Post Qualification Work

 
 

When one is looking at the term, ‘employed’ in one’s ‘nominated skilled occupation’, this ordinarily means post qualification work. This means the work as an apprentice would not qualify as being ‘employed’ in one’s ‘nominated skilled occupation’.  Of course if one did a certificate III in say commercial cookery which is a one year course and then did a Diploma of Business Management for one year, then one could work as a cook while doing that second year diploma and that would count as being ‘employed’ in one’s ‘nominated skilled occupation’ of cook.

More problematic would be an RTO skill assessment by way of recognition of on the job acquired skills and prior learning.  Such an RTO skill assessment is a recognition of skills, not the process of the acquisition of a skill.  Hence the writer argues that work prior to the formal RTO skill assessment would still be being ‘employed’ in one’s ‘nominated skilled occupation’.

Plus one does not have to wait for the formal skill assessment from a skill assessing authority before one is classed as a being ‘employed’ in one’s ‘nominated skilled occupation’.  The point when skilled work starts (in the writer’s view) is when the qualification is attained, not when it is assessed. Skill assessment merely confirms an existing qualification. So if a student completes a qualification and gets the results in say early January then work done after the examination results would be skilled work.

Problematic would be some professions like law which require formal admission, yet prior to admission a law clerk may be doing legal work. Here the law clerk who has a law degree may in fact be working in a ‘closely related skilled occupation’ like Judicial and Other Legal Professionals nec.  In such a case work done after attaining a law degree but prior to formal admission may count as being ‘employed’.

Barbara Davidson