guestgulkan
Well-Known Member
Ok guys here's how it went. Sorry this turned into War and Peace but anyway.
Since we're from Brisbane we decided to turn the interview into a mini-vacation and went a few days early to do some sight-seeing. We're paying for plane tickets anyway right? As a bonus my wife became excited about the photography opportunities and distracted from the scary interview. A negative side effect was losing a couple of days of preparation and needing to be completely ready before the flight. I spent the last evening at home double checking documentation and re-reading the consular emails looking for mistakes.
My wife hasn't been very involved in the process so the night before the interview we had a briefing session (yes that's what we called it), spreading the paperwork out over the bed and planning our attack.
We focused on our weaknesses.
Weak area:
We'd scoped out the MLC building the day before, but made the mistake of over-estimating the travel time and arrived more than an hour early. This gave us plenty of time to sit around in a cafe and get nervous. My heart was beating faster than usual and my wife went to the toilet twice in fifteen minutes. My no liquid strategy paid off. Time crawled so we decided to go early. With security and changing floors we'd be at our interview at the scheduled time surely.
Changing floors? Well in Sydney you go to level 10, and after you go through security they have a private lift that takes you to level 59, which is where the action takes place. The security is US airport style so shoes off and then they take anything they don't like put it in a little storage area and give you a collection number.
They go through your documents three times, the first time is on level 10.
(Processing 1 of 3) At the end of security is a table staffed by two girls who collect your documents and order them in a clear plastic document holder and tape your photo to the front before you are lead into the private elevator.
Level 59 has a receptionist behind glass shielding who checks your passport against an appointment record and buzzes the main door open.
Now here is where things differed from the interview email they send out. In the email it says: "You will be instructed on the day of your interview to see our cashier at window #8 to **pay your fee before taking a “Visa” ticket number for your interview**. Please cut out the below fee slip to hand to our cashier." This is -not- correct.
Procedure:
But I digress, Back to Processing 2 of 3. Behind the window was a nerdy looking girl with bright orange/pink framed glasses and a slight european accent. As mentioned, I mistakenly thought this was "the interview", when it was a document organising semi-interview.
The girl started leafing through all our documents, stapling photos, tearing open the medicals, typing in the computer and changing the greencard delivery address. I noticed she ran her finger down the results of my High School Certificate checking to see if I'd failed anything. While doing this she would ask occassional questions such as "any arrests?" "have you lived in another country apart from Australia?" - at this point due to my wife's nervousness her english deserted her and she answered "no" and the girl's head did a double take, I jumped in and over-rode with a "yes" listing the countries, then she asked my wife if she'd been married before and my wife, rattled, said "yes three years ago" which is when -we- got married, again I rode to the rescue, but by then we were starting to receive some serious side-eye. (We were laughing about this later). While I was at Window 8 paying I could hear my wife continuing to be questioned on her own. Who knew what was going on? argh hurry hurry I need to get back there.
I got back just in time to hear the lady probing "where are your UAE and Indonesian police certificates?". I gently challenged her that they weren't required due to reciprocity but she disagreed and walked off somewhere to check. I notice they never give an acceptance indicator like "ok" "that's true" "you're right" "yeh here it is" they leave the tension in the air, possibly hoping the pressure will get you to volunteer something you shouldn't. In this case I volunteered my old expired UAE/Indonesian Police Certificates however she wasn't interested. btw: For the return address on the Express post envelope, they put a sticker on it, so it's not necessary to fill it out. btw: Lamination was ignored.
We eventually sat back down back down and waited for Processing 3 of 3, finally having time to look around the room and do some people watching.
It hasn't been discussed much, but what do you wear to the interview? I'd decided to follow @martinskypemartin and wear job interview clothes and packed accordingly. I'm from Brisbane so that means no tie or jacket. So button up business shirt, black slacks and black leather shoes. My wife wore a dark green blouse and black slacks with light makeup. Looking around the room I realised I was actually one of the worst dressed there. Most guys were wearing jackets and some with ties however there was a young guy casually wearing cargo pants, trainers and a t-shirt and I can confirm his interview went very smoothly. Despite that, alot of DV preparation involves reducing risk, and if the CO is slightly suspicious of your "public charge" status do you want to encourage a financial review by dressing lazily? Dressing for success is the way to go.
The interesting part of waiting is watching the other applicants in action. The mood in the waiting area is very tense and grim and feels like a funeral. There definitely is no smiling or talking.
I could tell most of the people weren't forum members because their documentation was a mess. A number of people had to exit the building and wander the streets looking for: us sized photos, express post envelopes or photocopies.
I saw a gay couple (not sure, two dudes, could've been a father son I guess) put on AP and on the verge of getting denied due to an adverse Police certificate. I missed alot of the detail but they were talking to the CO for more than half an hour and at the end I heard the CO say: "I'm going to send this to DC to get clarity and determine if this is a crime of moral turpitude". AP this late in the year is almost the same as a denial.
