Australian Skill Assessment (ACS) document certification

Question

I am planning to apply for Australian PR under sub class 189/190. The assessment body is ACS (Australian Computing Society).

I have gone through their requirements, but I could not find anything about the following questions (or certain things about them were not clear).

Can someone please advise:

1. Certified documents: is it acceptable for a solicitor to certify all copies?

2. How do you prove your work experience if you worked as a freelancer? I can see they are asking for reference letters on company letterhead stating I worked for them as a freelancer. Is there anything else I can provide to support this further, and are there any complications with this? Most of the people I worked for are not registered as companies or are no longer active (or were freelancers themselves).

3. Do you have to submit the original Passport and hard copies as well?

Answer 1

I've just been assessed by ACS so I can help with 2 out of three.

1. A solicitor certified photocopies of my documents and that was fine.

3. A certified copy of the identity page of the passport was required.

As for point 2 that is difficult. I'm a permanent employee and always have been and I struggled to get the references. A minimal reference is not acceptable. I was advised it must have

• Dates of employment
• A description of duties that match to the employment category you are going for
• And be on headed notepaper—ACS are fussy about that

There are alternatives—getting someone who you worked with to vouch for you—but I don't know any more details.

Good luck

Answer 2

For self employment you need:

• One self statutory declaration stating your dates, projects, clients, and most importantly the skills you utilised on those projects.
• One skills reference per client stating the dates, your roles and skills.
• A reference letter from your accountant stating the nature of
  business.
• Any additional document you think will help prove your self employed status- business registration documents, tax documents, company account statement, purchase orders/ invoices.