gay and decided to do it on my own. trick is to
Reading the FAQs and
asking google.
Hope this helps
