DDL

My British husband and I (American) left London and came to the States 6 months ago; in the UK he had a great IT job with a local council. He not only holds a degree, but has a very strong, impressive CV. To date, he has applied for over 80 jobs, has only received 2 interviews (one was non IT-related), and not been offered anything.

We're seriously considering returning to the UK. I am a Legal Secretary and know I could get a great job over there (I had no problem finding work for a solicitor when previously living there.)

We really thought he would be spoiled for choice with employment over here. We really thought our quality of life in the US would be so much better than the UK, but we're not so sure now. Six months is a long time ...

kevntrace

Its tough these days, thats for sure. However, H1Bs are still being snapped up so somebody is employing 'aliens' somewhere.

Some sites to try;

http://www.craigslist.org/sof
This is for jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area, but explore the other areas of craigslist - they may be jobs in other parts of the country.

http://www.monster.com
Pretty popular job posting site. Covers all industries all over the US

http://hotjobs.yahoo.com
Similar to monster

http://www.linkedin.com
This is a "networking" site. You put in your details and you can connect with other people you know, or request connections with other people with, say, similar skills to you. Very IT biased at the moment. They have added a new job search thing recently - haven't tried it myself.

There are also newsgroups you can search for. Google groups is probably the place to search those.

I was very lucky to get over to the US. I saw an advert in Computer Weekly way back in 1994 from a small San Francisco based consulting company, and they were looking for my skills. I got the job, they got me an H1B visa, and I came over. Transpires they specialised in bringing over Aussies and Brits (mainly Aussies since the company was run by one of 'em). They were mostly a "body shop" and just wanted to get you contracted out wherever they could for as long as they could. They got me my start so I can't complain too much!

Now I have a green card (after a long time waiting) so I am free to move about as I please. Silicon valley is still a great place for "startups" (companies that get financed by venture capital) so lots of potential jobs. However, less are now looking to take on H1Bs. My current company is a startup, but I'm not so sure I would have got the job if I was on H1B (there are no H1Bs in the company right now). However on the plus side, this was the first and only company I talked with when I was job seeking - and they offered me the job. This was back in December 2003. I'm still there now and they are currently hiring. Its not all doom and gloom.

Hope this has been useful. And good luck.

andybryant

I'd agree that networking is the best solution. You have to have something special enough to be considered worth more than the average IT job-seeker already there; then you have to find the right person looking to fill that job; and the window for starting the job has to correlate with the availability of H1B visas.

I got through the first 2 hurdles, and even got an expenses paid trip to go to the interview and look around San Francisco & the Valley. The thing that snafu'd me was that the 65,000 FY2005 visas have all gone, and the 20,000 new ones are only being distributed to US degree holders. This means I wouldn't be able to start work until 1st Oct (or Sep?), which was too late for the company in question.

Bill Gates made an interesting comment the other day - the H1B cap is all about not letting too many clever people into the US to work. It just encourages 'clever people' to go work elsewhere, and for US companies to oursource work to China or India. I don't support immigration caps for qualified workers anywhere.

Andy.
(Now going to work in a European country...)

Maz

IBM just had another layoff these past few months, somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 I believe.

I got over here the easy way, married a yank. I started off temping for Manpower then got into the computer company I was temping at, then started learning coding. Been in my line of work for 6 years now. Also know local developers who got laid off 3+ years ago and still haven't found anything in their field. It sucks.

DDL

In the US for 7 months now
135 job applications. Yes, 135.
Only 2 promising, quality job interviews
0 job offers

anotherlimey

Sorry to hear about that. Has he read the job seeking advice on the recent threads in the USA forum? There seemed to be some good info there on Americanising a CV etc..