With the advent of globalization and access to information over the internet, people are exploring various modes of achieving a high standard of living. One such approach is immigrating to countries that will provide them with the opportunity to grow and fulfill their dreams.
Among the top countries with a high level of immigration, Canada lures a considerable amount of skilled labor every year to strengthen its economy and declining workforce by offering world-class healthcare facilities, education and employment opportunities. But, when it comes to migration processes, it creates a lot of perplexity and apprehension among the candidates.
Taking advantage of this situation, a huge number of agencies and organizations have come in the past few years. They deliver guidance for the immigration process as well as a myriad of other facilities to attract potential applicants. But, with the blooming number of these consultants and the fraudulent business that takes place all around us, it becomes difficult to choose the right help. So, in this article, a checklist is prepared that will assist you in making the right decision while choosing one of the best Canadian immigration consultants as per your requirements.
What does an Immigration Consultant do?
To gain an in-depth idea of whether an immigration consultant is authentic or not, one needs to have a better understanding of their responsibilities. So, a few of the responsibilities have been listed below:
- Counseling a candidate to know what he/she wants or needs for the process.
- Informing the candidate about all facets of immigration to Canada, including the various programs they can avail to migrate, the future prospects, financial opportunities or difficulties, etc.
- Once it is sure of the intent of the candidate, a detailed evaluation of eligibility needs to be done before taking further actions.
- Having a background check on language proficiency, educational background and job experience, if any.
- Assisting the candidate to fill in the application with all the necessary information and documents essential for the process.
- Preparing the candidate for the visa interviews if required.
- Aiding the person to prepare for the job market with important details.
Checklist for choosing the right immigration consultant
Without further ado, let us get straight to the point and find out some of the vital pointers that one needs to tick before choosing one of these consultants as a partner for their Canada immigration journey.
- Please make sure that it is certified.
The immigration consultant must be legally licensed to assist you with the immigration process. There are three distinct kinds of consultants who would aid you all through the process along with the formalities: registered immigration consultants, notaries, and lawyers. Therefore, ensure that the immigration consultant you choose is qualified and registered as per your country’s standard rules and regulations.
- It should be informed and updated about Canadian Immigration Law.
It is highly critical for the immigration consultant to be familiar with Canadian immigration and refugee laws, as notified by the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC). With changing times, the rules and conditions of immigration keep on altering. Therefore, all immigration consultants must update themselves with the revised rules and regulations so that it does not create any complication in the process and hinder the candidate from receiving the much-awaited invitation on time. On the other hand, if they are themselves unaware of the minute details of the whole procedure, how can you expect them to guide you?
- The consultant should be available and prompt in responding to the candidate’s queries.
While providing assistance, the service provider should always be available to the one in need in case of an emergency. In the same way, be assured that the consultant you are choosing is abreast with every aspect of your application and is accessible over calls or e-mails to solve any issue if required.
- It should have transparent billing procedures.
Nowadays, in most cases, hidden costs or taxes have become an annoying part of every purchase. Therefore, you need to find out if the consultant levies any surprise cost or added price later in the process to increase the billing amount. If that is the case, it is better to avoid such agencies as they are more interested in their profit rather than assisting you in the process. Always remember that reliable immigration consultancies would have a prior discussion with you as the candidate and provide you detailed information on their pricing, even if it is more as per the market standards.
- It would invest in seminars and customized planning in accordance with the candidate’s needs.
An authentic immigration consultancy firm that is invested more in helping the applicants to fulfil their dream besides earning a profit in the business will always offer strategic and proactive advice. It will organize different seminars or motivate you to participate in ones that will help you learn more about the host country. It is because they consider client feedback a great help for bettering their services to attract more candidates.
- You should check for a high success rate.
Proficiency, experience, and success rate play a key role when it comes to the selection of an immigration consultant. First, you need to confirm that the immigration consultant has appropriate experience in the field they claim to be the best. For this, a comprehensive background check is necessary from your side. It would be best if you remember that the more experienced the consultant firm is, the more your chances of success will be. Moreover, immigration consultants who maintain multilingual abilities are the best, as you might need assistance translating documents and decoding important content.
- Always choose consultants that have enough credit in the field.
The consultant firm should possess ample acclaim in the market as these firms should have created a niche after years of trade experience. Normally, there is a lot of competition in every field and recognition from equivalents seems crucial in assessing the true worth of the immigration consultant. In addition, it should have connections in the right place to guarantee that your application is moving in the right direction. So, check for testimonials and referrals from other immigrants as any worthy service providers focus on building good trust and client referrals which attract further business.
- If the immigrant consultant provides genuine added services, it is worth pursuing.
While researching a trustworthy immigration consultant, try to figure out if they also provide additional services like IELTS preparation guidance to increase your CRS score, regular articles on updates on immigration laws and the number of invitations, etc. It will help you to identify the competency of the immigration consultant. An authentic immigration consultant will provide you assurance not only by word of mouth but also by proficient business processing and high-quality, well-documented services.
How to find out genuine information about the immigration consultant?
If you have access to a mobile phone or a computer and the internet, nothing is impossible in this technologically advanced world that we live in today. Therefore, if you want to research more on a certain consultant before finalizing whether to take its help, go through the following ways:
- Reviews on websites like Google, Quora
As marketers always imply, nothing surpasses word of mouth when it comes to approving a service. Therefore, the first thing you should do is read online reviews of your prospective immigration consultancy while researching or doing a background check. It will provide you with factual accounts and opinions of people who have had first-hand experience with the firm.
- Social media handles of the consultants
Gradually scroll through the social media handles of the agency you are interested in. The latest posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Youtube will give you an idea of the kind of activities they deal with and the process they follow. If you find it missing or have an inactive page on social media, be sure it cannot be trusted.
- Records of past activities or testimonials of previous success
Normally, any genuine and best immigration consultancy will have an experience of many years and employ skilled employees that they would boast of on official platforms. You will get to know about details like success rate or reputation in the market from these records and testimonials.
- Security
Reputed immigration consultancy firms have practices and guidelines to offer the clientele peace of mind, especially while sharing and handling private and sensitive information. So, make sure that the website URL starts with ‘https’ for secure online payments and make note that the ‘s’ on the website suggest that it is protected.
To sum up
Among the most popular immigration consultants in India, it is very difficult to find all the qualities discussed in this article. Fortunately, one such website among this limited number which meets most of these criteria is IELTSMaterial Global Immigration Services. It is quite transparent about its dealings, provides regular updates on the website, has lots of positive reviews on the internet and has become one of the top players in the field by providing top-quality immigration as well as IELTS preparation services.