Finding a job after your MBA - for international students

You graduated from your MBA degree - and two years of hard work finally start to pay off! Congratulations! If you are a US Citizen or resident, your only worry is to find a job.
However, if you are an international student on an F1 visa, your next challenge is to find an employer who is willing to employ you on your OPT and who is willing to sponsor your H1B visa so you can continue working beyond your OPT.

This is is a big challenge for many reasons:

• It is very costly to file an H1B for you: there are filing and legal fees that the employer needs to cover on your behalf
• You can only start working 6 months from today, of you file the H1B today. So there is a 6 months lag. Most employers are not willing to wait for you that long
• Most importantly: there have been historically more applicants that availabla visas and as a result, there is a random H1B lottery that decides whether you get a visa or not.

So even if you are able to find an employer who is willing to sponsor you, you might still not get past the lottery. This is a major turn off for companies and fewer employers are willing to take on that risk.

What does it mean for you? There are a couple ways you can counter attack that. Here are some sources that how you can get an H1B visa:

• Get a visa from a non profit. Non profits are no subject to the cap and as a result can file any time without the risk of you not getting it
• Get a visa from multiple employers: you can try to get multiple job offers and have each company file your H1B for you. However, it might be difficult to coordinate and it may burn bridges that will lead to adverse effects on your career down the road.
• You can ask Indian H1B consultancies in the US, who file your H1B and subcontract you to clients. They take a cut from your paycheck and that is how they make money. Hence, they have a strong incentive to file for you and it actually might be the easiest way to get someone to sponsor you. Here is a list of H1B Consultants which are located in the SF Bay Area and which are approved vendors by top tier tech companies like PayPal an eBay.

Good luck