Skilled employment assessment

CPA Australia can assess your employment history to determine if it's closely related to your selected ANZSCO occupation, and if it’s at a level expected from Australian employers. You may be eligible to claim additional points to support your skilled migration visa application.

Criteria

Work experience and employment claims are considered after CPA Australia has completed a full skills assessment outcome for your nominated occupation.

Volunteering or work experience that was required as part of your education will not be recognised as skilled employment.

CPA Australia will only assess employment that:

• is assessed as closely related to the ANZSCO occupation for which you have received a suitable skills assessment outcome
• occurred in the 10 years before your CPA Australia skills assessment application date
• occurred after you completed a formal qualification, or combination of qualifications, that we have assessed as equivalent to at least an Australian bachelor’s degree
• was paid and continuous for a minimum of 20 hours a week
• is at least one year of accumulated employment, for at least three months for each role.

Note: We won’t recognise accumulated time for work/client engagements that were performed during the same period. For example, you cannot claim more than 12 months of experience in a 12-month period. If you’ve undertaken concurrent work, we recommend you provide a testimonial for the role that’s most suitable for the ANZSCO code you applied for. We’ll ensure that the longest possible period of skilled employment is recognised in your final assessment.

Submitting documents

In most cases, you will be required to provide:

• employer testimonials for each role
• pay slips for each role.

We may request further documentation before finalising your skilled employment assessment. To address potential fraud or document manipulation, we will not accept additional information or altered references after we have determined an outcome.

Employer testimonial

For employment claims to be recognised for skilled employment, you must provide:

• a signed testimonial from your employer (see below)
• pay slips to substantiate your employment claims.

We do not accept CVs or resumes as evidence of your employment.

• the official letterhead of your employer, which must include the full address, telephone, email and website address of the business
• the name and position of the person authorised to sign your employment reference or testimonial, including their signature. References from colleagues at the same level or below are not acceptable
• the direct work email and phone number of the individual writing the reference. Personal contact is not acceptable.
• complete start and end dates of your employment history. Multiple roles within the same organisation must be listed separately, with specific start and end dates. Please specify all dates in the following format: DD/MM/YYYY
• the duties and responsibilities for each role. These must be written in your employer’s own words and be relevant to your daily and monthly tasks/responsibilities. Generic job descriptions or tasks copied from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) occupation definitions won’t be accepted.
• the employment terms, ie permanent or temporary
• your work hours each week
• your salary.

If you are unable to obtain an employment reference on a business letterhead, a statutory declaration may be considered. This should contain details of why you couldn’t secure a reference and must include the criteria required in a testimonial, outlined above. 

CPA Australia reserves the right to contact your employer for future verification. If your submission is suspected to contain fraudulent or misleading information, we have the right to refuse your application with no refund and may report this information to the Department of Home Affairs.

Pay slips

These are used to substantiate your employment claims. If you have multiple jobs, you'll need to provide a minimum of three pay slips for each role being claimed for. They should ideally be from the start, middle and end of each role.

Self-employed

Self-employed applicants must provide a testimonial written on their official letterhead. The letterhead must include the full address, telephone, email and website of the business. The testimonial must be accompanied with a Statutory Declaration confirming its truthfulness.

The testimonial must include:

• specific start and end dates
• work hours each week
• duties or responsibilities undertaken in each position
• your salary.

You will need to include high-quality scans of:

• your official business name registration
• practising certificate
• tax returns of your first, middle and final year (if relevant) of business operation
• references from two or more clients on letterhead, stating the work your business conducted and the start and end date of the engagement.

If your self-employment occurred outside Australia, we will accept substitutes for the above-mentioned documents but they must confirm the same information. For example, some countries may issue a 'Tax Registration' document rather than a 'Business Registration' document.

Managing the accounts or accounting duties of your own business may not be considered as meeting the requirements.