A personal story of mine.

I have been in Perth, Australia for the past 6 years and have recently came back to Malaysia for work. My application process for PR is an interesting one and some of you may learn something from my experience.

I got my Bachelors of Engineering (Chem Eng) back in Feb 2013 and at that time I was 5 points short of applying for PR as I was below the 25-30 age bracket. Took IELTS a couple of times to get the score of all Band 8.0 and did not manage to achieve it (closest I gotten was 9 8.5 8.5 7.5). This was with about a months English focused self mentoring and going for lessons (if you are in Curtin try to get the uni counselor to help you). I wasted about 4-5 months doing this.

Researched around and decided to do Navitas Professional Year Program to get my last 5 points for PR. This program is roughly 10 months. The first 6 or so months entails you going to class to learn how to conduct yourself within a professional working environment, writing resumes and having mock up interview sessions. Personally, I feel that these lessons only teach you basic knowledge that you should already know if you have been applying for professional jobs.

The second part of the course (3 months) is the interesting bit as Navitas (the course provider) is obligated to find you an internship for a company related to your field. However do note that this internship is unpaid and your mileage may vary depending on how you ask for work in the company itself. Navitas would give you a questionnaire for you to state which sector you would like to go into. For me, as I had an interest within the HSE/O&G sector my internship was in a marine services company that dealt with O&G industry.

After my internship ended, I obtained the necessary documents from Navitas and immediately started my application process. As I was hired by the company I interned in and was busy, I used a migration agent to help me settle the application process (total cost was around AUD 6000). The agent submitted my application in Dec 2014, got assigned a case officer around early Feb 2015 and obtained my PR in Mar 2015.

Everything was fine and dandy till Perth economy became jialat. I was made redundant around Aug 2015 and was rehired by my ex-boss on a per contract basis work. Tried looking around for work and decided to come back to Malaysia to gain some working experience instead of working part time and to visit family (haven't been back for almost 2 years).

Currently back in KL and am pretty happy with the change of pace. Now to maintain my cumulative 2 years for PR renewal

This post has been edited by xerofear: Feb 29 2016, 11:17 PM

Around 2+ months. Started applying before I came back and had an interview lined up the moment I came back to KL. Today first day

This post has been edited by xerofear: Mar 1 2016, 07:32 PM

Project and Process Engineer