What is H1B Visa? Explained in Simple English

What is H1B visa? Since, new H1B season is fast approaching there are lof of readers who want to apply for H1B, but don’t have lot of information on how to apply  and other related details.

Here’s a comment from a reader :

I completed my B.Tech in mechanical in 2002 from then i worked as a asst prof in private engineering college. Later i completed my M.Tech in 2010 in computer science and continued the as Associate prof. Now I want to apply for H1B visa. Is it possible to get it or not?

As you can see, person is lacking understanding about the H1B Visa process. In next few days, I will be publishing series of easy to understand videos that explains about H1B Visa  Visa, Lottery, Cap, USCIS, RFE and predictions for this year (FY 2015) Lottery.

To answer the questions about H1B Visa, I spoke with Immigration Attorney Murali Bashyam.

What is H1B Visa?

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Transcript of the Video

Raghuram Sukumar: Hello, everyone! Today, I have Attorney Murali Bashyam with me today. He is going to talk about H1B Visa, a lot of questions about H1B Visa. Hello, Murali. Welcome to the program!

 

Murali Bashyam: Good morning, Raghu. How are you doing?

 

Raghuram Sukumar: I’m doing good. This is the second edition of interview we are doing. We did one about OPT a few months back, and I’m happy to have you here answering questions about H1B Visa.

 

Murali Bashyam: It’s a pleasure to be here, Raghu. There are a lot going on with the H1B Visas, and the filing’s coming up on April 1^st.

 

Raghuram Sukumar: Yes. All right. Let’s get down into it. The first question I have is what is H1B Visa?

 

Murali Bashyam: An H1B Visa is a professional work visa used by companies to hire professional workers from either in the US or overseas. Basically, let’s say, you’re a company, and you want to hire an engineer, IT consultant, architect, or any type of job that will be considered professional by the immigration service. That company could, then, use the H1B Visa to hire that person or bring them on board. The most important thing about the H1B is the job has to be a professional job as determined by the department of labor in the USCIS.

 

Number one, the job has to be professional enough to where a company would not hire somebody who do not have at least a bachelor’s degree in a specific field. Let’s say you’re going to hire an IT consultant or software consultant. Typically, they have degrees in computer science, engineering, etc. That person must have that educational background in order to qualify for the job. That is what an H1B Visa is. You don’t see a company like IBM or SAS hiring their professional workers in H1B status and bring them over to the US to work in that professional position.

Raghuram Sukumar: Yes, sure. When you say about the special qualifications, how does USCIS match with what is required for the job with compared to the educational qualification?

 

Murali Bashyam: Typically, if you look at job, let’s say that a company wants to hire an engineer, but let’s say that the person has six years of engineering experience but a degree in business. Is that person qualified for the job? Or let’s say they have two years of engineering experience but a degree in business, in that particular situation with the two-year example, that person might not be considered qualified for the job according to the immigration service even though the employer might consider that person to be qualified for that particular position.

 

But let’s say that the person has six years of engineering experience but a bachelor’s degree in business, the immigration service considers three years of experience equivalent to one year of education. So you could actually do an evaluation and say, “All right. They really have two years of education based on the six years of experience.” If you evaluate that along with the degree, it might come out to be an equivalent to a bachelor’s in engineering. You got to look at it on a case-by-case basis and see what makes sense.