Hi, I'm a first time poster here, so please go easy on me...

My girlfriend lives in the US (she's a US citizen) and I live in the
UK (I'm a UK citizen - this story starting to sound familiar to
anyone?? :)).

I want to move to the US so we can be together. I've been looking for
work in NYC from here in the UK.

I'm a computer programmer (java developer specifically), and meet the
H1B requirements for education and experience, but so far my job hunt
has proved fruitless, with me getting very limited responses from the
companies I'm applying to.

What I'm considering doing now is coming over to the US for a month or
so, starting early October, on a tourist visa, to search for work (I
will not try to work on this visa btw!), go for interviews, and spend
some quality time with my girl. I want to sell myself in person to my
potential employers instead of via email and phone calls as I reckon
I'll get a much better hit rate with my applications.

So I have a few questions relating to this that I hope you can
help answer:
- Is it legal to come into the US on a tourist visa for a month with the
intention of job hunting?
- Do you have any tips for making the most of my job hunt whilst
in the US?
- Is October 2004 a good month to search for H1B work in New York?
- Is there a better time to search for H1B work in New York?

And finally, if you have any experiences (good or bad) with this
approach for job hunting (especially in NYC) , I'd love to hear
what happened.

Thanks in advance for your time, kind regards,

e_s

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Posted via http://britishexpats.com

Hi, I'm a first time poster here, so please go easy on me... My girlfriend lives in the US (she's a US citizen) and I live in the UK (I'm a UK citizen - this story starting to sound familiar to anyone?? :)). I want to move to the US so we can be together. I've been looking for work in NYC from here in the UK. I'm a computer programmer (java developer specifically), and meet the H1B requirements for education and experience, but so far my job hunt has proved fruitless, with me getting very limited responses from the companies I'm applying to. What I'm considering doing now is coming over to the US for a month or so, starting early October, on a tourist visa, to search for work (I will not try to work on this visa btw!), go for interviews, and spend some quality time with my girl. I want to sell myself in person to my potential employers instead of via email and phone calls as I reckon I'll get a much better hit rate with my applications. So I have a few questions relating to this that I hope you can help answer: - Is it legal to come into the US on a tourist visa for a month with the intention of job hunting? - Do you have any tips for making the most of my job hunt whilst in the US? - Is October 2004 a good month to search for H1B work in New York? - Is there a better time to search for H1B work in New York? And finally, if you have any experiences (good or bad) with this approach for job hunting (especially in NYC) , I'd love to hear what happened. Thanks in advance for your time, kind regards, e_s

Problem is, theres' loads of programmers around, sponsor is expensive so
you really do need to offer a lot, and also, the cap is pretty close to
being met for the next year...
Would suggest mentioning you would be willing to cover costs to help
improve your chances though :)
You can come over and job hunt, just as long as that's all it is :)
To maximise chances, have all the visa and company details, so if you do
get interview, you can explain everything and make yourself look good,
and also, have really good written references that speak about your
character as well as skill...
You tried www.gamasutra.com for jobs? good programmer jobs, mostly in
games, if your interested.
Goodluck

--
Posted via http://britishexpats.com

Problem is, theres' loads of programmers around, sponsor is expensive so you really do need to offer a lot, and also, the cap is pretty close to being met for the next year... Would suggest mentioning you would be willing to cover costs to help improve your chances though :) You can come over and job hunt, just as long as that's all it is :) To maximise chances, have all the visa and company details, so if you do get interview, you can explain everything and make yourself look good, and also, have really good written references that speak about your character as well as skill... You tried www.gamasutra.com for jobs? good programmer jobs, mostly in games, if your interested. Goodluck

Thanks for all the help Bob - mucho karma is coming your way I hope.


That's not great for me...do you know how or where I can find solid data
on how close to the cap the visa allocation is?


Great tip - thanks will be making a big thing of this from now onwards.


I think written references are far more popular in the States than in
the UK. Do these tend to be something like - "This person's great -
hire them, you won't regret it...etc, etc."? I need an idea of what
they're like so I can explain them to my references.


Just had a quick look - no luck yet for NYC jobs. I've been using
Monster.com's resume posting service and dice.com - both seem okay.

e_j

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Posted via http://britishexpats.com

Thanks for all the help Bob - mucho karma is coming your way I hope. That's not great for me...do you know how or where I can find solid data on how close to the cap the visa allocation is? Great tip - thanks will be making a big thing of this from now onwards. I think written references are far more popular in the States than in the UK. Do these tend to be something like - "This person's great - hire them, you won't regret it...etc, etc."? I need an idea of what they're like so I can explain them to my references. Just had a quick look - no luck yet for NYC jobs. I've been using Monster.com's resume posting service and dice.com - both seem okay. e_j

http://www.murthy.com/news/ukh1cap.html

That's info on the H1B cap

As for references, something that talks about good character, what you
bring to the company that they would miss, how well you interact with
people/clients, how you socialise with them for instance. Where you
excel at work, how you meet problems and work on your own and in
teams...Any other activites that you organise, for instance you play on
the company footie team or something like that, it just brings you out
for the ordinary good worker, good qualities that everyone has and is
rather boring.
I've got a couple, one's that quite amusing about me, and also quite a
serious one, I use both, but dependin on the company that I apply to,
depends on which one gets shown with my portfolio.

There also really into portfolio's, so show them what you encounted at
work that might excite them, and also things you've done in your own
time, special projects etc, mention it in an email, something small that
you could email them to sample if interested, usually keep it within 5mb
as often that's the limit on the servers, from my experience anyway.

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