Important notice before reading this post. Nothing in this article is intended for legal advice; all information is for educational purposes only.
As a foreigner, you’ll need a U.S. work visa to live and work in the USA. Here is a step-by-step guide to getting a job and work visa in the USA.
How to get a work visa
To get a U.S. work visa, you’ll need to find a job at a US-based company willing to sponsor you for a work visa. Except if you fall into those exceptions:
- you are an American citizen;
- you hold a green card;
- you hold an EAD (Employment Authorization Document);
- you won the EDV Green Card lottery and will get the green card;
- one of your parent(s), spouse, child(s), or sibling(s)) is an American citizen or green card holder and is willing to sponsor you;
- your spouse got a non-immigrant visa such as H1B, E1, E2, J1, L1, or A2, and on the one, you can be added as a dependent and ask for work authorization then;
- you are a journalist, or you work for an independent production company and are sent to the U.S.A. by your current company;
- you are employed by a company at a management or expertise level and are sent to the U.S.A. by your current company;
- you have an extraordinary ability in the arts or athletics and want to work as an independent contractor;
- you have an extraordinary achievement in the motion picture or television industry and want to work as an independent contractor;
- you create your own company;
- you invest $800k+ in a business that will benefit the U.S. economy and create jobs.
Rules
If you fall into one of the four first exceptions above, you do not need visa sponsorship, and our career advice below does not apply to you. We recommend that you use general job boards such as Indeed, ZipRecruiter, or LinkedIn and their career advice sections to find a job.
If you fall into one of the other exceptions above, you might be able to get a work visa or work authorization without needing any visa sponsorship from a U.S.-based employer. In that case, we recommend you contact a lawyer in immigration law who will be able to help you with that.
If you do not fall under one of the exceptions above, you may need visa sponsorship from a U.S.-based employer. Our career guide below can help you!
Why is it so difficult to get a visa sponsorship
Here lies the big catch-22 for international professionals: Your future U.S.-based employer must sponsor you for a work visa. And here comes the issue.
Most common difficulties
Have you heard this from U.S. employers yet?
Come back to us when you have a work authorization.
We do not offer visa sponsorship.
Or have you been unable to connect with employers and get their reply?
This last situation is a little bit more challenging, as you have no idea where the issue comes from:
- Is it because you need visa sponsorship?
- Or because of a lack of experience?
- Or because of your resume or cover letter?
It can be all of them!!
Here is why
Did you know?
Only 10% of U.S. entities offer visa sponsorship, and not in all departments and job categories.
Did you know?
75% of candidates’ applications are filtered out by the ATS (Applicant Tracking System) and are never seen by a person.
90% of sponsor entities in the USA use an ATS (Applicant Tracking System).
The biggest mistake you can make is applying for all the job openings you see everywhere. Because 25% of 10% isn’t much, you should find the right opportunity before applying. You may now wonder how and where to find the ideal opportunities. Luckily, we have provided excellent solutions in this article that will save you tons of time in your job search. So you can focus on building your application for the perfect opportunities.
Now that you know the why, let’s explore the steps to getting a job in the USA that will grant you a work visa.
Steps to get a job and a work visa for the USA
As your future U.S.-based employer must sponsor you for a work visa, the first step is to find your sponsor employer. You can do this through a listed open job or by using three (3) other strategies we will discuss in this article. Let’s start with the open jobs at sponsor companies.
Where to find jobs open for visa sponsorship
Based on the figures above, we recommend you focus on job openings at companies that are open to visa sponsorship in your field (the 10% of companies). This will prevent you from hearing “Come back to us when you have a work authorization” or “We do not offer visa sponsorship.”
To find those jobs, you need to:
- Find the companies that are open for visa sponsorship for people like you.
- Find the job openings at those companies that perfectly match your profile (education, certificate, experience, skills, achievements).
