3,200 invitations have been issued in the latest Express Entry Draw.

The wait is finally over for all those who were eagerly waiting for the Express Entry Draw. 3,200 invitations have been directed to the applicants by the IRCC as per the latest news. Launched in 2015, Express Entry System is undeniably the most sought after immigration system globally. The working of this immigration system is easy and fluid. An interested candidate has to create a profile in the Express Entry pool. This profile acts as an Expression of Interest (EOI), which is the first step of this process.

Express Entry system selects those candidates who belong to the below-mentioned economy class programs:

Federal Skilled Worker
Federal Skilled Trades
Canadian Experience Class

Candidates are eligible to take part in the Express Entry draw only when they belong to these three listed federal programs. Moreover, some of the Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs) are also aligned with the Express Entry. It gives an added advantage to those candidates who participate in the Express Entry draw via PNPs because they are given an additional 600 points in their Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) scores. Candidates are required to create an online profile for the Express Entry draw. Once a profile is created, candidates receive the CRS score and this score is the determining factor for securing an Invitation to Apply (ITA) for permanent residence. Comprehensive Ranking Score is calculated by examining a number of factors such as age, education, foreign work experience, Canadian certificate of education, Canadian work experience and language proficiency. Further, a job offer, though not a quintessential factor in order to be eligible for an ITA through Express Entry, surely provides extra points to the candidate which makes it easier for them to secure ITA. So, one can say that a job offer is desirable but not necessary. The express entry draws tend to happen on a bi-weekly schedule. This schedule is not settled though. The draw held on December 11 is the first express entry draw of December. In this draw, candidates from the federal programs as well as from the Express Entry-aligned streams are eligible to be invited for getting permanent residence. In contrast to the previous draw, in which the CRS cut-off threshold was 471 points, this time the minimum score required by a candidate to secure an invite is 472. The score has risen by 1 whereas the number of invitations has gone down from 3600 to 3200. The Express Entry immigration has securely become highly competitive in nature. Only those candidates who obtain the highest scores receive invitations to apply for the status of a permanent resident. Accordingly, the candidates really need to pull their socks up to receive an invitation. Furthermore, IRCC had to apply a tie-breaking rule in this latest draw. According to this rule, if the number of candidates who have the lowest score is more than one, the cut-off will be based on the date and time they created their profiles. This means that all those candidates with a score of more than 473 along with those with a score of 472 who created their profiles before the tie-break date and time will receive an ITA. Keeping in mind the increased competition, candidates are suggested to improve their profiles. The only thing that can make the scores fall is regular draws. However, the consistency of the draws depends on several factors. So, candidates should not wait for the scores to go down and instead work on improving their CRS scores.