<p>OP:</p>
<p>as the thread unfolded, I realized that you absolutely had NO idea what your legal status was in terms of employment. You are NOT eligible for work, period. No wonder that nobody even bothered to interview you. The fact that you had no idea about this makes me wonder in what other critical areas you are completely clueless.</p>
<p>As an international student with a desire to work in this country, have you been following ANY news at all about what the work visa situation is really like? Do you know that high tech companies like Google and Microsoft are having a hard time getting their Ph.D. hires approved for work and are shipping them off to Canada while their formidably funded HR department sort things out? Note that the high tech industry usually have a much stronger case to make to the government along the line of “how hard it is to get the top talents and why we ran out of tippy top domestic engineers and have to go to the foreign source to fill the mission critical positions”. Industries without this high tech orientation is usually having a harder time, and ESPECIALLY in this environment FOR WALL STREET positions, much more so.</p>
<p>This kind of stories were reported in various business magazines. Where have you been last few years? What preparation have you made and what strategies have you implemented to overcome your single most critical barrier and challenge? </p>
<p>Do you know visa status of all the other kids you are referring to? The ones who are not getting interviewed may as well all have the visa issues. The ones who are working - it could very well be that they may have a green card (good enough for everything except for the voting right), or that they had some sort of preparation to deal with this issue.</p>
<p>Firms absolutely don’t want to have to fight with the US government for work visa for their prospective foreign employees unless they have to. High tech industry HAVE TO since they simply don’t have enough domestic prospective candidates who can fill all the mission critical jobs. In other sectors, it all depends on the economy. If the job market is a seller’s market, they will work to get the foreign prospects. If the market is a buyer’s market, there is no need for them to go that extra mile. I know a few cases where the candidates were almost offered a position but did not work out due to the visa issues and objections from the legal/HR personnel dealing with the international hire issues.</p>
<p>Knowing that you have been so clueless on THE MOST IMPORTANT THING for your career prospect, I wonder about your qualifications other than higher GPA. </p>
<p>Before you go on and on complaining about the school, you should “own” this problem. No amount of hand holding by school would have addressed this problem for you.</p>
<p>Sorry to be harsh, but I am simply flabbergasted that an international student wishing to work in USA has neglected to deal with the single most importance issue that stands in the way. Truthfully, I wouldn’t want to hire anybody who is so absolutely clueless about the most important thing for his career.</p>