The position must be genuine, prearranged professional work in an occupation on the USMCA list, and the applicant must meet that occupation's specific qualification and citizenship conditions. A title that sounds professional does not resolve a duty list that is only partly professional in substance.
Weigh the duties against the occupation's own rule
Lay the full duty list beside the listed occupation's actual criteria and identify which document supports each qualifying element. If the employer later revises the role, reassess the revised version rather than continuing to rely on the original offer. An initial review may find no fit for a role that is genuinely mixed — in that case the paperwork should describe the real job rather than being rewritten to manufacture a fit.
Begin by converting the offer into an honest weekly duty breakdown, then compare those functions with one profession in Appendix 2 to Annex 16-A of the USMCA and that profession's own minimum credential. The applicant must have Canadian or Mexican citizenship; Canadian permanent residence does not qualify. Confirm prearranged professional activity for a U.S. employer or a foreign employer, and remove any assumption that incorporating around the engagement solves the prohibition on self-employment. The common mistake is choosing the category from a polished title before testing the actual work and qualification together.
Hypothetical example: a Windsor industrial engineer is offered a quality-improvement position at an American auto-parts plant, but half the proposed week involves supervising ordinary production shifts. She gathers her citizenship proof, engineering degree, reporting chart, and a task-by-task allocation from the plant. Before accepting, she asks whether the professional engineering component is truly the prearranged activity and has the mixed operational duties reviewed rather than asking the employer to hide them.