Student Visa to Employment Pass conversion

I think you may have issues because of you being a PhD student and such a low salary (Cat. III)

The 5 working days is after all the pre-approvals have been received by ESD.  These include probably the Ministry of Education because you were a student (No Objection Letter) then whichever sector body governing the type of job you have been offered.

Whether there has been a proper competitive selection process for the position will be important.  Secondly, whether the job could be done by a Malaysian therefore no need to hire a foreigner. You will need 2-3 years' relevant employment experience to the job offer too.

I would expect some issues to arise, plus everything in Penang is much slower than in KL.

Allow up to 4-6 months for the VAL, and potentially extra time if the VDR has to be sent for approval after the VAL has been issued. Hopefully the company has combined the VDR with the VAL process.

Why would there be issues when i have stopped my PhD for one year, cancelled my student visa and exited Malaysia?.

Also, all the documents have already been processed by the immigration department and as said by the employer, they just wanted my cancelled student pass and exit stamp.

After I had provided them the remaining documents, henceforth, my employer said it will take 1 to 2 weeks maximum to get the VAL approved.

And yes, the employer had advertised for the job position and it was a thorough recruitment procedure in my case (which went for almost 1 month).

The start date for my joining the company is 23rd April. And the employer says that, I will be able to join based on the mentioned date.

What is your opinion in this scenario?

Sorry - I thought I wrote 4-6 WEEKS (not months)

I doubt very much you will start your job on 23rd April.

Why would there be issues when i have stopped my PhD for one year, cancelled my student visa and exited Malaysia?.

Also, all the documents have already been processed by the immigration department and as said by the employer, they just wanted my cancelled student pass and exit stamp.

After I had provided them the remaining documents, henceforth, my employer said it will take 1 to 2 weeks maximum to get the VAL approved.

And yes, the employer had advertised for the job position and it was a thorough recruitment procedure in my case (which went for almost 1 month).

The start date for my joining the company is 23rd April. And the employer says that, I will be able to join based on the mentioned date.

What is your opinion in this scenario?

I doubt you will be in a position to start your job on 23rd April

Okay.

How about some PhD students in my university who converted their student pass in to employement pass (after they become Research officer and lying in the bracket of EP III category and drawing a salary of RM 3000)?

For them, the employer was the university itself and their student visa was cancelled and got the EP approved in 1 month.

My case is slightly different, where the employer is a multi national company and they have applied for the EP III category.

How many chances are there for the EP III approval in my case?

50-50 of course

https://esd.imi.gov.my/portal/application-status/

Research is big growth area in Malaysia. Approval is guaranteed. World of work - different scenario.

You say 1-2 weeks (but there has according to you been some time used on the application already). I say 3-4 weeks. So I guess we are talking the same time frame give or take.

I see.

From this link, when I enter the details, it shows No record found.

However, the employer is able to give me the regular updates from ESD portal pertaining to my application.

Why I am not able see any application record from the given link?

These are the phases on the ESD database once the application has passed to initial acceptance stage i.e. it can be returned (7.) before these phases start because it is incomplete etc.

Stage I
1. Submitted for document verification
2. Decision stage
3. Pass approval stage
Stage II
4. Pass issuance stage
5. Endorsed/ completed.
Ongoing status
6. Application cancelled.
7. Return to company.
8. Reject.
9. Deferral.

This is the ESD database decision flow. There is no checker for off line applications or those through say MDEC

Stage II is after arrival on a VDR.

The employer is also submitting paperwork for approval to other bodies such as Ministry of Education etc. https://esd.imi.gov.my/portal/pdf/TC-ES … r-2017.pdf

Thank you so much for explaining me the scenario.

Fingers crossed for the approval of my Employment Pass.

Regards,

Snoopytel could you please update on your situation. Whether you EP was approved and also was there any problem regarding cancelling your student pass for PHD