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First Published February 13, 2015

At least 2 years post-graduation working experience in a managerial or supervisory capacity is required to be deemed a Professional in order to qualify for a Hong Kong work visa under the General Employment Policy….

Dear Visa Geeza,

Thank you for maintaining such an informative site! It has been a great help to me understanding where I stand. However, I am hoping you might be able to clarify something a little more about what it means to qualify as a professional under the General Employment Policy.

Namely, I want to get a better idea of how much the “relevant skills, knowledge, or experience” applies to the 2 years of post graduate experience, specifically.

Let me give you a bit of background for my current situation,

I graduated in the summer of 2012 from a well-known British university with a professional undergraduate degree.

I worked full-time afterwords for a year (summer 2012 – summer 2013), after which I was offered a job with a multi-national company in Hong Kong / China in July 2013, in a position that is exactly in-line with my undergraduate qualifications / major.

Initially, my company tried to apply for my work visa in Hong Kong. At that time both my employer and I were unaware of the two year post-graduation experience requirement, and I submitted to them both that I had graduated only one year ago, and that I only had one year of post graduate experience.

As should have been expected, I was denied an employment visa. After being denied, and appealing one time to be denied a second time. After then researching more, I discovered the two-year clause. At that time there was, obviously, nothing I could do about that. My company promptly helped me obtain a work visa in mainland china, and I began to work there in January of 2014.

It has now been a year working for my company in mainland China, and both they and I would like me to be relocated to the Hong Kong office, now that I theoretically have 2 years of post-graduate experience.

There is one catch however: that year of experience before my current employer, though what I would consider “professional” – solid post graduate education was required, and were also of “supervisory nature”, it however was not totally in-line with my major.

My real questions are as follows:

1. How would the immigration officer consider my previous post-graduate experience, and how in-line does it need to be with my major and my current employer’s requirement? Especially considering that this is an intra-company transferee, and so my last year experience is especially relevant.
2. It has been a year since my reconsideration was denied, and I also lost my passport since, meaning I have a different passport number now. what does this mean for the status of my previous file? Would it possibly considered as a new application or a reconsideration (as I know for the latter, it would take a more vigorous argument)?

If you could possibly be extra detailed on how post-graduate experience is evaluated in light of Employment as a Professional, I would be deeply appreciative!

Also, if I have specific skills that my employer values highly, can this take any weight off of my previous not-so-relevant experience?

Have I got a chance here?

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