5 tips for a Priority Processing Application

The VETASSESS Priority Processing Service enables migration agents, legal practitioners and applicants to fast-track the assessment of an application. It’s one way to get your application to the front of the queue for a skills assessment.

It’s important to fully understand the documents an applicant has to provide for Priority Processing, to enable us to process their application as quickly as we can. It can be easy to miss an important step and we do see applicants who fail to provide the depth of information we require, which delays their application.

What is priority processing?

We commit to completing a Priority Processing skills assessment within 10 business days. There is an additional fee for this type of skills assessment.

Are there eligibility criteria for priority processing?

Yes. Priority Processing is available only for new prospective applicants who require a Full Skills Assessment for General Professional occupations (including Post-485 applications). Applicants who have previously had a full skills assessment application with us are not eligible to use this service.

We require up to 2 business days to review whether an application is suitable for Priority Processing. We won’t accept an application for this service if we can’t process the application within 10 days. This can happen, for example, if a qualification is so specialised that we cannot easily compare it with the Australian Qualifications Framework. We will try to help you but sometimes the decision is out of our hands, as we have to follow due process.

Before applying, check on our website to confirm your eligibility to apply for Priority Processing and to ensure you understand the application process.

You can find out more on our Priority Processing page.

5 tips for Priority Processing

Paying attention to the fine details really matters in a skills application. Dates need to match and you must be able to prove where and when you studied and worked.

Here are some tips to avoid common pitfalls:

You need to be able to show us the positions you held in your employment and the exact dates (day, month, year) of those positions through official documentation. It can be hard to provide this level of detail in a Statement of Service from an employer. Their information may be too brief and the employer may not want to rewrite a letter, but applicants can sometimes still meet our requirements by sending us contracts or letters that congratulate them on a new position. These documents may contain the detail required on positions that the applicant has held at the organisation, and the dates they held those roles. If we have sufficient supporting documentation like this, we can sometimes accept a statutory declaration from the applicant concerning their employment responsibilities for each position held.

1.     Ensure your documents contain all the detail we require.

2.     Make sure your translations have been done by an accredited translator. We need to know we can trust the translation.

3.     Don’t forget that we also need the original documents of your translation, so we can authenticate them.

4.     Remember to include dates of study leave, or a break from employment. We need the exact dates and we need to know whether study leave was paid or unpaid.

5.     Once your application is ready, double check the information against the requirements listed on our website and ensure all declarations have been signed. That final check may pick up a simple error or missing information and so speed the time for processing your application.

Skills Assessment Support Service

Finally, if you are unsure about any element of your application and time is important, consider using our Skills Assessment Support (SAS) Service.

We provide two services: a 30-minute phone consultation about our Skills Assessment criteria for occupational classifications, or a document checking service that checks whether the documentation you are planning to provide for a skills assessment will be sufficient for your application.

With a Priority Processing application, early attention to detail will pay off with an assessment that goes smoothly and quickly.