If you’re planning to apply for your Canadian permanent residency under Express Entry, then you will need to know your NOC code. If you plan to apply for your permanent residency under Express Entry, one of the requirements is that you must have the required work experience. This work experience must have been performed under certain select NOC code. Canada has a system for classifying every, or almost every, job type performed. This system is known as the National Occupational Classification (OC) System. Within this system, jobs are broken out into different skill levels.
NOCs A, B and 0 Job Types
Generally speaking, there are five skill levels that you want to be aware of. The first one is for people who are in managerial roles. This is usually referred to as NOC 0 type jobs. It applies to anybody wanting to come to Canada in, in the capacity of a manager such as an IT manager or an HR manager. Persons whose job duties are managerial in nature are going to fit under a NOC 0 skill type. The second skill type is that of those persons who fall under NOC A. These types of roles are usually carried out by persons who have at least a first degree and persons who perform professional type jobs. So persons such as IT professionals, IT architects, nurses, engineers and such the likes, those types of job roles will fall under a NOC A skill level.
NOC B skill types are for persons who are skilled in certain types of trades and who have a college diploma and certain kinds of apprenticeship training. You’ll find job types such as butchers, and cooks, and bakers falling under NOC B. The next skill level is skill level C and generally this is for job categories such as machine operators and truck drivers and such the likes. The final skill level is that of skill level D and those types of roles include general cleaners and people who are working as labourers and so on.
Express Entry
Now if you intend to apply under Express Entry, only persons who fall into the first three of these skill levels (0, A or B) are eligible to apply. So persons who have experience working at a managerial level and whose job duties fall into that of a NOC 0 may apply under Express Entry. Similarly, persons who have performed NOC A type duties also are able to apply under Express Entry. As too, are persons who’ve performed a NOC B type role, they too can apply under Express Entry.
Persons whose job duties fall under a NOCs D and C are not able to apply under Express Entry. However, all hope is not lost. Persons falling into NOCs C and D may be able to apply under some of the provincially managed programs, known as Provincial Nominee Programs. And they may be able to apply for Canadian permanent residency under one of those provincially managed programs, as too, can persons from the NOCs 0, A, and B skill levels.
Let us Help you find your NOC code
In a nutshell, those are the different skill types that fall under the government’s National Occupational Classification System. Hopefully, this gives you a sense of which skill types will be able to apply under Express Entry. It’s going to be very important that you seek professional guidance in determining where exactly the duties that you’ve performed fit and to better determine whether Express Entry is going to be the appropriate to route for you.
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