Do employers discriminate against immigrants?

[Jeniafrench 8]

15 applications is not a lot.

And this has nothing to do with your immigration status. When I moved to the US on a CR-1 visa I found a job in less than a month completely fitting my qualifications from Russia. I've had other interviews as well. Nobody cared that i was a foreigner/ immigrant. They were looking at my qualification and nothing else.

But I'm sorry, you really can't get too far if you give up after sending 15 applications. I probably sent a hundred. And it's a normal number, i believe the same applies to USC.

Make sure to write a very good resume, write good introductory info about your education institutions/ former employer (given you new employer might not know nothing about these places in Europe).

Good luck!

[Marrienne 113]

Thank you so much for your responses guys!!!

I know 15 doesn't seem like a lot but I am looking for a very specific kind of a job.

It is very obvious to me now I urgently need to expand my search field.

However can't do much until the kids go back to school. Only a few days to do!!!

[B-2-Z 37]

Consider contacting a couple different recruiting agents. My husband(the USC) did this when we moved back, landed an amazing job. He still gets offers around the country from the different recruiters. You should also put in your resume with temp agencies, they can lead to permanent positions. Good luck, hang in there!

[Will_and_Tu 46]

To piggyback on what other people have said, the U.S. job market is a brutal place. Not getting interviews is a pretty common experience for immigrants and non-immigrants alike, especially if you don't yet have any U.S.-based work experience. And really, fifteen applications means you're only just starting in terms of the average job-seeker.

If you are looking for professional positions, the thing that stands out to me (as someone who does the interviewing and makes hiring decisions in my department at a very prominent company in my field) is that even if your resume looks good, many employers will question university degrees that are awarded from outside the country. Europe has a better track record than Asia in terms of the rigor of their universities, but unless it's a well-known European university, it may look suspect to the people who are conducting the initial triage of incoming applications. Fair or not, the further west the European nation is (UK, France, Germany, Scandinavia, etc.), the more comfortable potential employers tend to be in trusting that the university meets the same kind of accreditation requirements and academic expectations of American colleges and universities.

[HackyMoto 13]

i suggest you look at big companies that you want to work at and apply for the smaller part time/admin type jobs.. get in the company and then network while you are there and also get promoted from within. Aim to send out 10 resumes a day.

A story: I've been with my Company for nearly 20 years and although I am an engineer by edumacation, one of my previous roles with this Company was Personnel Manager. One afternoon, over a cup of tea, I learnt from talking to the receptionist that she was a degree qualified engineer who had spent the previous 8 months since graduation looking (unsuccessfully) for a job. Instead she was doing temp work to keep her afloat. Since we had a graduate engineer program I invited her to apply and long story short, two weeks later she was successful in being accepted.

Since reading the posts above mine, I looked her up and she's now a senior Project Engineer having completed her 3 year training and has visited many locations all over the world. Keep at it...it will work out.

[junaidjackie2016 10]

Jovi&James,

Thank you so very much for sharing this!!!! You did absolutely the right thing and taking the right steps by networking and getting to know people, improving your English, and working in anything, just so you can have something to put on your resume! I just posted something today about how I'm sure companies will not want to hire job seekers who just have a work permit. Even with a Green Card, it is hard, as you have just demonstrated.

Even though I'm a career counselor and know the challenges theoretically, I don't know about them yet first hand, not until my fiance will arrive. So hearing your struggles will prepare us. Thank you again.

[TabeaK 517]

15 applications is not a lot.

And this has nothing to do with your immigration status. When I moved to the US on a CR-1 visa I found a job in less than a month completely fitting my qualifications from Russia. I've had other interviews as well. Nobody cared that i was a foreigner/ immigrant. They were looking at my qualification and nothing else.

But I'm sorry, you really can't get too far if you give up after sending 15 applications. I probably sent a hundred. And it's a normal number, i believe the same applies to USC.

Make sure to write a very good resume, write good introductory info about your education institutions/ former employer (given you new employer might not know nothing about these places in Europe).

Good luck!

Don't be so hard on the OP. This all depends on his/her job specialization. If you do a focused job search & network accordingly, a hundred applications in 6 weeks is impossible - there aren't a hundred specialist positions going in parallel!

