I am in a tricky situation right now. I am doing a postdoc in Engg. in an US univ, and in OPT. I am looking to get a job in Quant finance, and am in an immigration mess now, in addition to a job search mess.If I can't get a H1B in the time window when the visa cap is reached this year (which should be end of April/ first week of May 2013), then it would not be possible for me to start working on a job before Oct 2014. I am trying to weight my options in this case. Is it viable to look for a quant job in London, from the US? Or do you need to be in the city to land a job?Even if I get another postdoc and manage to stay till next year (in an academic H1B visa), I will face the problem that I need to get a job before April 1,2014 and cannot join the job before Oct 1,2014 when my industrial H1B kicks in. Is that a something that is common in the industry? I would believe very few companies would want to wait for 6 months for someone to join.

Your main concern is to convince the company that you can add real value to them. They will take care of the visa issues. There have been several instances in the recent past where the banks were barred from hiring any foreigners under the H1-B program because of TARP. They simply moved the people to the London office for one year and then brought them back to the USA on a L1 visa which was not covered by TARP.

You won't have to worry about your visa, if you find a job. On the other hand - economy of human actions applies: you're less attractive for a potential employer if you have no visa.

Thanks. I understand. Its a vicious cycle. Well, I can only try my best.

What country are you originally from?

India

Indians do not have that great problems getting visas in the UK.

Thanks. Thats good to hear.I think visa wise UK will work better for me, than the US right now.But to obtain a job in the UK sitting in US is going to be a challenge, unless its a bank with operations in UK and US, which can send me to its UK office. Convincing them would be the tough part, as I understand, when I'm just trying to get my foot in the door.

QuoteOriginally posted by: katastrofaIndians do not have that great problems getting visas in the UK.Is this still the case? Usually I would agree however I know Cameron is trying to put the shutters down, but I don't know which people this applies to.

Cameron is beholden to his City sponsors and won't do anything which would make their life difficult.

QuoteOriginally posted by: rmaxQuoteOriginally posted by: katastrofaIndians do not have that great problems getting visas in the UK.Is this still the case? Usually I would agree however I know Cameron is trying to put the shutters down, but I don't know which people this applies to. David Cameron woos India with visa "When I see Indian investment in Britian, I only see hope?investments like Jaguar and Land Rover, which is a massive international success story," he said.

Dollars (or Rupees even) are different from people.UK imigration changesSomething else the UK government is doing to bring the UK to its knees.

QuoteOriginally posted by: rmaxDollars (or Rupees even) are different from people.UK imigration changesSomething else the UK government is doing to bring the UK to its knees.Well ultimately the government will try to please the population on issues like this (this is not always true when you have murky deals behind the scenes for example). So if the population was opposing it strongly, it would not be passed as law ?

So, how does this work, if I am not physically present in London?Is the US office going to do a face to face interview?Because if I apply for an US position, presumably it is for a job in a team within the US.So,even if I get a job, they will simply have to reject me because of the visa.

It is much easier to move using intra-company transfer. However, for this you have to first find a job in US with a large firm. One thing that could help is getting an internship which requires J-1 visa which is not subject to quotas. I don't know if it is possible for postdocs though.The bigger problem is of course not visa issues but current state of the job market. Every little thing counts because there are tons of people competing for any one job. The irony is that software engineering market is hot right now and they are getting all the H-1Bs. If you go down this path there are definitely firms willing to wait until you get your H-1B (if you convince them to hire you).