Show HN: H1-B problems? Check your eligibility to move to Canada | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: H1-B problems? Check your eligibility to move to Canada

emigro.ca

8 pointsBlake_Emigro17 comments

A couple of years ago I had a tool built to assess foreign skilled workers for their eligibility to immigrate to Canada. The tool can be accessed with the link. (Heroku may have to wake up, so give it a few moments.)

Due to a dispute with the devs I lost the access to the tool, but now I'm trying to bring it back to life. It seems especially critical in this moment with the H1-B turmoil down south of Canada.

Please let me know what you think of it.

Also, if you want to talk about your chances of moving to Canada, let me know privately what the doughnut chart in the top right corner says after you complete the assessment with your own details.

I'm not looking to charge you anything, I just want to help my peers and also get my tech back up and running to have another shot at my startup.

Thanks so much Blake, Founder of Emigro Startup Studio

First question i see is: "Welcome to the Express Entry Assessment. Could you give your full name please?" Why do you need real name? It's not official calculator, right?

Good question, this is something that I'm going to change in the process flow. The original idea was that everything we had to offer after the assessment would need the name. We have a PDF summary, an email list, and a portal with additional features, (paid). Also we needed something to be able to uniquely identify the session to save it briefly. But over time I came to see how it would be a deterrent and I'll come up a better way. Thanks!

Hey, what is the difference of calculator like this http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/crs-tool.asp ?

The link you gave is the official CDN government calculator for this purpose. However, that calculator doesn't tell you if you're eligible for any program or not - they have another tool for that, but that tool doesn't give you your ranking score. This leads to many people thinking they are eligible when they're not and can be very discouraging.

It's a little convoluted because the Express Entry system was introduced in 2015 on top of the three existing skilled worker programs and the CDN government just hasn't caught the tech up to where it should be.

I made this tool as the best available for merging these program calculators, and also making it so that I can optionally assess people for provincial programs, work permits etc.

Thanks!

Really need a back button for this. I don't so much want to know if I qualify, but what do I need to do to qualify which means some of my answers change

When people first inquire about immigrating to Canada, most are not eligible. So the next step for this that I'm creating is the "pathway builder" which will allow you to have multiple assessments side-by-side, and the ability to tweak the variables and see the affect on the score and eligibility.

Thanks!

I would rather check Canada first. Canada is better (although colder). That's a pity Canada doesn't conduct diversity visa lotteries.

Canada is great, but obviously I'm biased. I've also traveled all over the US and the people you see on the news are such a small fraction of the real awesome people that make up the country. (Mass shootings are f'ed up though.)

Canada does in a sense have a diversity lottery for work permits, but this is only with countries that we have international labour mobility programs with and excludes the biggest world movers like India, Philippines, Nigeria, China... But our population is so small that there are more people that want to move to Canada than there are actual Canadian citizens, being even more open would radically change the country.

Thanks!

Define better.

Our housing is spiraling out of control, we have no unity between provinces (Alberta vs BC, Alberta vs East), we get screwed on just about ANY service (we pay insane amounts for flights and telecom for instance) and we get paid a bunch less (as in x times less) than our counterparts in the US. Our dollar is far lower than USD making most products far more expansive. Best jobs in Canada are public sector.

Healthcare is better than the US - I am not going to be bankrupted by a broken wrist. But I do have to wait many months before I can see a specialist (I had to wait 1+ years for a surgery for instance).

Better? I'm not so sure. For a tech worker US is a far better place IMO.

It asks me if I have an English proficiency certificate but I am a natural English speaker. What option do you select then?

For skilled worker immigration to Canada, every applicant has to take an English test, regardless of country of origin or native language. It doesn't seem right, but it gets really complicated trying to say what countries would have the level of native English that the CDN government wants for their skilled immigrants.

So in this case you would put NO, and then go on and give your approximate level in the next question.

Thanks!

Will you sell the data I enter here or what do you do with it?

I will never sell anyone's data, or use it for any purpose that the user doesn't want and explicitly agree to.

For this assessment, nothing is being stored unless you submit your email address, it's all front-end JavaScript. Even then, I will just be deleting anything that comes in.

The future intent is to offer the assessment as a gateway to a SaaS product, and also have a marketplace of immigration lawyers that you could pick one to share the info with if you wanted to engage their service. But right now none of that is in place.

Thanks!

Thank you for your response. Sorry for seeing it so late.

No back button to correct the wrong answer

You can scroll back up and click the rewind button on the right to re-answer the question.

Thanks!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com