If you are carpetbombing all and every opening, then yes, send a hundred. The response rate will be negligible.

I am in a very specialized field and my job search spanned 2.5 months over which I applied for around a dozen positions - which is all the specialized ones that were going in my (big!) market at the time. I tailored each application in great detail to each position - I sometimes spent multiple days on a single one. I got contacted for about 70% of my applications and interviewed fpr all of them.

So my sense is the OP - if in a specialized field - needs to spend more time on individualizing the application for each position, makes sure to keyword match them and network, network, network.

[HackyMoto 13]

To piggyback on what other people have said, the U.S. job market is a brutal place. Not getting interviews is a pretty common experience for immigrants and non-immigrants alike, especially if you don't yet have any U.S.-based work experience. And really, fifteen applications means you're only just starting in terms of the average job-seeker.

If you are looking for professional positions, the thing that stands out to me (as someone who does the interviewing and makes hiring decisions in my department at a very prominent company in my field) is that even if your resume looks good, many employers will question university degrees that are awarded from outside the country. Europe has a better track record than Asia in terms of the rigor of their universities, but unless it's a well-known European university, it may look suspect to the people who are conducting the initial triage of incoming applications. Fair or not, the further west the European nation is (UK, France, Germany, Scandinavia, etc.), the more comfortable potential employers tend to be in trusting that the university meets the same kind of accreditation requirements and academic expectations of American colleges and universities.

I won't argue the point you are making as they may be very well valid in certain companies. Multi-international companies should have a well structured HR orginazation with a well thought out and run recruitment process including having a list of target universities irrespective of which country these universities are located. Sitting around my office right now are folks from : Algeria, India, UK, Nigeria, Bolivia, Canada, Congo (my boss), France, Egypt, Brazil, Uruguay, Russia, South Africa and of course the US. All degree qualified and some of whom, me for example, were recruited from overseas to work here in the US work environment and we all started off as engineer trainees, mostly outside our home countries.

There is plenty of advice for a go forward; the job market is tough no matter which country you are in. In a previous role, I looked for people with foreign experience to bring worldly ideas and culture.

The point is to keep trying, never give up, every rejection is a learning experience, widen the net, and take small opportunities to get a foot in the door.

[Auds 223]

Ouch. To struggle in any form for a job at the age and stage of career I am at....

Just as well I don't intend to work initially at least. I hope I can start my own with hubby there.

Sigh - I wish hubby would move to Dubai...

This post has been depressing.

[ElliePro 32]

A lot of good advice here. I don't think there is discrimination per se unless you require sponsorship (which you don't, but I did when I was in school here - it was a nightmare to find anything). it's just hard to find a job period.

Definitely do and indeed.com newsletter with your search criteria and look at it every day.

Definitely apply more.

Definitely apply for entry level or internships (some internships pay 9-10 bucks an hour or some kind of a monthly stipend - not much but has more growth/networking potential than bagging groceries)

Definitely consider temp positions, a lot of big companies hire through temp agencies. Facebook, for example, hires tons of contractors.

Also, I might go against what some people wrote here already, but I suggest not mentioning your immigration status in your resume unless and until there is a specific question on the app/from the HR. Companies that care about that would normally have that question in their online application forms. In many smaller companies there will be a hiring manager looking at applications instead of HR and they wouldn't know anything about visas and work permits and don't know immigration lingo etc. If you touch upon that subject upfront - they might get concerned that there would be some hassle with your employment at some point. That was my experience, at least, and that's what was advised to me in the career center at my school too.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Marrienne, I thought you were a teacher?

[N-o-l-a 7,168]

Yes and no is the simple answer. My husband came and got a job right away paying more than minimum wage for really basic work. It wasn't what he wanted to do, but it paid the bills (window cleaning). Then, he retrained in a trade and got a job twice through connections of people he met and another job lead through someone he knows through his volunteer work as a firefighter. Making connections is the easiest way to finding a job, but I know that is hard as a new immigrant and with a spouse who doesn't already have some.

