Working visa for the U.S.

JamHn

If you are 30 years old, is there a visa you can get for the U.S. which is similar to the IEC working holiday visa - As in, one that you can get before you have a job there and that makes you more employable over there?

iusedtoknow

Unfortunately not visas fall into a few categories and all have to be sponsored by someone in the US - except for the green card lottery...

1. Hired as a specialist for a company - H1B - applications closed until next year
2. Already work for a company for 1 year in europe, transfer over - L1
3. Just finished college, work for 1 year in the US, J1
4. Marry an american - can take a while to sort out

Everything has to come from the employer and costs many thousands of dollars. There are no "self sponsoring" visas for the US.

jjbrien

Unless you graduated from college in Ireland in the last 12 then theres no visas really.

JamHn

Is there an upper age limit on the J1?

DM addict

Not sure about age limit. There's a sticky in this forum that has a decent set of FAQs about J1s though

spideog7

There's also a J1 training visa if you've been working in your field for at least 5 years. But you do need the job sorted before you go, you can only work for that company and they have to fill out a training plan indicating how the position will help you to gain new skills. I don't think you could use it for a job labouring or something.

JamHn

iusedtoknow wrote: »

Unfortunately not visas fall into a few categories and all have to be sponsored by someone in the US - except for the green card lottery...

1. Hired as a specialist for a company - H1B - applications closed until next year
2. Already work for a company for 1 year in europe, transfer over - L1
3. Just finished college, work for 1 year in the US, J1
4. Marry an american - can take a while to sort out

Everything has to come from the employer and costs many thousands of dollars. There are no "self sponsoring" visas for the US.

Do you know if option 3 is available all year or is it like the Canadian working visa where it's only open for a short amount of time?

JamHn

Okay, I found a website this morning with details but I can't find any info on closing dates?

silja

As far as I know the one year J1 is available at anytime through the year, as long as it's been less than a year since you graduated.

JamHn

silja wrote: »

As far as I know the one year J1 is available at anytime through the year, as long as it's been less than a year since you graduated.

Yay! Cheers :P

JamHn

Do you know if it's only based around internships or is there one for short full-time jobs?

silja

Well, the internship is full time, and you get paid for it.. just usually not very much (though some are very well paid).

If you want a random short term job, then the summer J1 is for you, but for that you need to be in current third level education.

DM addict

The J1 sticky at the top of the forum has all the info you could need about getting a J1 visa and a position and so on.