All petitions are filed yearly in open data on the U.S. Department of Labor website. You will need to merge the petitions per company. Then, you’ll need to filter companies that hired and sponsored people like you in the last three years, taking into account the visa denial rate, the willful violator flag, and the type of visa they sponsored (H-1B Transfer, H-1B1, E-3, or H-1B New).
Then, for each of those companies, check whether they have current job openings that fit your profile (education, certificates, experience, skills, achievements) and do not state “we do not offer sponsorship.”
How is my project feasible & what strategy should I use
Position Targeting
Now that you know where to find visa job openings, do I have any chance of getting one?
To answer this question, you must ask yourself:
- Can I practice my profession or the profession I want in the USA? – What position(s) should I target?
- Are there any visas and jobs (I qualify for) that meet my expectations? – What are the terms and conditions of the job and visa related to (I qualify for)?
Let’s dive into this and answer all those questions!
- Translate your current job title into English or the job title you want.
- Search a job board such as Indeed.com (for the USA) to see what jobs are available.
- Read the job description and make sure the position is the right fit for you.
- See what you should verify below.
No Job Found?
If there is no job, try with other job title keywords and your skills keywords.
If you still do not see any jobs, you might fall into one of the following possibilities. Your current occupation or the one you want might:
It does not exist in the USA.
How to know: Unfortunately, if you do not find any jobs on indeed.com, the position does not exist.
For example, the profession of “notaire” does not exist in the USA. However, the French “notaire” responsibilities are split into several occupations in the USA, such as Title Insurance Agent, Escrow Officer at a title company, or Estate Attorney.
Solutions: you will need to find out how your job duties, tasks, and responsibilities are handled in the USA and define the closest position(s) that allow(s) you to transfer your skills.
Not open for visa sponsorship.
How to know: the job you see on Indeed.com should be from a company on your visa sponsorship list that already sponsored for the position you are looking for, and should not be flagged as “no visa sponsorship provided”.
Example: You are a political writer in France, and even if this job exists in the USA, you cannot be a political writer there if you are not fluent in American English and have no knowledge of U.S. politics.
Solutions: You will need to find the closest open position(s) with visa sponsorship that best match your skills, job duties, tasks, and responsibilities.
What you should verify
You should verify if your current occupation or the one you want:
Require equivalence, a certificate, license, or diploma in the USA for you to practice.
How to know: Here is a list of concerned occupations (the list is non-exhaustive): Lawyer, Attorney, Pharmacist, Nurse, Registered Nurse, Physical Therapist, Real Estate Agent, Physician, Medical Technologist, Occupational Therapist, Pathologist, Chiropractor, Dentist, Optometrist, Podiatrist, Veterinarian, Surgeon, and all other medical occupations.
Solutions: you must pass all the required exams as a student (under an F1 or M1 visa) through a work practice/internship trainee program (under a J1 visa) or whatever other eligible visa you can get. Or you can define the closest position(s) that allow(s) you to transfer your skills and do not require any diploma, license, certificate, or equivalent.
Match your profile.
How to know: check if you have the skills the employer requires in their job description.
Example: You are a cook in India and know how to cook Indian food. You find a cook job, but it requires you to speak French and know European cooking methods. Unfortunately, this means this job does not match your profile.
Solutions: target positions that match your skills and exclude positions that require skills you do not have, using the advanced filters on job boards. In our example above, you must filter out jobs on two mandatory skills: “French” and “European,” which allows you to filter out all jobs that require skills you do not have. It would help if you also filtered jobs by the mandatory skill “Indian,” which lets you filter all jobs that require skills you have.
Recommendations: In addition to matching hard skills (languages, technical skills, methods, etc.), we recommend you narrow your search as much as possible by your experience level and industry, if applicable. If you do not have any experience or only a few years, you should filter for “entry-level” to find positions that do not require prior knowledge. Conversely, if you have significant experience, you should filter on “senior level” because a company that does not want a senior will not consider your application, as they expect you to ask for more than their budget allows. If your profile is oriented toward a specific industry, you should filter by that industry. On the contrary, if your profile can match multiple industries except for specific ones, you should filter out those.
