Ask the Experts: Job Hunting Hurdles for International Students
Question:
I am an international student attending an American university. I am having great difficulty finding an employer that will hire me. My grades are very good but I cannot get hired to get any practical experience. Why am I having such a hard time?
First Answer:
It’s hard to answer this question without knowing more about you, because the rules are different for F-1 visa students (privately funded), J-1 visa students (sponsored by organizations arranging scholar exchanges such as Muskie and Fulbright), E-2 visa students (dependents of investors), just to name three of the most common. You need to work closely with your university’s office for international student affairs to make sure you comply with the rules about sponsor approval, length of eligibility for employment, and prior authorization from the immigration service.
Other important variables are your work target-a summer internship, post-graduate “optional practical training,” or a permanent job?-and your area of expertise. For a permanent job, an employer has to demonstrate to the immigration service that you have scarce skills they have been unable to find in someone who already has permanent work authorization, so computer scientists, nurses, and mathematics teachers will have an easier time than human resources or liberal arts majors.
Employers’ reluctance to hire international students may have a variety of causes, such as government restrictions on jobs only open to US citizens. Often, there is additional paperwork and expense for an American employer to attempt to hire an international student on a permanent basis. Many companies use their summer internship programs as their primary selection tool, to identify talent they want to hire permanently after graduation, and therefore won’t consider international students even for those internships. If you are eligible for a year’s “optional practical training” under your visa, many employers don’t want to invest in training someone who will not be around long enough to contribute long-term. Also, post 9/11, students who dress in Muslim or Sikh attire, or even “look” Middle Eastern or Southeast Asian, are reporting to me that employers who are warm on the phone freeze when they appear for a job interview, so it’s possible that the ugly specter of pure bias is a factor. You can’t do a lot about many of these barriers.
So what can you do? Here are a few suggestions:
- Establish contact with organizations that serve your ethnic community: business owners from your home country, your consulate, embassy, social organizations, professional societies, advocacy groups. Get to know people already welcoming to you as a member of a common ethnic group and make them the base of your relationship building and networking.
- Try for a research assistantship with a professor in your area of interest: it’s much easier to work on campus.
- Look for internship postings from large companies that often state “international students eligible to apply.”
- Ask your international student services office for a list of nongovernmental organizations authorized to hire foreign students.
- Volunteer your services to employers who can offer the kind of experience you want to gain: no permission or paperwork is required to take on a volunteer. In a job market where selection is competency based, employers no longer care if you were paid to learn the skills they are looking for, so long as you have mastered them.
- If you have a multiple entry visa, apply for internships overseas. One of my graduate students from the Netherlands licked this problem by taking an internship with a US company, but in Beijing, for which obtaining a Chinese working visa was no problem. She found this PAID internship on the job board of a professional association and had to apply by email through an office in Hong Kong, but what an experience she had helping to set up a human resources function for a new office! Another student volunteered through the Trickle Up Foundation to work on microcredit lending in Central Asia, a skill needed on several continents.
- Apply to an organization such as the United Nations that can obtain G-4 visas instead of H-1Bs–a much easier process if they can use your skill set–and nonprofits and governmental organizations need financial, marketing, and human resources functions just as much as private companies.
— Carol Anderson, Career Development and Placement Office, Robert J. Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy at New School University in New York City
Second Answer:
First of all, do be sure that you are legally able to work in the US while you’re a student. Student visas may NOT cover you to work (legally).
Secondly, the fact is that most employers would rather hire a “local” student than one visiting the United States as a guest, especially since in most cases, the only way an employer can legally hire you is to “sponsor” you. If you have a specific skill however that most people do NOT have, you might be able to make a more compelling case for why someone should hire you now.
Targeting the right place, division, and person to direct your resume could also make a critical difference in this type of search. If you are sending general letters of inquiry to “Personnel” on one end of the spectrum, or the Senior Vice-President of the company on the other, you might be missing that executive in the right department who is in the middle and looking for someone like you. This may be the person who really has the power to push an international hire through!
While we’re on the subject of networking, since you are still in school, you can also take advantage the school’s career services center (or a professional career counselor) to see how you can adjust your job hunting tactics to be more effective. Your school’s teachers and alumni are also invaluable to you. I’d bet that you know at least one person from your school (alumni, teacher, student, or staff) that can be helpful to you. Use your contacts not only for networking connections, but for feedback. Ask some of them to review your resume and some basic cover letters. You will gain information that can help you make all your job hunting presentations more powerful and effective.
— Alison Blackman Dunham, life & career expert, columnist, personal public relations consultant, half of THE ADVICE SISTERS®, and the author of the ASK ALISON career advice column
Third Answer:
Congratulations on your ambition. I think that you should consider separating getting a foot in the door into your field and getting practical experience from “getting hired.” In my opinion, you can’t expect an employer to pay you to learn the very first time you go out there. Perhaps you might separate getting practical experience from you financial requirements by satisfying them separately. In other words, figure out waht kind of money you need and take care of that and fit it around a commitment to working without pay as a student intern to get that first experience you need to get hired.
— Debra Feldman, founder of JobWhiz, creator of the JOBWHIZQUIZ, and specialist in cyber savvy strategic job search consultations