I'm confused, I thought your spouse was pretty disabled - is he working? Are you expecting to find a job for yourself that pays 18-23/hr? Or are you thinking more in the 14/hr range? Because where we live now places will pay for your training and hire you as a CNA for the starting salary of 14-15/hr for that.

You guys were so desperate to move back to America, did you not realize that you'd be working a low end job and basically just working to pay daycare? The working class has it rough in America.

[Boiler 45,715]

Yes and no is the simple answer. My husband came and got a job right away paying more than minimum wage for really basic work. It wasn't what he wanted to do, but it paid the bills (window cleaning). Then, he retrained in a trade and got a job twice through connections of people he met and another job lead through someone he knows through his volunteer work as a firefighter. Making connections is the easiest way to finding a job, but I know that is hard as a new immigrant and with a spouse who doesn't already have some.

I'm confused, I thought your spouse was pretty disabled - is he working? Are you expecting to find a job for yourself that pays 18-23/hr? Or are you thinking more in the 14/hr range? Because where we live now places will pay for your training and hire you as a CNA for the starting salary of 14-15/hr for that.

You guys were so desperate to move back to America, did you not realize that you'd be working a low end job and basically just working to pay daycare? The working class has it rough in America.

$14 maybe in CA.

[Cathi 5,771]

Hi VJers,

Well I have been here almost 6 weeks and I came with pretty good qualifications from Europe. I have put in more than 15 jobs apps, for which I qualified FINE, some I was even a little over. I had zero interviews!!

They keep sending me denial letters!! It seems the ONLY jobs available to me would be something like a Wendy's or a clerk bagging groceries. There are THOUSANDS of jobs in my area that are like $9 an hour doing things like I mentioned.

Problem is as a family we need $23 an hour combined to stay afloat and pay our bills and afford our home/car/insurance/daycare etc.

This $23 estimate is VERY strict. It means no outings, no new clothes (thrift store and garage sales only), no new toys, no vacations. We CANNOT make it with $18 an hour no matter who strict we are.

You can understand this puts a huge burden on me because from the two of us, I am the one with the more qualifications/degrees/diverse work experience.

I have a great resume, good degrees and training, yet not one interview for a "better" office job (i.e. secretary for instance).

Someone suggested that it must be that I am an immigrant! I didn't want to believe it but 6 weeks in and 15 denials for jobs I was CLEARLY an excellent match, not even an interview..I am starting to wonder! My name alone clearly shows I am not American and of course it is obvious all my degrees and references are from a foreign country!

If push comes to shove I WILL get a bagging groceries job, I mean, I need to feed my kiddos, no shame in that.

I do put in my resume as a note that I am legally OK to work in the USA and I do not need sponsorship from an employer just in case you were wondering.

Has anyone have any suggestions or experiences with this?

It is imperative I find a job SOON as we have NO reserves to fall back on it is kind of week in week out and paycheck to paycheck.

Thanks for listening!!

ummmm 6 weeks and 15 job applications is NOTHING. When my husband arrived it took him 5 months and literally hundreds and hundreds of resumes sent before he got a job. With a bachelors in computer engineering and many years experience the only person willing to hire him was WALMART, yes...Walmart! He was loading trucks 12 hours a day for crappy pay. But he took it because he wanted to work and he was willing to do ANYTHING!!!! 5 months after getting hired at Walmart he took a job as a computer engineering intern even though he was overqualified for it, he needed to get his foot in the door. This past November he was laid off and he did not get a new job until July 1st, 8 months of being unemployed and this time thousands of resumes sent and hundreds of phone and dozens of in house interviews before he got another job. You have only sent out 15 resumes in 6 weeks, that is seriously nothing, my husband sent dozens every day. I have no idea what your field is, but so few resumes isn't going to get you a job, you need to be far more aggressive in this market!

Edited August 31, 2016 by mimolicious

[TabeaK 517]

. I have no idea what your field is, but so few resumes isn't going to get you a job, you need to be far more aggressive in this market!

That is exactly what the point is - we don't know the field. If she is targeting a specialist position, there is no point in sending thousands of resumes. Heck, in my particular specialty there are probably only a thousand jobs worldwide!