Recent Filipino Immigrant looking for work

[ortizan 9]

Hi,

 

I've read several threads separately but most of them were made a few years back. I wanted to start a thread of my own just to check if anything has changed or maybe a new advice may be given.

 

I've only been in the U.S. for 2 weeks and have applied for several companies but have not heard from most of them, those that did come back to me just told me that they proceeded to hire somebody else.

 

I have an IT degree in the Philippines and have 7 years total professional experience mixed with Digital Marketing and Web Development. I know it's wrong but I expected to at least hear from someone at least for an interview by now as I assumed the demand for tech here in the US is high.

 

I've watched this video : 

 

which helped me in realizing that I haven't patterned my resume to how the U.S. market reads it. It doesn't feel natural to me though. I was taught to not repeat words or they get boring to read.

 

However, I'd still like to validate with the people who have stayed here for years now.

 

My questions are:

1. If you are someone from the same industry, did you experience the same thing? How long does it usually take?
2. Do you have any tips with writing resumes that's ATS compatible?
3. Aside from networking with people(it's pretty difficult for me to do so because of where I live), do you have any other tips?
4. For those that eventually learned about ATS, did you get more calls after?
5. Do experienced people need to get their diplomas certified somewhere?
6. How else can I improve my credentials? Any certifications that you could recommend that wouldn't cost that much?
    

Any and all comments are very well appreciated!

 

 

[Zach2015 211]

I can't answer your specific questions, however, maybe you could get someone who writes resumes to review yours. Also, maybe intern at a IT company to get your foot in the door. Also, our town that we live in has a "snowbird" season. Much easier for someone to get a job in October-March, then the summer months. Good luck!

[Randyandyuni 2,682]

you could also look into the use of an IT recruiter, they are your hook into companies hiring and also will reformat your resume, Some companies use them exclusively and do not do direct hire

[wasp8898 58]

Hello Kabayan, 

I also work in tech back in the Philippines. I revised my resume heavily tho I am not sure if its ATS compatible, I made sure I included measurable items (e.g $3M cost reduction etc). I get some interview invites from Microsoft and Amazon, mostly recruiters contacted me on LinkedIn. Aside from that I just apply to a bunch of jobs haha! For those big tech companies, most the time they will give you an Online Assessment test first then phone interview and then onsite if you pass those. 

Even though tech jobs are in demand, competition is quite stiff. 

Good luck to us!

[ortizan 9]

Thanks to everyone who replied. Sorry it took me a while but I had to focus on job search. I did get to find a job eventually after 2 months. I'm now taking a leap of faith and moved all the way to another state with my husband.

 

For anyone who's reading this and is having trouble with finding work, my experience lead me to conclude:

1. If you're from the Philippines and is used to a faster hiring process, don't expect the same here. I had that same expectation which almost got me depressed. I thought I was just not cut out to find work here. Finding candidates here though is different and you have to use that to gain advantage.
2. Most companies here use ATS. To those who were taught to write resumes/CVs as if a human eye will read it, forget about all that. Make your resume/CV short and have it only contain the important keywords that their job post is using. Make sure that you still use sentences but you don't have to write it with fancy english words (unless you're applying to be a copywriter, I guess?). I used https://www.jobscan.co/ to understand how it works, I'd recommend you try it. It gives recommendations on your linkedin profile too which I highly suggest.
3. The company hiring me approached me through a recruiter on LinkedIn. I highly recommend to optimize your LinkedIn so that recruiters can approach you too. Make sure that you've set your profile to be searchable by recruiters and that they can message you even if you're not connected.
4. It was extremely difficult to get an IT job at the city that we were living in. So consider your location as a factor to getting a job. I had to move to Tennessee for this job.
5. Put your profile everywhere. There are several job posting sites and it's a good idea to just be searchable everywhere. I had my profile up in LinkedIn, Indeed, Seen by Indeed, AngelList and Monster.com. Just to give you an idea, I was approached in LinkedIn, Seen by Indeed and AngelList by several recruiters from different companies.
6. Job hunt here takes months. The company I'll be working for took 2 weeks just to get all the interviews done. After that, my background check and paperwork took 3 weeks. It didn't help that we had to work around holiday schedules so just be ready. Also, most of the companies I applied for took a month before they got back to me for the first round of interviews. 1 of them took 2 weeks to let me know about proceeding to 2nd round of interviews.

