Career Options for Foreign nationals without H1B

Question

Hi, 
I work in the project management side of oil and gas . I plan to do an MBA to join a consumer oriented industry.
1. I would like to know about the hiring trends for General Management, Product Management, Marketing, Strategy and planning kind of roles in the US. DO they look for prior experience in the industry, academic background like Chemistry, Design, Mechanical engineering, and do they hire foreign nationals who dont possess H1b.

2.What other industry/ roles are friendly towards international students.

3. What industries typically hire for international placement in the top 20 B schools?

Antmavel · Answer

hi kk85,

in short:

1) I believe it's the same than in any other industry regarding the profile: it's always better if you have experience in that field, if you have worked for same type of clients, if you have worked on this area...think like if you were an employer, you would certainly hire people with more knowledge of the industry than a new comer. Same in any MBA. Therefore you will depend on your class (how many people come an industry and how many want to go back there)

2) & 3) Consulting is in my mind one of the most interesting for international student, mainly because they have desk across the world and usually consider international experience as a major plus in their increasing global business. Historically in banking you have had quite a good mix of nationalities too...recent events have somewhat changed this though. To be fair I don't really know many industries where they would not value international experience, the issue is more about the current environment.

But please keep in mind that for the last class of 2009 and the new class of 2010 it has been very tough for foreigners to get a job in the US withouth an existing green Card...it's fairly difficult right now but if you join now you'll exit in 2 years therefore it's difficult to predict the future market dynamics. Good luck.

kk85 · Answer

Antoine,

Thanks a lot for your comments.

refurb · Answer

Just to add to Antmavel's comments:

- It is quite industry specific. In certain industries, it's pretty typical to sponsor foreign nationals. Think companies that hire engineers and scientists. This breeds familiarity with the immigration process. However, many of these same companies like to reserve their sponsorship for their technical hires. For example, most of the big pharma companies sponsor H1-Bs. However, a few of them don't for MBA students.

- Companies hiring into high turnover roles tend to sponsor foreign nationals because it opens of the pool of potential applicants. Think banking and consulting.

- It seems like the really big multinationals tend to sponsor. Companies like Unilever, Sara Lee, Kraft, etc. It's not true across the board, but they tend to do so more often than not.

Hope that helps.

RF

nink · Answer

That's what I am seeing and hearing as well. MNCs (especially CPGs), are pretty much hiring any candidate (whether you are domestic or international) because they can hire from any one country and ship you out to another country. A lot of the executives at least do one tour of international assignments during their career, from what I am hearing.

krispy · Answer

As an international who looked for marketing/strategy role, I hate to tell you that our chances are very slim for those roles. There just aren't that many companies that are willing to sponsor us. Contrary to what others say, from my experience, CPGs are the worst when it comes to their willingness to sponsor. Industry that likely to extend an interview would probably be tech. I saw postings from companies such as Microsoft and Apple. Most jobs that popped up in my job postings (at Booth, I can filter job postings by requirement for work authorization in the States) were MC and Finance. Oh and, a good number of companies is willing to suponsor you for corporate finance division (across multiple industries).

I saw many interesting job opportunities pass by because of my visa status.

I hope this hepls.

I saw many interesting job opportunities pass by because of my visa status.

I hope this hepls.

skaballet · Answer

Agree with Krispy. Consulting, IB, and high-tech seem very willing to sponsor. CPG generally does not sponsor international students. That doesn't mean there are no CPG's that sponsor just that it would be the exception rather than the rule.

bb · Answer

Having jumped through some of the hoops with visas and work permits - true. It is tough to convince the company to sponsor an H1B; need to have a very strong motivation why they should bother with it. Most large/public companies have rules and policies that prevent them from hiring those without work permits; I am not sure if that's a "support American workforce" or just backwards HR - either way it is tough.

There is a loophole around it (kind of though not a walk in the park either). I have worked for 2 separate companies that clearly did not support H1B or international workforce. The way to do it was through a consulting company in between - they sponsored my H1B. however, the employer company must be open to hiring a consultant vs FTE (some businesses are very open and others are not at all).

3underscore · Answer

This is a serious concern for all the non-US citizens who set out with the dream of working in PE, HF, VC or others straight after your MBA.

1) Small firms cannot bear the process, procedure and annual nightmare of maintaining an H1B

2) It is virtually impossible to successfully argue that a straight out of B-School applicant is better than any US alternative available to warrant an H1B

3) When the job gets advertised for alternatives, you can guarantee a ****-ton of applicants who will put proof to that fact.

kk85 · Answer

That was informative. Thanks to all for their replies. I guess foreign students should consider the scenario where they have to return to their country of residence after their mba.

On a side note, what is the current thought about the future of US economy? Im guessing you folks have privy to the best minds on this subject.

Thanks again everyone!!

sanlitun · Answer

Very helpful post.. Just to understand the situation more, can you help quantify the situation above ? Would you say you lost out on 10%? 20%? 50%? of jobs ?

krispy · Answer

This is just my impression, not backed by any numbers or evidence (also this only applies to on-campus recruiting). As a whole, I think I lost out on probably about 50% of jobs. If you are talking about corporate roles only, I would say 75-80 percent? I don't know how things are at other school, but we tend to get more finance positions (including corporate finance) that tend to sponsor internationals. Maybe other schools have their area where they can attract recruiters that are willing?

sanlitun · Answer

I asked my friend who had graduated from Sloan for a similar figure and he came up with 50%. Looks like this might be the norm in US universities ?

afyl128 · Answer

anyone have an idea if this would be any different for an Australian on an E-3 visa?

The E-3 is similar to the TN for Canadians and Mexicans where there is no real cap on visas granted.

BlueRobin · Answer

I thank you for this information because no one actually gives any factual data, people talk like oh yeah you do entrepreneurship that is a swell field and then the employement stats show internationals placed and so on but no information on the companies or fields that recruit internationals.

I think i seriously need to reconsider my field of study.

So according to you fields such as IB, Consulting, and Technology can recruit Internationals and sponsor them. Even though one might be looking to return to home country after a while one dosent want to end up unemployed right after study.

1)what about General management, do companies try to avoid internationals or consider them equally.

2)If possible can u specify which area of Finance and Consulting are internationals preferred, as you said no preference is given in strategy area of consulting.

3)Do u mean to say internationals are limited to Analyst, Associate roles in Banking ?

Thanks.

3underscore · Answer

WRT 3

When you get a visa, you are good for about seven years - during which you can transfer to a more permanent status. So you can get promoted, move firm etc - they just need to be prepared to meet the upkeep.

The difficulty is in gaining the initial H1B. Given people are switching careers and getting MBAs, it is really tricky to successfully argue that an American could not perform equally in the role. That kills a lot of H1Bs, or at least willingness to bother with the hassle.

Career Options for Foreign nationals without H1B

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