Five mistakes that people make when preparing for work immigration to the United States

Millions of people from all over the world dream of moving to work in the United States, Habré is full of articles about how exactly this can be done. The problem is that usually these are success stories; very few people tell about possible mistakes. I found an interesting post on this topic and prepared its adapted (and slightly completed) translation.

Error # 1. Hope to transfer to the United States from the Russian office of an international company

When you start thinking about moving to America and google the first options, everything seems to be quite a difficult task. Therefore, it may often seem like the easiest way to work in an international company with offices in the United States. The logic is clear - if you recommend yourself and then ask for a transfer to a foreign office, why should you be turned down? In reality, in most cases, you most likely will not be denied, but the chances of getting to America will not increase much.
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Certainly there are examples of successful professional immigration along this path, but in everyday life, especially if you are a good employee, the company will most likely benefit you to work in your current place for as long as possible. This is especially true for people who start from junior positions. Gaining experience and credibility within the company will take you so long that you feel ready to ask for a move after many years.

It is much more effective to go to a well-known international company anyway (for a nice line in a resume), to actively engage in self-education, communicate with colleagues from different companies, improve your professional level, develop your own projects and look for opportunities to relocate yourself. This way looks more difficult, but in reality it can save you a couple of years of career.

Error # 2. Relying too heavily on a potential employer.

The mere fact that you have become an experienced specialist does not guarantee that you will be able to come to the US to work. This is understandable, so many also follow the path of (relatively) less resistance and are looking for an employer who could sponsor a visa and relocation. It is important to say that if this plan can be implemented, everything will be convenient enough for the employee to move - after all, the company pays for everything and she deals with paperwork, but this approach also has its significant drawbacks.

First, the preparation of papers, the costs of lawyers and the payment of state duties are poured for the employer in an amount exceeding $ 10 thousand per employee. At the same time, in the case of the usual American work visa H1B, this does not mean that he can quickly begin to bring benefits.

The problem is that work visas are issued several times less per year than they receive applications. For example, for 2019, 65,000 H1B visas were allocated , and applications received about 200,000. It turns out that more than 130 thousand people found an employer who agreed to pay them a salary and become a sponsor for the move, but they were not given a visa because they were not chosen in the lottery.

It makes sense to go a little longer and get a work visa in the US on your own. For example, on Habré published articles on obtaining an O-1 visa . You can get it as an experienced specialist in your field, with no quotas and lotteries in this case, you can come and start working immediately. Compare yourself with competitors for jobs that sit abroad and are waiting for a sponsor, and then will have to go through a lottery - their chances are clearly less.

There are a number of sites where you can find out details about different types of visas and get advice on moving, here are a couple of them:

• SB Relocate is a service for ordering consultations, a database with documents and descriptions of various types of visas.
• “ It 's time to blame ” is a Russian-language platform to search for expats from different countries who, for a certain amount or for free, can answer all questions related to the relocation.

Error # 3. Insufficient attention to language learning

It is important to understand that since you want to work in an English-speaking country, knowledge of the language will be a prerequisite. Of course, the sought-after technical specialists will be able to get settled and not knowing perfectly knowing English, but even a conditional system administrator, let alone a marketer, will be much harder to do. Moreover, knowledge of the language will be needed at the very preliminary stage of the job search - drawing up a resume.

According to statistics, HR managers and executives responsible for hiring employees spend no more than 7 seconds on reviewing resumes. After that, they either read into it, or move on to the next candidate. In addition, almost 60% of resumes are rejected because of grammatical errors and typos in the text.

To avoid such situations, you need to constantly learn the language, practice, and use assistive tools (for example, here is an excellent list of extensions for Chrome to help learners of the language), for example, to search for errors and typos.



Programs like Textly.AI (in the screenshot) are suitable for this.

Error # 4. Not active networking

It is clear that for introverts there is nothing worse, but if you want to build a successful career in America, then the more different acquaintances you make, the better. Firstly, the availability of recommendations will be useful, including for obtaining a work visa (the same O-1), therefore networking will be useful even at home.

Secondly, immediately after the move, having a number of local acquaintances will help save a lot. These people will tell you how to look for an apartment for rent, what to look for when buying a car (for example, in the US, PTS for cars - also the title - can be of different types, which talk a lot about the status of the car - past accidents, twisted mileage, etc. n. - to know all this before the move is unlikely), the placement of children in kindergartens. The value of such advice is difficult to overestimate, they can save you thousands of dollars, a lot of nerves and time.

Thirdly, the presence of a “pumped” network of contacts on LinkedIn can be useful directly in employment. If your former colleagues or new acquaintances work in good companies, you can ask them to recommend you for one of the open vacancies. Often, large organizations (such as Microsoft, Dropbox, and the like) have internal portals where employees can send CVs of people who they think are suitable for open positions. Such applications usually take precedence over just letters from people from the street, so extensive dating will help to get the interview faster.



Discussion on Quora : experts advise whenever possible to always submit a resume through contact within the company

Error # 5. Insufficient financial airbag

If you are planning to build an international career, then you need to understand the risks and possible costs. In the case of self-registration of a visa, you will take the payment for the preparation of the petition and state fees. Even if in the end you are all paid by your employer, after moving you will need to find an apartment (with a security deposit), deal with shops, decide whether you need a car and, if so, how to buy it, in which garden to arrange children and t .d

In general, there will be a lot of domestic issues; money will be needed to solve them. The more money you have in a bank account, the easier it is to survive this period of turbulence. If every dollar is in the bill, then any difficulty and sudden waste (and there will be plenty in the new country) will create additional pressure.

In the end, even if in the end you decide to send everything to hell and return to your homeland (quite a normal choice), then such a trip by a family of four will cost several thousand dollars one way. So the conclusion is simple - you want more freedom and less pressure, save up money before moving.