Proof of Work Experience - Work Experience Letter

Since you (and your spouse) are claiming points for work experience, you will need to provide a work experience letter as a proof of your work experience. This is a letter from your employer substantiating your claims that you worked in a certain role for a certain period of time with the employer. This is a very important document and some people get stuck in getting them issued and sometimes the format may not be appropriate. In my opinion, this should be one of your highest priority documents along with the police certificate.

Work Experience letter

For employees

If you were/are an employee, then you will need an experience letter from your ex and current employers from the last 10 years. Please carefully read the requirements of this letter and make sure it includes:

your name
all positions you held at this company
your job titles and duties
dates you worked for this company
number of hours per week
job status (permanent or temporary, full time or part time, etc)
annual salary and benefits
your company’s contact information
name, title and signature of your manager or your HR manager
should be printed on the company’s letterhead

If you have worked in more than one company, then you will need a letter from each of those if you are claiming points for those work experiences.

If you worked in Canada, you may also include copies of T4s and Notices of Assessment from CRA for the period for which you claimed points for work experience.

For self-employed

If you are self-employed, then you can submit following proofs:

Articles of incorporation or any other evidence of business ownership
Proof of self employment income
Documentation from third-party individuals indicating the service provided along with payment details

Troubles getting the experience letter

Some people face difficulties in getting experience letters, especially from their past employers. Their company may have closed down or the people they worked with may have left and there is no one who can verify. Some did not leave on good terms and may find it hard to get a letter. Some companies may have standard templates that don’t include things that IRCC needs on the letter and they may not want to budge.

Some people also face issues in confiding with their employer since sharing their plans for immigration may jeopardize their employment. On the other hand they cannot get the letter from the employer unless they confide in their manager or HR. It’s a catch 22.

Whatever the case may be, it will be hard for you if you are facing one of these challenges. If you can’t get an experience letter in accordance with IRCC’s guidelines, then you can submit the following proofs to substantiate your claim:

Your employment contract
Pay stubs for the entire period
Any letters you received on your role change or promotion or appraisals
Any letter outlining your job description
A reference letter from your supervisor (if you can manage)
Proof of your attempts to get a letter from your employer (for example, the emails you sent)
Bank statement showing regular salary receipts in your account (usually the employer’s name is also mentioned there)
Letter of explanation mentioning why you couldn’t provide the experience letter

Job duties in the experience letter

It is very important to get this right. If you recall, there was a step where you had to find the NOC code for your role. You had to find the NOC that matches the most with your work experience. Now, your experience letter is the only proof that you selected the right NOC. That’s why it is critical to do your research and get your NOC right the first time.

The job duties mentioned on your experience letter should broadly match the job duties under that NOC code. There won’t be a 100% match because every role is different but a 70-80% match is a good match.

You don’t have to worry about having everything mentioned in that NOC code in your experience letter. For example, if that NOC code has 5 main job duties and you worked on only one of those and that’s all you did, then it’s fine. It would be a 100% match. The problem arises when you worked on one of those duties but also worked on 5 more unrelated duties. Then you may be looking at the wrong code or your work experience spans over multiple codes. Whatever the case may be, explain it well.

You can also ask your company to paraphrase the job duties in the experience letter so that they use the keywords mentioned in the NOC code while keeping essence the same. This is because in your country, same work could be known with a different name and you may replace those words with the synonyms that a Canadian would understand better. However, this does not mean that you should alter your job duties and make them sound different. That would be construed as misrepresentation. IRCC can call your employer to verify the experience letter and you don’t want your application to get rejected.

Multiple NOCs

People keep changing their jobs or their line of work and because of that, they may end up having different NOC codes for different roles. I worked in three different roles and all of those had a different NOC code. That’s not a problem. You just need to specify your primary NOC code in your Express Entry profile (you can choose any of those; I chose the one that was the most recent for me). I attached a cover letter with my Experience letter where I mentioned the NOC code for each of my work experiences.