Combined with a visa, you do qualify.
We can tell you if you are eligible for a J-1 visa (intern or trainee). Tell us more about yourself, and it will automatically and instantly give you a first pre-eligibility check result.
Fit your expectations
How to know: Here is the list of your preferences: desired duration in the USA, desired start/departure date, desired salary, if your spouse needs work authorization, desired location, desired company size, desired job type (contract, full-time, part-time, internship/traineeship), your maximum budget. Some preferences may be deal-breakers for you; those are your expectations. You will see that information on each job.
Example: you plan to move to the United States with your family (spouse and children), so you’ll need to have a decent salary to cover the expenses of your three bedrooms, the school’s tuition for your children, and the food you will put on the table for all of you. A job in Chicago, IL, caught your interest. You calculate a 6k monthly minimum cash compensation salary for this location. However, the job offers a salary below the minimum cash compensation wage you can accept. It means the job does not fit your expectations, unfortunately.
Solutions: filter out all jobs that do not fit your expectations.
Conclusion
Please note that you might go back and forth through those three possibilities until you find a suitable position. For example, if you are a “Notaire” and find out you can be an estate attorney in the USA, but to become an Estate Attorney, you must pass a license in the USA, and you do not want to. You discover you can be a legal assistant to the estate attorney without a permit, etc.
Once you have found ideal jobs by adjusting your filters, you have your chance! I recommend you save your search and set up a job alert to be notified when we have new jobs for you. You can also save the jobs you select so you can find them quickly when you return. Those will appear in your tab, “My Jobs.”
Strategy for permanent immigration
If you plan to move to the United States permanently, you may be tempted to filter on jobs that offer EB or H-1B visas, which lead to a Green Card (permanent residency). The thing is, you might not have any jobs combined with those visas, and here is why:
If you have a budget of 40k+ to cover visa fees, it might work for an EB visa (you can see jobs). If you are in a specialty occupation and your industry is experiencing a labor shortage, you may qualify for an H-1 B visa (you see jobs). Otherwise, employers rarely sponsor the EB or the H-1B (for non-cap-exempt companies) to someone who has never worked for them (especially if you are not a U.S. master’s graduate or Chilean / Singaporean with an H-1B or have to go through the PERM process with the EB)! The only reason this happens (you see jobs) is that you are a “Painite” (an extremely rare gemstone) in your field.
The Risks
But you should know that you can accumulate multiple visas. To do that, you’ll need to be extra careful because, in some conditions with some visas, you can not switch to other visas without a strong waiver request. Again, the types of positions you qualify for are related to the visa you qualify for. You will need to draft a career plan.
Now that you have set up your job alert with your desired job(s), the next step is to craft a strong resume and cover letter.
American ATS-friendly resume and cover letter
Your Resume
90% of sponsor companies use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), software that filters resumes and shows recruiters only those that best match the job. And 75% of candidates’ applications are filtered out by the ATS (Applicant Tracking System) and never seen by a recruiter.
More than 100 million people look for jobs in the USA every year. Twenty percent of jobs are posted online, and 75 percent of candidates apply online. For each job ad, the company receives an average of 250 applications. That’s why the ATS (Applicant Tracking System) exists: to help process all those applications and filter out irrelevant candidates who do not qualify.
It would be best if you had a resume that would allow you to:
- appear in the top 10 candidates
- land interviews
ATS-friendly Resume
For your resume to be ATS-friendly in content, you should ensure it meets all the requirements of your desired job(s).
Your Cover Letter
Your cover letter should connect the dots between your resume and the job. It’s a great way to:
- express your interest in the company,
- explain what you are looking for and how you can help them,
- and your interest in learning the required skills missing in your resume (the ones in red).
And beyond
Note that your LinkedIn profile must align with your resume and cover letter. You need to copy and paste your resume content to your LinkedIn profile and write your bio/summary with your interest in terms of company, industry, job duties, and skills you want to learn (from your cover letter).