Another applicant didn't have medicals scheduled and got the wrong police certificate. Interestingly, they decided to accept it. He'd picked the less informative AFP clearance option. I saw it very clearly because his CO checked with my CO interrupting my interview. I got a really good look at it through the glass. It looked a bit similar but with much less writing. My CO said "that's fine". That was unexpected. This guy was like Chris Farley's lost twin and was saying all the wrong things and volunteering his resume, un-asked for documents, and talking about his mum and weekend how he didn't know he had an interview until a couple of days ago. Again put on AP.
Finally, the Window 6 CO called our ticket number and we walked over to meet our fate. A medium large guy with a brown beard. Time for Processing 3 of 3.
The CO immediately shocked us both by cheerfully greeting my wife in her native tongue. We were so tense and surprised we laughed very loudly disrupting the vibe of the waiting area. He must've worked in another office previously and picked it up.
He had our folders in front of him and gently leafed through the pages. As he flipped a page he'd separate the original from the copy, clearly intending to keep the copy and return the original. Occassionally he'd toss a question "any arrests?" no "any medical problems?" no "have you lived in any other countries?" yes Canada and the USA.. then.. trouble ... He asked my wife "how old were you when you got married?" she replied "3" .. I married a 3 year old! My wife works in a job talking english to people all day but today wasn't her day. The CO's head went up and I went into damage control. "Uh she meant 3 years ago" and repeated the question and she looked very confused, her facial expression said "what did I do?" looking left and right. "sorry 30 years old". Luckily we were interrupted by a question about Chris Farley's Police Certificate and when he focused back he'd moved on and started clicking around with his mouse. Who knew what options he was selecting from the dropdown lists, menus and checkboxes?
When you're standing at the window you're not quite sure of the correct posture, where to put your hands, "am I fidgeting too much?", "do I leave the documents on the sill or hold them". I tried to stand like I was super cool and put one arm on the sill area. Standing on one leg, then the other. Exude calm, everything's fine.
Since we're from Brisbane we decided to turn the interview into a mini-vacation and went a few days early to do some sight-seeing. We're paying for plane tickets anyway right? As a bonus my wife became excited about the photography opportunities and distracted from the scary interview. A negative side effect was losing a couple of days of preparation and needing to be completely ready before the flight. I spent the last evening at home double checking documentation and re-reading the consular emails looking for mistakes.
My wife hasn't been very involved in the process so the night before the interview we had a briefing session (yes that's what we called it), spreading the paperwork out over the bed and planning our attack.
We focused on our weaknesses.
Weak area:
- No Police Certificate for Dubai
- No Police Certificate for Indonesia
- Laminated birth certificates
- Foreign birth certificate lacking some information
- UAE Reciprocity printed out plus old police certificate that's expired
- Indonesian Reciprocity printed out plus old police certificate that's expired
- Luck
- Crossing fingers
We'd scoped out the MLC building the day before, but made the mistake of over-estimating the travel time and arrived more than an hour early. This gave us plenty of time to sit around in a cafe and get nervous. My heart was beating faster than usual and my wife went to the toilet twice in fifteen minutes. My no liquid strategy paid off. Time crawled so we decided to go early. With security and changing floors we'd be at our interview at the scheduled time surely.
Changing floors? Well in Sydney you go to level 10, and after you go through security they have a private lift that takes you to level 59, which is where the action takes place. The security is US airport style so shoes off and then they take anything they don't like put it in a little storage area and give you a collection number.
They go through your documents three times, the first time is on level 10.
(Processing 1 of 3) At the end of security is a table staffed by two girls who collect your documents and order them in a clear plastic document holder and tape your photo to the front before you are lead into the private elevator.
Level 59 has a receptionist behind glass shielding who checks your passport against an appointment record and buzzes the main door open.
Now here is where things differed from the interview email they send out. In the email it says: "You will be instructed on the day of your interview to see our cashier at window #8 to **pay your fee before taking a “Visa” ticket number for your interview**. Please cut out the below fee slip to hand to our cashier." This is -not- correct.
Procedure:
- As soon as you enter you'll be presented with a ticket machine, press the "Visas" button collect the slip and take a seat.
- Your number will eventually be called by a robot voice eg "B123 to Window 4"
- A junior CO? will be behind the window and go through your documents (Processing 2 of 3) this is not the interview! (I thought it was), however you get asked questions
- You'll be directed to window 8 to pay then come back
- There may be some documentation questions then go back and sit when directed
- Wait for number to be called a second time for the actual interview (Processing 3 of 3)
But I digress, Back to Processing 2 of 3. Behind the window was a nerdy looking girl with bright orange/pink framed glasses and a slight european accent. As mentioned, I mistakenly thought this was "the interview", when it was a document organising semi-interview.
