A candidate with a Master's degree and 6 months of Canadian experience as a Data Scientist, plus 1+ year of foreign experience as a Mechanical Engineer, got flagged "ineligible" when creating their Express Entry profile. The confusion was around which NOC code to use as the primary occupation.
- Your primary NOC code should match the occupation you actually have qualifying work experience in — in this case, Mechanical Engineering, since that's where the applicant had the 1+ year of experience needed to meet the minimum work experience threshold, not Data Scientist, which they didn't yet have a full year of experience in.
- You cannot mix and match — claiming eligibility on one NOC while your qualifying experience sits under a different NOC will not work and is likely what triggered the ineligibility message.
- If you have work experience in multiple occupations, use the NOC where you actually meet the minimum experience requirement as your primary code, and you can still list the other occupation/experience elsewhere in your profile as supplementary background.
Once the profile is corrected to primary NOC = Mechanical Engineering (matching where the experience requirement is actually met), the eligibility issue should resolve.