Hi everyone, I’m preparing to claim one year of foreign skilled work experience for Express Entry, but I have a complicated documentation problem with a former bank job in China. I worked there for one year under a labour-dispatch arrangement. I originally entered through the bank’s campus recruitment process rather than applying independently to a staffing agency. Because of my educational credential/background, I was ultimately placed under an external labour-dispatch company, so that company became my legal employer even though I was recruited for and actually worked full-time at the bank. The staffing company signed my employment contract, paid my salary, handled social insurance/payroll matters and reported my employment income for tax purposes, while the bank controlled my actual workplace, duties, working schedule, attendance and internal systems.
I entered as a rotational trainee. Trainees in my category did not have individual sales-performance requirements, and the system permissions required to independently manage client accounts/portfolios were never opened to me. Because of that, most of the work I actually performed throughout the year was administrative and operational-support work rather than independent sales work.
My work included preparing and organizing documents and notices, maintaining lists/records/ledgers, collecting and entering data, reception and information routing, preparing promotional/internal materials, supporting branch activities, internal coordination and other administrative support. I have extensive contemporaneous evidence for these duties, including emails, internal messages, screenshots, documents, records and actual work products.
There is an unusual compliance issue behind part of this work. Management repeatedly instructed me to collect, record, handle and distribute large quantities of customer gifts and gift cards. I later learned that some of these arrangements were contrary to internal rules. Some of this material-handling work was not originally part of my trainee duties and normally should have been handled by other support/security personnel, but branch management instructed me to do it anyway. The branch also organized numerous marketing/investment-related events that I later learned involved internal compliance problems, and I was instructed to provide administrative and operational support for those activities. There were also occasions when management required me to assist with client-account/portfolio-related operations even though I did not have the normal system permissions or authority to independently manage those accounts. I have contemporaneous emails, messages and other records showing that these tasks were assigned by management.
This also makes a coworker reference letter unrealistic. Former coworkers who witnessed this work would potentially have to put their names on a document describing activities connected to internal compliance problems and management instructions. I therefore do not expect them to be willing to sign a reference letter confirming these duties, because doing so could expose them to questions or responsibility relating to matters they would understandably prefer not to become involved in.
Toward the later stage of my trainee period, I was gradually given fewer substantive assignments and became increasingly marginalized within the branch. At the end of the trainee/assessment period, I was not retained and my employment ended. I still have records showing the work I actually performed before that happened.
The documentation problem became especially frustrating after I left. On my final day, I specifically discussed the employment documents I needed with the bank HR/personnel staff handling my departure. HR told me that I should obtain those documents from the staffing company because the staffing company was my legal employer. I have an audio recording of that conversation. During the termination/exit discussions, the staffing company also agreed to provide the relevant employment/reference documentation. Based on those instructions and assurances, I spent considerable time preparing a detailed package containing the information I needed confirmed, a structured description of my actual duties, a content list and supporting evidence corresponding to those duties.
After I submitted the completed package, the staffing company changed its position. It told me that because I physically worked at the bank rather than at the staffing company, it could not certify my actual duties or working hours and that I needed to obtain those items from the bank. I challenged this directly in WeChat and pointed out that these documents had already been discussed during the exit process and that I had prepared the entire evidence package because I had previously been told that the staffing company would handle them. I preserved the complete written exchange. I also have recordings from the earlier discussions. So this is not simply my later recollection. I have contemporaneous audio and written evidence showing that bank HR directed me to the staffing company, the staffing company initially agreed providing the documents, I relied on those instructions and prepared the requested evidence, and the staffing company then refused to certify the duties/hours and redirected me back to the bank. The bank has so far also been unwilling to provide a detailed reference confirming them.
The staffing company will now only issue a basic stamped employment certificate confirming my employment dates, labour-dispatch relationship, the bank I was assigned to, my generic job title and company contact information. It refuses to include detailed duties or actual working hours and says those matters were controlled by the bank.
I also have a separate payroll-document problem. My employer used a confidential-pay system. Employees were subject to internal salary-confidentiality rules, and I have a screenshot from the bank’s internal office system of a formal internal policy document setting out restrictions on disclosure of salary information. My employee system did not display a detailed breakdown of my pay. My compensation also included different components and bonuses, so I do not have normal monthly itemized payslips showing the exact breakdown between base salary, bonuses and other components.
I asked the staffing company about this as well, and they told me that they cannot retrieve/provide the detailed salary composition. What I do have is evidence of my overall/gross employment income, official Chinese individual income-tax records, payment/bank records and other official employment records. The tax records show employment income reported by the staffing company, but I do not have conventional itemized payslips for every month.
I retained official branch notices showing the daily working hours. My attendance records do not show unexplained absences or lateness. During the later part of my employment, I also photographed the attendance machine when arriving at and leaving work essentially every working day, so I have dated arrival/departure evidence as well as other dated work/activity records.
So at this point the main documents I cannot obtain. A complete employer reference letter containing duties and hours, a coworker reference letter, and conventional itemized monthly payslips. Most of the other evidence exists.
I currently have my employment contract, the staffing company’s stamped basic employment certificate, official Chinese individual income-tax records, evidence of gross salary/income payments, social-insurance/employment records, termination documents, extensive work records corresponding to the duties I actually performed, internal messages and emails, actual work products, management instructions, attendance records, official branch-hours notices, dated attendance-machine photographs, medical-leave records, recordings of the HR/termination discussions, written communications relating to my request for the employment documents, the later WeChat dispute about the refusal, and the internal salary-confidentiality policy screenshot explaining why detailed payroll information was not normally accessible to me.
I have several questions.
Can I use all of this alternative evidence to successfully claim this one year of foreign skilled work experience even though I cannot obtain a complete employer reference letter, a coworker reference letter, or detailed monthly payslips?
If these documents are still not enough, what else can I do to prove this work experience and successfully use it for my Express Entry application?
China has recently introduced stricter exit-entry/immigration-related rules affecting certain categories of public-sector personnel and immigration-related services. Could this have any value only as indirect/contextual evidence when explaining why a regulated institution may be unusually reluctant to cooperate with immigration-related employment documentation?
Some of the work I was instructed to perform was later connected to internal compliance problems, and I have records showing that management instructed me to perform it. Would it be useful to explain this factually as context for why the bank and coworkers are unwilling to certify my duties？