Checking your IRCC employment letter: how to use the free tool

Your employer's reference letter is the document IRCC scrutinises most. It decides your experience points, and the same things are almost always missing: the number of hours per week, the detail of the duties, or the company letterhead.

The panel called Check my letter, on the Prepare my file page, goes through that document point by point, free of charge: /en/check-list.html#lettre

Getting your letter into the tool

Three ways in, as you prefer.

The button Open my letter (Word, PDF or photo) opens your device's file browser. You can also drag the file into the frame provided. Accepted formats are Word in docx, PDF, plain text, and images.

Images count, and this is where many candidates are relieved: if your employer handed you a paper letter, photograph it with your phone and drop the photo in. The tool reads the text from it. Frame it well, flat, with no shadow across the page.

The third way, the simplest when you have the file open in front of you: copy the whole text into the box underneath. All of it: the letterhead, the body, the closing formula, the date and the signatory's name. That is where the gaps hide.

Reading a photo or a PDF sometimes leaves odd characters behind. The button Fix reading errors cleans the text up, and Clear lets you start again.

Nothing leaves your phone

The page says so, and it is true: your letter does not leave your device. Nothing is sent, nothing is stored, the whole check runs in your browser. The page even points out that you can cut your Internet connection once it is open and carry on working.

That matters. An employment letter carries your name, your salary and your employer's name. A site that asked you to send it over to be checked would be doing exactly what we hold against the scammers.

The seven points checked automatically

As soon as the text is there, the tool looks for seven items drawn from the official Express Entry document list.

The exact title of your position, because it decides your occupation code; a vague title such as employee lets nobody decide. The start and end dates, or the words to date, without which your months of experience cannot be counted. The number of hours per week: this is omission number one, and IRCC expects a figure, not the phrase full-time. The detail of your duties, which the officer compares with those of the occupation code you declared. Your salary and benefits. The company's contact details, so the officer can call and verify. Finally the signatory's name and position: a signature with neither proves nothing.

For each point the tool shows why it matters and an example of correct wording. So you see at once what to ask your employer for.

The three points you check yourself

Text cannot prove everything. Three things remain to be checked on the paper itself, and the tool lists them with a tick box.

Is the letter on the company's letterhead, with logo, company name and address printed at the top? A letter on blank paper is the most frequent ground for refusal. Is it signed by hand, or with a verifiable electronic signature? A scanned signature is accepted if the rest is in order. And does every position you held in that company appear, each with its own dates? If you were promoted, the promotion must show.

What the tool never says

It looks for words in a text. So it can miss something that is actually there, because of an unusual turn of phrase or a typing mistake. That is why it says I did not find it, and never it is missing. Each point carries a box to tell it the information is indeed there, and the verdict is recalculated.

It does not judge whether the letter is truthful, it does not rewrite it, and it does not compare your figures with your payslips. For that comparison, move on afterwards to the consistency check in the neighbouring panel.

What to do with the result

The list of gaps is your brief for the employer. Go through it point by point with the personnel office, and have the whole letter rewritten rather than adding a word by hand.

A complete model, in line with what IRCC expects, is available here: /en/article/lettre-emploi-entree-express-modele-ircc

Once the new version is in your hands, run it through the tool again: /en/check-list.html#lettre