Express Entry or PNP for better chance - CRS less than 400

Hello all,

Just to brief my background:
Age: 36
Bachelors in Engineering (India) - completed in 2002
Overall Software development and Architect experience - 15 years (10 years in USA, 5 years in India)
Green Card priority date in the USA - Nov 2010

My husband has exact same experience as above, but I’m into technologies like - JAVA / AWS / Salesforce.
My husband works on BI Data Analytics. Both of our jobs are pretty stable and long term. The only problem is with H1B.

We are tired of waiting more than 10 years for Green card and the uncertainty only gets worse. Both of us have NO Masters degree, but solid work experience on good projects.
I tried the CRS Tool for an approximate point, it comes to 390 or so with IELTS score of about 7 or 8.

Considering the past cutoffs, this is not a sufficient point to get PR through EE.

Please guide me the options to get a better point and get through the PR process. Is just getting a job offer sufficient enough or should I go for a PNP option? I’m sure about “Toronto” or “Vancouver” being our destination.
Because, I’m currently in Wisconsin and since we own a home and kids are well settled here, only either one of us will be moving there initially with PR and would be travelling most probably until we decide.

Please provide your thoughts / suggestions for our situation.

Thank you in advance and appreciate your efforts in maintaining this active community!

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I would recommend start applying for jobs in Canada and see if you hit anything. With a job offer you might have a chance of getting more points or a PNP. I don’t know much about PNP since I went through EE. I also think both of you should give your IELTS and put in a profile and see what your final combined score comes to (the person with higher score should be the primary applicant). It doesn’t matter if both of you get the PR separately or together, although together is probably better. Once you land and become PR, one of you can stay there while other works in US for the time being.

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Thank you for the response. Just a follow-up question.

Is there any mandate to work for the exact same job offer, using which the PR was obtained?

For example: Let’s say me or my husband gets a job offer but we are not happy with the pay package or location, can we still use the job offer to obtain the PR (AND) Can we still enter Canada just for a short vacation, just to see how things are and get the PR activated and return back to USA and have any of our friends ship the actual PR cards to our US address? In this case, we may or may not take up the original job offer, though we used it to obtain the PR.
We could continue our job search while in the USA and then eventually move in using the PR when a good offer and location works out.

Please let us know if this is allowed?

Also, my understanding is atleast 2 years of work in Canada out of 5 years in necessary for the PR to be active AND atleast 3 years of stay on PR is necessary for Citizenship. Is that correct? - In case, does the entire family need to be living for the specified time period in Canada or just one of the applicants?

If the company gives you a job offer they usually expect you to start working for them in a month, two month tops. No way you can get the PR within a month. You might as well move to Canada on a work permit for that company and then apply for PR through EE/PNP or similar. Once you have your PR (or even before that) you are free to move to another job in Canada as long as you have a PR/work permit is transferable (I don’t know much about Canadian work permits).

If you get a job offer and then you get the ITA based on that and later you refuse the offer/company cancels it since it’s taking you too long to respond, and then you submit the final documents, technically you have lied to CIC since your conditions have changed significantly between ITA and final submission. Any misrepresentation can result in CIC barring you from entering Canada under any visa, for 5 years.

2/3 to maintain PR states. 3/5 for citizenship. I don’t know about individual/family. But I presume anyone who does not fulfill these conditions loses their PR/has to wait longer for citizenship.

Got it! Thank you for the detailed explanation.

Hello everyone,
I am 43 years old, an MSC graduate married with 2 kids with over 15 years working experience while hubby is 45 years old and uninterested in migrating but I would love to move to Canada when I assessed my crs score with ielts score of 8 average it came down to 386, what are my chances if I applied alone and go for PNP?
Do I stand a chance or i should just forget about it since all efforts to convince hubby to get involved has not yielded any positive response.
Kindly advise.
Thanks

To be honest, 386 is a low score and might not qualify you for PNP (depends on which province you are looking to apply to). You can give it a shot and see if it works, if you really want to migrate. You might also want to consider your family situation and talk to your kids and spouse about their willingness to move if you do get PR. Good luck!

Thanka alot for the advise. I just took the ielts test , waiting for the result to take the nest step.

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All the best!

Hi all,

I recently completed the online PR application and I got a response saying that I am not eligible for Express Entry stating a very generic response (I have attached a screenshot of the response) . So I still don’t understand what the specific reason why I am not eligible.

I have about 7 years of software engineer experience in the USA and so does my spouse. My IELTS scores are as follows:

Listening: 8.0
Reading: 8.5
Writing: 8.0
Speaking: 7.0

Overall : 8.0

My spouse also has about 10 years Software engineering experience, but has not taken the IELTS test.

It would be great if someone could point me in the right direction on how to proceed.

You should find answers to this question in this community for sure. Search for a keyword “Ineligible”

FYI - Please check whether you have selected “No” to ECA.

Thanks for replying @canadainland. Yes, I have selected “No” to ECA. But I realize now that I have to submit the ECA report. Thanks again!