An Update on the Job Situation

Ren asked how my job search was going. I realised that back in November last year I mentioned the plan to get a job:

Before leaving the UK, the plan was to come over to the US on a non-working visa. I would then apply for jobs where the employer could sponsor my upgrade to a working visa.

Trailing Spouse, November 2005

The USCIS only award 65,000 H1B visas a year. A year begins in October and they start accepting applications for a given year at the beginning of the preceding April. As we only moved to the US at the end of September last year, I'd pretty much missed the boat.

I decided to aim for October 2006. With this in mind, I sent out my CV and covering letter to various companies, explaining my situation. I managed to get a company to sponsor me to upgrade my H4 (non-working) visa to an H1B (allows me to work). Unfortunately, the company were badly advised by the attorney that they had hired to guide us through the process. They were advised that we should start the procedure in about June/July 2006 so that I can start working for them in October 2006, so we twiddled our thumbs for a bit, then tried to re-contact the attorney at the start of June, just to find that he would not return our calls. As soon as we realised that something was amiss, we wasted no time in finding another attorney who informed us that applications start being accepted in April, but that all 65,000 H1B visas were fully allocated by the 26th of May.

Now, we are aiming for October 2007 (starting the application process in March, so that the application can be submitted at the beginning of April).

I've added another string to my bow in that we've decided to try applying for greencards. It turns out that I may be able to submit an application for a temporary work permit while my greencard application is being processed. We would have to apply for a greencard eventually anyway, so we may as well do it sooner rather than later.