In this recent Express Entry draw, The Government of Canada invited 3,232 candidates to apply for permanent residence.
Canadian Experience Class program candidates with Comprehensive Ranking Scores (CRS) as low as 467 were issued invitations to apply in a new Express Entry draw held March 23, 2020.
The program-specific draw was the second since 2015 to specifically target candidates in the Canadian Experience Class, which is open to foreign nationals with at least one year of work experience in Canada, among other criteria.
Since 2015, this draw was the second to specifically invite candidates in the Canadian Experience Class. The Canadian Experience Class is one of three Federal High Skilled immigration programs managed by the Express Entry system, and is open to foreign nationals with at least one year of work experience in Canada. The other two are the Federal Skilled Worker Class and the Federal Skilled Trades Class.
While Express Entry draws usually involve candidates from all three classes and this recent draw was one of the rare exceptions to this rule.
Last March 18, the previous Express Entry Draw only included candidates with provincial nominations, issuing 668 invitations to apply (ITAs). Since Canada’s announcement of their 2020-2022 Immigration Level Plans, it is expected that Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will be holding frequent and larger draws in the near future.
Given the smaller pool of candidates, niche draws targeting specific categories like the Canadian Experience Class tend to produce lower cut-off scores. This latest draw was no exception, with a cut-off score of 467, making it the lowest cut-off score, lower than the 470 cut-off for the last all-program Express Entry draw.
The tie-break used by IRCC in the March 23 draw was November 25, 2019, at 14:00:35 UTC. This means that all Canadian Experience Class candidates with a CRS score above 467, as well as those with scores of 467 who entered their profile in the Express Entry pool before this date and time, received an Invitation to Apply (ITA) for Canadian permanent residence.
With this draw, the total number of ITAs issued by Canada’s Express Entry system has reached 22,600 for this year.
Today’s draw is a reminder that Express Entry candidates with lower CRS scores still have a chance to receive an ITA.
