Step 5: Creating Express Entry profile

Now that you have got your language results and ECA and you have checked your NOC codes, let’s heat it up a bit! Go ahead and start creating your Express Entry profile. From here things start to become official (and serious). Earlier, you were interacting with other agencies such as IELTS or your university or WES. The Government of Canada (IRCC) was not in the picture yet. From here, you will start dealing with IRCC, so pull up your socks and follow along.

Starting with checking eligibility

You can start the process with the Come to Canada page on the official Canada.ca website and click on “Check your eligibility” to proceed. If you remember, the first step in the process was about checking your eligibility. At that time, you didn’t have your language results and ECA but you would have assumed that you would get at least the bare minimum results to be eligible. After that you assessed your education and language. And now that you have your results in hand, you can officially check your eligibility before you can proceed.

So, go ahead and start answering the questions that appear one by one on this page. The questions will be about the following:

• Province and territory you plan to live in. If you are not sure, choose any one or all of the options.
• Language results. Enter the date of your test and your scores from your test report
• Years of your work experience in Canada and outside of Canada
• Money you are planning to bring in Canada. It has to be more than the minimum requirements set by the government every year.
• Number of family members. This includes you and your direct dependents. For example, your spouse will be considered but not your parents. You have to include all dependents even if they are not coming to Canada with you.
• Valid job offer in Canada. If you have it then good. If you don’t, it’s not a problem
• Age and education. Please select the option per your ECA report, not what your degree or university says.
• Education and work in Canada, if applicable
• Marital status and some questions about your spouse (if you have one)

At the end, you will receive a confirmation telling you whether you are eligible or ineligible to apply under Express Entry. If you are eligible, you will receive a personal reference code.

Creating Express Entry profile

Follow these steps after getting the code:

1. Save the personal reference code because you will need it later to retrieve your information while creating your profile.
2. Register to create a secure IRCC account on this page. There are two options to register – GCKey and Sign In Partner. GCKey can be used by anyone while Sign In Partner can be used if you have Canadian bank account. Sign up for your GCKey account by creating a username and password.
3. You will then be redirected to create your Express Entry account. Enter your first and last name and create security questions.
4. Click Apply to Come to Canada and enter the personal reference code in the next step. Some of the answers will already be pre-filled based on the answers you shared earlier.
5. After this step, you can start filling in all your details such as education, work experience, contact details, etc.
6. Review all the information and then submit your profile. After that, you will receive an email confirming that your profile is ready to be considered for Express Entry.

Once your profile is complete, you will enter the Express Entry pool of candidates where you will be competing with other candidates for the next steps.

Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) Scores

Before we move to the next step, it is very important to understand how CRS scores work, if you haven’t gone through them already. Under the Express Entry program, applicants are selected based on their age, education, language skills, etc. Each of these parameters carries a score and it’s the total score that determines if you will proceed to the next stage or not.

Based on your answers while creating your Express Entry profile, you will get points for each of those parameters. For example, if you are single and under 30, you will get 110 points for age. If you have a Bachelor’s degree, you will get 120 points for education and so on. All these points will get totalled in the end to produce your final CRS Score. You can also calculate the score yourself on this page.

Every few weeks, IRCC will conduct a draw to select the top ranking applicants from the Express Entry pool. If your CRS score is higher than the cut off for that round, you will move to the next stage. We will explain this further in the next step.

If your score is not good enough, you will be considered for all upcoming draws for one year, after which your Express Entry profile will expire and you will have to create a new one.

Disclaimer

It is very important to answer all the questions truthfully while creating your Express Entry profile. For example, if you didn’t get good IELTS scores but you are hoping to score better in your next attempt, then wait for the results before creating your profile. Do not assume and put better scores right now just to advance to the next round. You will surely get to the next stage if you lie but you will have to show proof of everything that you claimed to get your score. Obviously, you won’t be able to share any documents if you lied and you could be barred from entering Canada. It’s not a risk worth taking.