The girl started leafing through all our documents, stapling photos, tearing open the medicals, typing in the computer and changing the greencard delivery address. I noticed she ran her finger down the results of my High School Certificate checking to see if I'd failed anything. While doing this she would ask occassional questions such as "any arrests?" "have you lived in another country apart from Australia?" - at this point due to my wife's nervousness her english deserted her and she answered "no" and the girl's head did a double take, I jumped in and over-rode with a "yes" listing the countries, then she asked my wife if she'd been married before and my wife, rattled, said "yes three years ago" which is when -we- got married, again I rode to the rescue, but by then we were starting to receive some serious side-eye. (We were laughing about this later). While I was at Window 8 paying I could hear my wife continuing to be questioned on her own. Who knew what was going on? argh hurry hurry I need to get back there.
I got back just in time to hear the lady probing "where are your UAE and Indonesian police certificates?". I gently challenged her that they weren't required due to reciprocity but she disagreed and walked off somewhere to check. I notice they never give an acceptance indicator like "ok" "that's true" "you're right" "yeh here it is" they leave the tension in the air, possibly hoping the pressure will get you to volunteer something you shouldn't. In this case I volunteered my old expired UAE/Indonesian Police Certificates however she wasn't interested. btw: For the return address on the Express post envelope, they put a sticker on it, so it's not necessary to fill it out. btw: Lamination was ignored.
We eventually sat back down back down and waited for Processing 3 of 3, finally having time to look around the room and do some people watching.
It hasn't been discussed much, but what do you wear to the interview? I'd decided to follow @martinskypemartin and wear job interview clothes and packed accordingly. I'm from Brisbane so that means no tie or jacket. So button up business shirt, black slacks and black leather shoes. My wife wore a dark green blouse and black slacks with light makeup. Looking around the room I realised I was actually one of the worst dressed there. Most guys were wearing jackets and some with ties however there was a young guy casually wearing cargo pants, trainers and a t-shirt and I can confirm his interview went very smoothly. Despite that, alot of DV preparation involves reducing risk, and if the CO is slightly suspicious of your "public charge" status do you want to encourage a financial review by dressing lazily? Dressing for success is the way to go.
The interesting part of waiting is watching the other applicants in action. The mood in the waiting area is very tense and grim and feels like a funeral. There definitely is no smiling or talking.
I could tell most of the people weren't forum members because their documentation was a mess. A number of people had to exit the building and wander the streets looking for: us sized photos, express post envelopes or photocopies.
I saw a gay couple (not sure, two dudes, could've been a father son I guess) put on AP and on the verge of getting denied due to an adverse Police certificate. I missed alot of the detail but they were talking to the CO for more than half an hour and at the end I heard the CO say: "I'm going to send this to DC to get clarity and determine if this is a crime of moral turpitude". AP this late in the year is almost the same as a denial.
Another applicant didn't have medicals scheduled and got the wrong police certificate. Interestingly, they decided to accept it. He'd picked the less informative AFP clearance option. I saw it very clearly because his CO checked with my CO interrupting my interview. I got a really good look at it through the glass. It looked a bit similar but with much less writing. My CO said "that's fine". That was unexpected. This guy was like Chris Farley's lost twin and was saying all the wrong things and volunteering his resume, un-asked for documents, and talking about his mum and weekend how he didn't know he had an interview until a couple of days ago. Again put on AP.
Finally, the Window 6 CO called our ticket number and we walked over to meet our fate. A medium large guy with a brown beard. Time for Processing 3 of 3.
The CO immediately shocked us both by cheerfully greeting my wife in her native tongue. We were so tense and surprised we laughed very loudly disrupting the vibe of the waiting area. He must've worked in another office previously and picked it up.
He had our folders in front of him and gently leafed through the pages. As he flipped a page he'd separate the original from the copy, clearly intending to keep the copy and return the original. Occassionally he'd toss a question "any arrests?" no "any medical problems?" no "have you lived in any other countries?" yes Canada and the USA.. then.. trouble ... He asked my wife "how old were you when you got married?" she replied "3" .. I married a 3 year old! My wife works in a job talking english to people all day but today wasn't her day. The CO's head went up and I went into damage control. "Uh she meant 3 years ago" and repeated the question and she looked very confused, her facial expression said "what did I do?" looking left and right. "sorry 30 years old". Luckily we were interrupted by a question about Chris Farley's Police Certificate and when he focused back he'd moved on and started clicking around with his mouse. Who knew what options he was selecting from the dropdown lists, menus and checkboxes?
When you're standing at the window you're not quite sure of the correct posture, where to put your hands, "am I fidgeting too much?", "do I leave the documents on the sill or hold them". I tried to stand like I was super cool and put one arm on the sill area. Standing on one leg, then the other. Exude calm, everything's fine.