Also, ensure that nothing wrong appears on Google search results when you type your full name. On the contrary, if you have relevant work achievements that appear on Google Search, that is awesome!
Now that you have set up your job alert with your desired job(s) and have your resume, cover letter, and other materials ready, the next step is to apply and follow up.
Apply for jobs & follow up with recruiters
Application
It is true that you must adjust your resume and cover letter for each job you apply to. However, this should not take more than 5 minutes.
For that, I would recommend having one resume with everything on it (even if it’s more than the recommended number of pages), and one cover letter that expresses your interest in the industries and types of companies you want to work in, and the skills you want to learn. Then, for each job you wish to apply for, you need to:
- remove the parts on your resume and cover letter that are not relevant to the job till you get back to the number of pages recommended,
- and update your resume title with the job title; that’s all!
You are now ready to apply; let’s do it!
Recruiters Followup
After you apply for a job, we strongly recommend you follow up with the recruiter by email:
- 3 days after,
- and again 7 days after your first follow-up email.
The three other job search strategies you should use
In addition to a job application, here are three other job search strategies you can use:
- Be visible to sponsor employers – you polish your profile on a job board to be visible to sponsor employers
- Spontaneous Application – you send your application to recruiters at sponsor companies with no current open jobs
- Through Your Network – you ask your network for introductions / you are recommended by someone you know
Be Visible
By being on LinkedIn, you won’t be visible to U.S. employers who search for people like you on LinkedIn (by typing skills, job title, etc.) if you do not live in the USA, because your target location on LinkedIn is not a location in the U.S.A. The only way a recruiter can find your profile on LinkedIn is by typing your name. This will follow an application or an introduction from your network.
Spontaneous Application
Remember that 80% of open jobs in the USA are never posted on job boards. In addition to applying for open jobs, I recommend sending unsolicited applications to companies that have historically hired and sponsored people in your field each year over the 3 past years. The advantage is that you have no direct competitors at all!
Through Your Network
I will discuss the importance of networking in the US and how to utilize one’s network.
Even if you don’t currently have any network in the USA, please read the post on how to use your network. It happens a lot with my clients when I say “network.” They tell me they don’t have one in the USA each time. Each time we go through the exercise, some get great opportunities with this strategy. Let’s give it a try before jumping to a conclusion!
Networking starts with a mindset and an intention to discover, explore, and be open to what you may encounter. It’s about helping others and helping yourself. Furthermore, it’s not about reaching as many strangers as possible, even if they are in your contacts. This is almost as ineffective as applying directly to a job posting that doesn’t fit you. Networking is about meeting people you do know who can both vouch for your past performance and recommend you to others. So, it’s not only about the people who know you personally; it’s also about the people you know who can refer you to what matters. They might even be able to help you secure an interview for an open job in the USA for foreigners.
One of the most effective and underutilized methods
Without a doubt, one of the most effective and underutilized methods of obtaining employment is personal networking. The network is a critical factor, especially in American culture.
When you find a job you want to apply for or a sponsor company you wish to send your unsolicited application to, I would recommend you check first:
- If you have a direct or second-degree HR, DM, or LH contact at this company. And if yes, contact the person (if direct contact) or ask for an introduction (if second contact).
- If a decision maker (DM) in your field at this company went to the same school or worked at the same company/location/Department/Project as you. It’s even better if this person has a second-level connection with you. And if yes, contact the person (if direct contact) or ask for an introduction (if second contact).
A good way to accelerate your networking is to meet people in person at meetups, events, conferences, fairs, etc. Again, you’ll need to target the right events as you target your job or company. The best would be an event about your industry/vertical for international people or people from your country/culture/language.
You aim to learn about the company’s most significant challenges in your field. By demonstrating that you can help, you’ll be introduced to HR and invited to proceed to the next stage of the recruitment process.
