Jpk

Dear all,
I'm a british/Irish/Italian engineer and I'm rather new to this forum. I'm here to post a rather lengthy post since I am unable to come to a conclusion from reading several pages on this excellent forum.

I'm writing to gather some insight from people who have moved to nyc from the UK as me and to be wife are pondering if moving to US is a viable plan in the upcoming years. We are particulary attracted by the city as we have been raised in a big and chaotic Italian city (Naples) and from the trips we have had to Nyc it seemed to us an amenable place as it has a great vibe and to the best of my understanding - under certain conditions - very good salaries/potential for business. In a way nyc for our taste and,
somewhat need, is substantially the only place we would like to move to as the perspectives are - to the best of understanding - really good professionally. We also have some family living in Hoboken - which a I love -(one of my Italian cousins who is a doctor).

As you all know there are several things making the move somewhat challenging and while I will give you an outline of out situation we are mainly seeking information on a specific aspect regading my girlfriend.

At the time being I'm doing a PhD in Control Theory/engineering at the University of Cambridge and my to be wife works at the same university as a Finance assistant at the Cavendish laboratories. As all readers know, before jumping the pond there is a visa problem but I would like to overlook on this aspect since I'm mostly interested in understanding thing related to my girlfriend's job prospects.

Hence, in an ideal scenario (which may well be rather unlikely) I would be in nyc with our visa problem sorted earing a rather good salary(the number here vary alot but from my understanding in tech we would argue $120k be a good salary) and my wife with me.

My main concern regards my beloved as I am not sure if people who have say 3 years of experience in the UK are seen as a possible good fit in the US job market and how well here experience may be re-seallable.

This is a critical bit of information as we moved here in the UK 4 years ago and I have seen here really struggle between learning the language and finding a job (she eventually managed first working at Marks and Spencer and then working at UniCam - she hold a bachelor and Masters degree in law but did a lot of business classes, i.e. 5). She likes the job she is doing now and while I'm not 100% sure of her job prospects it seems something that makes here happy. She has also sorted her English and is very fluent now! We would not be happy however if she had to restart everything from scratch especially if this was to happen while having a child.

Has anybody had similar experiences? Is it likely should would have to restart from "0"(meaning working as a waitress fro instance? Of course moving 2 people and have them working in good positions is hard but how much would her experience count?Are we just dreaming that things could work out for there? Perhaps a husband moving to US thanks to a good job offer (which in our case is still far from being likely) and a wife who has worked in UK looking for a job? How did you get on? Did you start from 0?

I hope I made myself clear and excuse me if I omitted several areas which can create issues in a move but I had to simplify the setting to gather information on this very specific aspect which in experince is of primary importance.

Thank you all in advance!

G

Noorah101

Her degrees in law are probably not helpful, since law in USA will be totally different, so she'd have to start from zero on that subject.

With experience in finance she might be able to find an accounting job.

Rene

tom169

Firstly check the diversity lottery and see if either are eligible. If one of you are, then you both can individually enter.

With the PhD you may reach a point where you qualify for EB-1. That would need an attorney and a boat load of evidence, but it is possible and some members on this forum managed it.

steveq

With the Phd in control eng, , you're in a good place to get the EB1, if you can find a willing sponsor. I assume you will have lots of published and peer-reviewed papers ?

Noorah101

One thing to keep in mind is that not all visas allow the trailing spouse to work. So it is important to know which visa you'll be getting, then you can find out if that visa allows your spouse to work or not.

Rene

Jpk

Thank you for much for your answer! I appreciate!

Yes I have of course investigated on the matter and submitted to aprteciapte several years in a row. DV-2021 is the third year me and my girlfriend submit seprately.I did some calculation and by reading pieace of data here and there I came to conclusion that the probability of winning the lottery is approx 1% and hence in my case - fiiling with my gf - approx 2%. not great.

I have read extensively on the visa issue and while I am clear there it is a barrier I'm still somewhat fearful for the job prospects for my future wife even if we had the visa issue solved and a good salary for me(which again is by no means granted).
I'll look into EB1 of course and possibily EB2.