Some additional info I'd like to add:

• Make sure to lookup the salary of the position you're applying for in the specific city that they are located. Make sure you don't undersell yourself. Yes, you're an immigrant but if you're giving them what they need, you deserve the same pay.
• Send out as many resumes as you need, put yourself out there. Most people suggest networking and it's better if you could do that. It's not like all cities have a community of what you need so that's just a good bonus option. Also, I'm an introvert and I hate meeting strangers XP. If you're interested in finding a community though, try meetup.com
• When you get scheduled for an interview, make sure to prepare. My husband was so surprised when I whipped out my pen and paper to write down my "Tell me about yourself" bit. I researched a lot of questions to prepare my answers and also tried to find good questions for my interviewers. Getting your resume noticed is a battle but your interview will let you win the war. I sent out my resume probably a hundred times but I was only interviewed twice. Lucky enough that I found what I was looking for in those 2 interviews but I brought my A game both times.

Happy job hunting!

[TBoneTX 45,267]

Congratulations, much success to you, and thanks for taking the time to compose such a sensible (and refreshingly literate) set of useful insights.

[Prizm123 1,086]

On 1/5/2020 at 11:36 PM, ortizan said:

 

Put your profile everywhere. There are several job posting sites and it's a good idea to just be searchable everywhere. I had my profile up in LinkedIn, Indeed, Seen by Indeed, AngelList and Monster.com. Just to give you an idea, I was approached in LinkedIn, Seen by Indeed and AngelList by several recruiters from different companies.

 

Some additional info I'd like to add:

 

• Send out as many resumes as you need, put yourself out there. Most people suggest networking and it's better if you could do that. It's not like all cities have a community of what you need so that's just a good bonus option. Also, I'm an introvert and I hate meeting strangers XP. If you're interested in finding a community though, try meetup.com
• When you get scheduled for an interview, make sure to prepare. My husband was so surprised when I whipped out my pen and paper to write down my "Tell me about yourself" bit. I researched a lot of questions to prepare my answers and also tried to find good questions for my interviewers. Getting your resume noticed is a battle but your interview will let you win the war. I sent out my resume probably a hundred times but I was only interviewed twice. Lucky enough that I found what I was looking for in those 2 interviews but I brought my A game both times.

Happy job hunting!

these points in particular cannot be stressed enough

 

My wife started sending out her resume, and i mean carpet bombing it to any place that fit her criteria, she doesnt have an advanced degree, so in some respects it may have been easier since she wanted to find an entry level job and she doesnt drive.

 

in the meantime she studied dozens of videos on youtube and prepared for interviews and how to answer questions, she had me do mock interviews with her as well.

 

It paid off and she just started working and she is so happy to be able to make money now instead of sitting at home.

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

On 11/6/2019 at 6:50 PM, ortizan said:

 

 

 

Hey I have a question for you po.... How are you liking Fayetteville na? You know there is a pretty decent Filipino community in Fayetteville and Sanford right, where in Pinas are you from? There are many Filipinas that get together on a bi-weekly basis and socialize 

[ortizan 9]

21 minutes ago, Cyberfx1024 said:

Hey I have a question for you po.... How are you liking Fayetteville na? You know there is a pretty decent Filipino community in Fayetteville and Sanford right, where in Pinas are you from? There are many Filipinas that get together on a bi-weekly basis and socialize 

Hi!

 

I actually moved to Nashville since the new year for the job opportunity. Fayetteville is a nice city, good people and mostly peaceful. Some say people there don't know how to drive but I've seen worse so 🤷‍♀️

 

I wasn't able to find a community there, I was actually looking to have more local friends than Filipinos just so I can understand the culture. We grow up watching American movies and shows but that's not representative of the whole country's culture and so I wanted to learn more and pay respect to my new home. There was a Filipino restaurant there which was hella expensive, not gonna lie. I did not come back after getting my pancit from that place for my birthday 😆

 

  

On 1/6/2020 at 2:03 AM, TBoneTX said:

Congratulations, much success to you, and thanks for taking the time to compose such a sensible (and refreshingly literate) set of useful insights.

 

On 1/10/2020 at 7:43 PM, Prizm123 said:

these points in particular cannot be stressed enough

 

My wife started sending out her resume, and i mean carpet bombing it to any place that fit her criteria, she doesnt have an advanced degree, so in some respects it may have been easier since she wanted to find an entry level job and she doesnt drive.

 

in the meantime she studied dozens of videos on youtube and prepared for interviews and how to answer questions, she had me do mock interviews with her as well.

 

It paid off and she just started working and she is so happy to be able to make money now instead of sitting at home.

