Much of the rest of this book concentrates on the needs of people who are planning to work in the United States for a period of years rather than months. Chapter 6 will be of more interest to people who are already in possession of a work permit, stand a good chance of getting one or qualify for permanent residence because of close family ties. If you do not fall into this category, your search starts here.

As stressed before in this book, unless you are a full-time student, you normally need an offer of employment before you can obtain a visa entitling you to work in the United States. Unfortunately, even if you are offered a position you cannot always count on a visa being forthcoming. You stand a good chance, however, if you possess good qualifications and you have skills that are in short supply in the locality of the employer.

This, though, is putting the cart before the horse. Finding a job is the initial step, so first take a look at ways and means of accomplishing it.

Replying To Advertisements

If you see a job advertised, it is reasonable to assume that there is a genuine vacancy to be filled. Sometimes the advertiser is the employer himself; but many employers use intermediaries (recruitment consultants and employment agencies) to find their staff.

Advertisements In British Or Irish Publications

If the advertisement appears in a publication or on a website in a country outside the United States it means that the job is open to non-Americans and that the employer is reasonably confident that he can obtain the necessary authorisation for the issue of a work permit.

Many job advertisements tend to be placed not by the companies or organisations themselves but by intermediaries working on their behalf based in the UK or Ireland. These intermediaries will be familiar with British procedures and terminology, and you will normally need to send your application with a British style CV to an address in the British Isles. No fee should be charged.

If you have to apply to an address in the United States, you should not assume that the recipient is completely au fait with British qualifications and working practice. If you arc a member of a professional association, write out your designation in full and explain what it means; the same goes for qualifications such as A-Level and City and Guilds. You may also need to draft an American style résumé in preference to a British style CV in order to comply with local labour laws. This might involve omitting reference to your age or date of birth, your religion or your sex. (See Appendix E.)

Virtually every national daily or Sunday newspaper carries advertisements for jobs in America from time to time. You should also peruse professional journals for vacancies, such as Computer Weekly in the case of IT experts, and Nursing Times for nurses.

Advertisements In International Job Papers

The overwhelming number of advertisements in British newspapers and journals tend to be for posts within the UK (or Eire, in the case of Irish publications), but there are a number of publications that concentrate on the would-be expatriate.

Publications which may include jobs in the United States are: Overseas Jobs Express, Nexus and Going USA. Their addresses are listed in Appendix D. There are also job listings which reproduce advertisements from other periodicals, but these may not be completely up to date. Do not overlook websites specialising in overseas jobs, such as www.overseas.jobs.com.

Advertisements In The American Press

While some American employers may welcome applications from overseas, the majority will be looking for someone who is already resident in the country. Working on the principle that a bird in the hand is always worth two in a bush, employers will prefer to hire someone who is on the spot, not several thousand miles away.

Unless the employer is recruiting for a senior or highly specialised post, or has a number of vacancies, it will probably not be worth the time, effort and cost to set up an interview abroad and go through a lot of red tape with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and other government departments. Only if the organisation cannot find the candidates it wants will its human reserouccs department look further afield.

This is not to say that there is no point at all in looking through the adverts in US journals and magazines or on the Internet. These may not lead you to a specific position, but they will give you an idea of the opportunities available and the salary you could expect. Such information will come in extremely useful if you decide to try speculative approaches to find a job. But on the whole you would need to be very lucky to land a position this way.