Jpk

Thank you for this reply; this is the sort of insight I was trying to gather.

My main fear - given that she has a gone trough a hard time here in UK - is her restarting from 0 also in the finance field (we abandoned the idea of working in the law field as she should substancially get a new degree).
Do you happen to know if experience away from US is taken into account? Have you been trough similar issues?

Can any locals in NJ/nyc share their view?

As it is rather far off in time I'm somewhat unable to know. However, after my analysis I think the ones that might be a viable option for us are:

J1 (temporary but from my understanding the spouse of the holder can work)
EB1 (Spouse can work?)
EB2 NIW (Spouse can work) [I would have a preference for this given I need no sponsor and have 1 US filed patent and have worked for a US control company as a Principal Engineer in UK. However this requires further analysis]
H1B from my undestanding spouse cannot for 2 years or so.

Regardless of mthe visa which might get us in, has it been a hurdrdle for your spouse to find a job? Did he/she manage to leaverage experience in UK?

Jpk

Thanks alot for answering!

Well, I'm working on it to be honest :-)
I had some papers published also before PhD and I'm working on publishing more on stochastic control.

Are you in a similar filed? Slightly OT from the thread, do you happen to know how achivable is a EB visa? Job perspectives in a city like ny?

civilservant

To be clear, the spouse of an H1 visa holder can never work while they are on the derivative visa. Only if they are sponsored for a Green Card, or they get a work visa independently, can they work.

Really it depends what you mean by 'from zero'

Will she have to restart as a waitress? Maybe not. Will she get a job at her current level right off the boat? I would say it is likely not with no US work history.

Jpk

Thanks this is what I was looking for!
OK - the visa may require further investigation.

This is substancially answering my quetions as I had the suspicion that US work history is of primary importance. Not having US work history is hence something that emplyer may look at with with a certain degreee of skpetisism; this is an important fact which I was not sure about.

My impression is that would mean even under ideal circumstances (see viisa + good salry è job offer etc etc etc) that we would have several months of only me working and she would be in no position to either be satisfied with her job or win some bread which is quite a set back in relation to our desire/hope/dream (we fell in love with Hoboken)...
This somehow prompts me to put things into perspective (neglecting the long term benefits that may araise from living in US): we would most likely go trough some serious emotional and possibly financial difficulty which is the key issue I'm looking to undestand. My beloved has a particulary difficult time as soon as she came here in the UK especially when working in M&S ...
We are now in our 30s so this would be a set back I'm not sure I have the greed to tackle given that we have already been trough it and it is has not been plesent by any means.

On the longer time frame things - however - might work out well. Perhaps my salary could grow considerably (if luck plays its part) and if she got in a good position we could be better off financially with respect to staying in EU/UK (see chapter Brexit and other turmoil on the matter).

civilservant

All I could do is really extol my own experience, although this was of course in GA rather than NY.

I worked in the UK in the civil service, at a supervisory, although not senior, level. I knew that I would have no chance of getting a similar job right off the boat for the work experience reason, and indeed this was true. Many resumes went unreturned from employers simply because (and I am surmising here) it would be hard to check UK work experience and there were many 'easier' candidates to vet for the same jobs.

So I literally went to the bottom. I started in a hospital as what was essentially a janitor. Within a year I had been spotted as having the capacity to 'do more' and was groomed to run the environmental department after about 6 months.

From leading the department I transferred to finance as this was more where my skill set was. First as a billing assistant, then a biller, then a supervisor, and finally after 4 years I became the CFO of the facility. This was probably a lot faster than you can get promoted in NY, simply because of the area, but the fact remains that 'getting a foot in the door' can reap immense benefits even if you start lower than your experience says you should.

The only difference between her situation and mine is that I was a Green Card holder from day 1 in the US and therefore work authorized,

TexanScot

That's the American dream right there - from Janitor to CFO in 4 years!

steveq

Will PM you.

Nutmegger

Come on, we all want to know!

Rete

To reiterate a forum rule, it is unwise to give advice regarding visas by private message. Better to be open with the advice so misinformation can be corrected if need be.