Landing a U.S. consulting offer as an international candidate can be challenging. Decreased exposure to recruiters, a potential non-target school background, and work authorization uncertainties do make the process more challenging. But never fear! Namaan and Jenny Rae from Management Consulted are here to show you three specific tactics to help you break through the barrier and make the jump into a U.S. office.
Land A US Offer As An International YouTube Transcription:
Hi, I’m Namaan, and this is Jenny Rae for management consulted. And one of the most common questions we get on a daily basis is “How someone without U.S. work authorization can land an offer at a US office?” So we’re here today to share three specific strategies with you, and how you can end up working in a U.S. office for consulting.
Land A US Offer As An International- Tactic 1: Global Firms
Great. So, like Namaan said, very popular question and a lot of interest, and our number one recommendation – which is the best way to do it, but it’s not everyone’s favorite way – is that many consulting firms are global. Not only that, but they have global training, so Bain does global training for everyone. If you’re working for Bain in Thailand, you come to the Bain global training in the US offices, or wherever those global trainings are held. And so we recommend you go
to your home country, or country where it is easy to get work authorization, plan to work for a year – do an amazing job – and then apply for a transfer. Either short-term or longer-term.
And once you are a known quantity, and somebody who’s really desirable, who’s demonstrated good performance inside the firm, you find a lot more opportunities to come and work at other offices. It’s not always easy to transition into – for example, really popular offices like New York, – but New Jersey, which is really close to New York and many who live in New York, can be a popular office, or other places that are similar. That is strategy number one. Go work somewhere where it’s really easy for you find work, but for an excellent firm that has a really global perspective.
Land A US Offer As An International- Tactic 2: Specialty Skill
Namaan, what about number two. If you’re not willing to take a route number one, route number two is showing a firm that you have a specialized skill that is not easy to find already in the U.S. So for example, tech consulting firms are a lot more likely to hire and sponsor, as opposed to other firms. So if you can prove that you have a highly specialized technical skill, you really increase your chances of getting sponsors right off the bat.
Land A US Offer As An International- Tactic 3: Offers Outside of Consulting
And then number three is to actually use different kinds of firms outside of consulting. And this is a good strategy for anyone who’s interested in consulting, but especially if you’re interested in getting sponsorship. There are categories of firms, and again tech firms really do lead the way in this. They are much more willing to hire and sponsor.
Now almost all of them are looking for some kinds of visa length, and having a stem program that you’re coming from gives you even more flexibility. And how long your visa length is. but if you have sponsorship, and you’re able to take an offer, or you start in the company, and do really well for a year, it becomes a lot easier to leverage either that offer or the tangible work experience over into a consulting role.
So none of them are super easy and the U.S. is a complicated place to work and it’s really, quite frankly, the most complicated that we’ve seen it in a long time, at the moment. But there are a lot of really good strategies, and very great firms that are interested in hiring internationals.
Conclusion
If you have questions about how to dive into the US market, especially in the consulting market as an international student, we have great stories, and also really great data information from our partners that are different consulting firms, and other hiring managers. And we’re really always happy to take a look at your background, talk about your story, and help make sure that you’re ready for the recruiting process.
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