One Toronto resident just designed a tool that is going to make it a whole lot easier for people to apply to be a permanent residenct in Canada.

As someone born, raised and living in Canada, you may be unfamiliar with just how complex the process of applying for permanent residency (PR) can be, but for Toronto resident Ray Jayatunga, it's all too familiar.

After having undergone the application process himself, and recently assisting his sister with her application, one element of the process stood out above the others as a significant road block for applicants, so he took it upon himself to create an AI tool that helps.

"One component that is an integral part of assessing eligibility [...] is the requirement to select an appropriate National Occupational Classification (NOC) code that best matches an applicant's work experience," Ray writes in a blog post about the tool.

Essentially, the NOC code is a numerical value that aligns to a person's occupation, that allows their eligibility for immigration to be measured. If an applicant enters the wrong NOC code, though, it could lead to the refusal of their application.

So, while helping his sister fill in her PR applications, Ray set about creating an AI-powered tool that helps PR applicants to discover their correct NOC code.

While the government does have a NOC search tool, it's limited to searching by job title or NOC code, but the person has to have performed the duties listed under the job title, which don't always line up perfectly. Enter Ray.

"In simple terms the tool can be thought of as a search engine specific to finding matching NOC codes based on a set of input job duties," Ray tells blogTO, adding that the tool goes deeper than simply using key words, it analyzes the meaning of a person's job duties to match with an NOC.

But, Ray is cautious to remind potential users that the search tool is "not an official source of government information and is not intended to give immigration advice or recommendations. Every search points to specific publicly available information on the official NOC website."

Still, though, it can be a great aid in helping applicants have the smoothest possible time within a notoriously clunky immigration system.

The tool, which can be accessed online asks applicants to enter at least two job duties before matching them to three potential matches from a database of all 516 unique NOC codes.

While Ray is quick to remind PR applicants that the app is not official information and should be used as more of a jumping off point than a firm recommendation, it can certainly save applicants the pain of combing through NOC codes.

In the future, Ray hopes that the government can adopt his functionality in the official NOC search engine to help every applicant in the search, but also thinks that it could have other applications moving forward.

"I think the tech behind the tool could be used to help job seekers," Ray tells blogTO.

"Imagine being able to chat to a LinkedIn AI assistant about the type of work you are hoping to do," he says. "It could match your desired job duties with the work outlined in job descriptions across all the job postings on the platform."

While this is certainly just the beginning for the new tool, there's no limit to where its functionality could extend to, and to how many people it can help.