Thanks! I really wanted to have the time to sit down and write it all down because I had such a stressful time over thinking it. I hope that with my post, people who need the advice would be able to read it and learn something from it. I know I learned a lot with my visa process just by reading from this forum!

Edited January 15, 2020 by ortizan

[wasp8898 58]

Congrats to you! Was the job in tech? 

[ortizan 9]

6 minutes ago, wasp8898 said:

Congrats to you! Was the job in tech? 

Yes! Doing tech work for a healthcare company

[igoyougoduke 1,656]

On 11/6/2019 at 3:50 PM, ortizan said:

Hi,

 

I've read several threads separately but most of them were made a few years back. I wanted to start a thread of my own just to check if anything has changed or maybe a new advice may be given.

 

I've only been in the U.S. for 2 weeks and have applied for several companies but have not heard from most of them, those that did come back to me just told me that they proceeded to hire somebody else.

 

I have an IT degree in the Philippines and have 7 years total professional experience mixed with Digital Marketing and Web Development. I know it's wrong but I expected to at least hear from someone at least for an interview by now as I assumed the demand for tech here in the US is high.

 

I've watched this video : 

 

which helped me in realizing that I haven't patterned my resume to how the U.S. market reads it. It doesn't feel natural to me though. I was taught to not repeat words or they get boring to read.

 

However, I'd still like to validate with the people who have stayed here for years now.

 

My questions are:

1. If you are someone from the same industry, did you experience the same thing? How long does it usually take?
2. Do you have any tips with writing resumes that's ATS compatible?
3. Aside from networking with people(it's pretty difficult for me to do so because of where I live), do you have any other tips?
4. For those that eventually learned about ATS, did you get more calls after?
5. Do experienced people need to get their diplomas certified somewhere?
6. How else can I improve my credentials? Any certifications that you could recommend that wouldn't cost that much?
    

Any and all comments are very well appreciated!

 

 

1. If you are someone from the same industry, did you experience the same thing? How long does it usually take?  Its normal in every industry. There is a buyer and a seller.
2. Do you have any tips with writing resumes that's ATS compatible? check indeed.com for resumes. See if your resume format is similar to those on the website. if not modify your resume to match the norm in US
3. Aside from networking with people(it's pretty difficult for me to do so because of where I live), do you have any other tips?Depends on your job. you can do meetup.com, contact recruiting agencies.
4. For those that eventually learned about ATS, did you get more calls after?
5. Do experienced people need to get their diplomas certified somewhere?
6. How else can I improve my credentials? Any certifications that you could recommend that wouldn't cost that much? See if you can get experience in US. May be an internship or unpaid work to get started in the country is helpful. Considering international experience is often discounted to US work experience 

[ortizan 9]

On 1/29/2020 at 10:08 AM, Donald120383 said:

1. If you are someone from the same industry, did you experience the same thing? How long does it usually take?  Its normal in every industry. There is a buyer and a seller.
2. Do you have any tips with writing resumes that's ATS compatible? check indeed.com for resumes. See if your resume format is similar to those on the website. if not modify your resume to match the norm in US
3. Aside from networking with people(it's pretty difficult for me to do so because of where I live), do you have any other tips?Depends on your job. you can do meetup.com, contact recruiting agencies.
4. For those that eventually learned about ATS, did you get more calls after?
5. Do experienced people need to get their diplomas certified somewhere?
6. How else can I improve my credentials? Any certifications that you could recommend that wouldn't cost that much? See if you can get experience in US. May be an internship or unpaid work to get started in the country is helpful. Considering international experience is often discounted to US work experience 

1. I know that there is a buyer and a seller. That's pretty common sense. What I was asking was how is the demand vs. the supply in the IT industry. How long did it take for them to get work once they moved here. Where do they usually get more offers. etc.

2. Don't know if you understand what ATS is. It's not just formatting but also a software with algorithm that a lot of Human Resources use here in the US. They basically score your resume based on the keywords that it looks for. They do this because there have plenty of applicants a day and this filtering is way faster than having a human read all of it.

3. Agreed. My previous work was due to a recruiter reaching out to me. They also help you get pushed up to the queue so you don't get filtered out by the company's HR.

6. Most internship work I've found only accept if you are a student, that's my experience with IT work though. I'm not sure with others. I did take some free certifications from Google which helped me get bumped up in LinkedIn. That would be my advise to those working in IT. My international experience was not discounted at all, I realized that most of them were hesitant to take me because they don't have the means to verify my experience. The company that hired me had to get a third party company to verify all my information.