Guess what next week is? April First! That means you’ve got a week to finish getting your H-1B petition together and submitted to the USCIS. If last year was any indication of what’s to come next week, you’ll have a five business day window in which to submit your petition. The USCIS is required to continue to accept petitions for just that amount of time before they can close up for the year, and last year they received nearly three times the amount of H-1B petitions as the annual cap of 65,000.
You want to get your petition submitted on April First because the closer your are to the top of the stack the better. You can bet they get pickier towards the bottom as the number of available visas dwindles. You also want to make sure you get all of the evidence, documents, forms, and other information you need to clearly prove your case submitted the FIRST time, in order, and easy to read.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to submit your petition without an evaluation of your academic credentials when you need one. What this means is you are submitting transcripts without explaining what they mean in terms of US academic standards or H-1B requirements.
Do you need a credential evaluation? Here are three questions to ask yourself:
- Is my degree from a country other than the United States?
- Is my degree in a field different from my job?
- Is my degree generalized?
If you answered yes to any of the questions above, the answer is YES, you need a credential evaluation.
Remember, these are people who will be evaluating your petition and deciding whether or not to grant you a visa. You want to make their decision easy by making their job easy. You can do this by clearly spelling out the value of what is in front of them. That means clearly showing the US academic equivalent of your foreign degree, proving that you do have the specialized knowledge of your field of employ even if you majored in something else, and that you do have specialized education and training in your field even if your degree is generalized on paper. Give them what they need when they need it and you will be pleased with the outcome.
Call us at 1.800.771.4723 anytime or visit us at http://www.ccifree.com/?CodeBLG/ and we will take a look at your transcripts, resume, and work experience for free and discern what needs to overcome any obstacles standing in the way between you and your visa.