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Chartered Accountancy/CPA Around the Globe – Which ones are equivalent to a Degree?

Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI, TheDegreePeople.com, a foreign credentials evaluation agency. For a no-charge analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/? or call 800.771.4723.  ]]>

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Building Your Immigration Practice: Should You Write a Book?

Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

  • Do I REALLY want to put myself and my ideas out there for all to see? This means taking a public stand and being held accountable to the words you write. You will never be able to please everyone, and you won’t be able to sit down with everyone who reads your book and explain yourself. However, if you invite your readers to get in touch with you with any questions they may have regarding what you’ve written, you’ve taken a massive step towards building your business.
    1. Do I have a book concept that REALLY inspires me? Ask yourself, is there anything you know enough about that will drive you to set aside time to work on your book even when you’re busy? Is this concept so compelling to you that you are willing to make it a central focus of your law practice for the next few years? Are you inspired by the topic to the extent that you are willing to pass up short-term opportunities to focus on the long-term goal of getting your book out there? Writing a book is a process, and if you’re not inspired by the concept you won’t have the energy to complete this process.
    1. Do you REALLY want to be a writer? When you commit to writing a book, you commit to being an author. This means doing things that authors do like giving talks and webinars, maintaining a blog, publishing articles, and, of course, actually writing your book. However, you don’t technically have to be a writer to be an author. If you have all of the expertise and information but writing isn’t really your passion or practice, you can hire a ghostwriter to help you.
    If you are committed to putting your ideas out there, have a topic you are passionate and inspired by, and you want to be a writer (or at least hire one to help you), then the answer is YES! You should absolutely write a book. Being a published author will build your business and launch your career to new levels of success. Now that you’ve decided to write a book, the next step is to write, right? Wrong. The next step is the step that will give you that initial bump in business growth, and here’s why. When you approach a publisher with your non-fiction book concept, your publisher already knows that in today’s market a non-fiction book on average sells less than 250 copies each year, and less than 2,000 copies in its lifetime. One thing you cannot count on your publishing company to do is to help you market your book. This is something that now falls mostly on the author. That means even if your content is amazing, it’s very unlikely the publishing company will profit much from it. That’s why when you pitch your story, you need to show two things:
    1. You have an audience ready to buy your book.
    2. You have a marketing plan to promote your book when it comes out.
    Even if you decide to self-publish, these are the first two things you need to be thinking about. Fortunately, these are also the first two things you need to be thinking about to build your business. Even if you don’t end up writing a book, preparing to write a book will build your business in ways you would have otherwise missed out on. To build your audience, you need to show that your ideas are compelling, unique, and helpful to the people affected by your law practice and your book concept. Write articles on the topic of your book. Maintain a blog with many of your postings focusing on the concept of your book. Blog about your writing process and include excerpts of what you’ve written. Give talks and host webinars on the topic of your book and your law practice. You can even attend conferences regarding your book topic, including writer’s conferences where you can glean ideas about how to best get your book out there. These are great opportunities to network with journals and other publications to get your articles published in. If you are not already taking these steps to build your business, you should be doing them anyway. Writing a book has short-term and long-term benefits for business growth. Making a commitment to your concept and your book gives your business marketing strategy focus and momentum. Then, getting your book published and out there opens up even more doors for you and your law practice. You can learn exactly what to do to build your audience base, devise an effective marketing strategy for your book, and write the non-fiction book that will skyrocket your practice to new levels of success in my book Invisible Marketing for Attorneys. You can download this book for free at www.ccifree.com from the link on the left side of the page. This is also the website to visit for a free review of any H1B, E3, TN, or I-140 case. About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of TheDegreePeople, a foreign credentials evaluation agency. For a no-charge analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.]]>

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    Why H1B RFEs Continue to Rise Every Year

    Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

  • Three-Year Bachelor’s Degrees
    • Candidates with three-year bachelor’s degrees from other countries are consistently running into trouble with H1B visa approval. Since the H1B visa status requires that the job be a specialty occupation requiring a US bachelor’s degree or its equivalent or higher, CIS see the missing fourth year and assumes that this directly translates into missing academic content. If this is a situation you and your client are facing, the solution is to submit a detailed credential evaluation along with your client’s transcripts. The evaluation you need will examine the number of classroom contact hours in your client’s degree and use the Carnegie Unit conversion to translate 15 classroom contact hours into 1 college credit hour. Since a minimum of 120 college credit hours are required to earn a US four-year bachelor’s degree, all this evaluation must do is show that your client’s education consisted of a minimum of 120 college credit hours. This credential evaluation must be written by an evaluator with the authority to convert classroom contact hours and years of work experience into college credit. An authorized credential evaluator can convert three years of progressive work experience into one year of college credit.
    1. Mismatched Degree
    This is a relatively new CIS trend that has been causing RFEs in just the past six or seven years. Oftentimes, employers will hire employees with degrees in fields related to their job but not exactly matching because there is enough overlap in the knowledge base and skill set, or because the candidate also has work experience in the field. In previous years, a degree in a related field would not trigger an RFE. Now it does. If your client’s degree is in a field that does not match their field of employ, he or she is at high risk of receiving an RFE. You need to prove that although your client has a mismatched degree, he or she clearly has the correct knowledge base and skill set. Here’s how: submit a credential evaluation that converts years of work experience into college credit to fill in the gaps between your client’s degree and your client’s job. Three years of progressive work experience in his or her field of employ can be equated to one year of college credit towards a degree with a major in the required field with the right evaluation. Your evaluator can also take a close look at the academic content of your client’s degree and count courses in their field of employ towards a major.
    1. Generalized Degree
    For a job to be H1B qualified, the candidate must possess a specialized knowledge base and skill set in order to perform the duties of this job. For this reason, candidates with generalized degrees run into trouble. If your client’s degree is not specialized even though he or she does have the specialized skills and knowledge necessary for the job, he or she is at high risk for an education RFE. The solution is to submit a detailed credential evaluation with the petition that takes a detailed look at the course content of your client’s degree and counts courses taken in his or her field towards a specialized degree in the field of the job. This evaluation should also take years of work experience in his or her field of employ into account using the 3-1 progressive work experience conversion to show the equivalency of a US bachelor’s degree in his or her field of employ. After going through all of the time, money, and effort to file your client’s H1B petition, finding out CIS wants even more evidence and documentation can quickly become a nightmare, especially if you receive a complicated RFE. It has become the norm for CIS to request a response to an RFE in 30 days, which compounds the stress of an RFE because acquiring the evidence requested can take more time than you have to acquire it. Some H1B RFEs are so complex in what they request that they are almost impossible – and the Nightmare RFE is ACTUALLY impossible – to respond to in the way CIS requests. These situations require a creative approach. You need to think about why CIS is requesting the documentation they are asking for, and what issue these documents and evidence are meant to address. Oftentimes, you can answer their questions clearly within your realistic means. To do this, an in depth understanding of CIS trends is required. At TheDegreePeople, we follow CIS trends closely and understand what they will and will not accept as evidence, and we know how to clearly explain to CIS why the evidence and documentation presented answers the questions they are really asking. About the Author  Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI, TheDegreePeople.com, a foreign credentials evaluation agency. For a no-charge analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/?CodeBLG or call 800.771.4723.  ]]>

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    Who is to Blame for Your H1B RFE?

    Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

    When is it the attorney’s fault? Very rarely, an attorney will file an application incorrectly.  Generally, however, the attorney error occurs when the candidate’s education is not reviewed by an education specialist before the application is filed.  In this case, the candidate’s account of their education and experience is incorrect or does not meet the CIS requirements for the H1-B.  Unless this is the case, don’t fire your attorney over an RFE. When is it the evaluator’s fault, and how can it be the fault of the evaluation but NOT the person who wrote the evaluation? There are situations when the RFE is clearly the evaluator’s fault because the evaluation was done incorrectly.  For example, when a non-accredited PGD is listed as accredited, CIS jumps on that inaccuracy to issue an RFE.   This rarely happens, because most evaluators are highly trained in spotting unaccredited education. However, every evaluation is different, and evaluations for different Visas must be written very differently.  When an evaluator writes an evaluation for any particular visa, he or she needs to know both the Visa regulations AND current CIS trends.  Not every evaluation agency is aware of the Visa regulations. The evaluator may have provided the evaluation ordered by the client, only to find that the equivalence does not work for the particular Visa.  For example, if you have a four-year degree in electrical engineering, you can receive an evaluation written correctly showing an equivalency to a US bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, but then receive an RFE anyway because your job is in the field of computer software analysis.  This sort of mismatch triggered an onslaught of RFEs this year.  The evaluator did a good job, but the evaluation was not correct for the purposes of the Visa.  In this case, you may have likely found the right evaluator, but he or she provided you with the wrong evaluation even though they acted in good faith.  To avoid this, make sure you order your evaluation from an agency that knows education regulations for each Visa.  If you advise an evaluation agency that you need an evaluation for an H1-B visa and they don’t ask about the job offer, find a new agency.  The degree must precisely fit the field of employment for this Visa and the evaluator needs to know this information so they can evaluate an equivalency to the proper degree.  If you are not asked about the job offer, the agency does not look at the Visa regulations and is not right for this job. If you have already paid an evaluator and a mistake was made, I suggest you go back to that evaluator to try to address your RFE.  However, if the evaluation agency did not make sure that the evaluation was written for the particular Visa it was ordered for, that may just be how they operate. There is nothing wrong with that unless they lead you to believe that they evaluate for immigration and meet Visa requirements as part of their service.  They may just be writing standard evaluations and not be authorized to make the conversions from work experience to education, which is necessary to prove equivalency between fields or across educational system structures.  You cannot expect an agency to do something they don’t claim to do.  So the evaluation agency you want and need is one that will look at the education, as well as the visa requirements and current CIS trends. When is it CIS’s fault? Government bureaucracies make mistakes and some RFEs are simply factually incorrect.  Everything in a petition could be done correctly and you can still receive an RFE.  Often when CIS is at fault, the RFE will state that an accredited university is not accredited, or that a qualified evaluator is not qualified.  While these RFEs are frustrating, they are usually also easy fixes.  With the help of your evaluator, you can easily provide]]>

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    How to Optimize Time Sponsoring 2017 H1B Clients and Employees

    Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

    st, there are only 65,000 annual H-1B visas available and literally hundreds of thousands of H-1B candidates applying for them. There is no annual cap for H-1B jobs in the non-profit sector or for government-funded research foundations, but these kinds of jobs do not cover the needs of the private STEM industry companies that need H-1B employees the most. Even companies like Microsoft tend to only get around half of the H-1B visas they petition for. If your company or your client’s company wants H-1B visa workers for 2017, it’s time to get those petitions ready. At TheDegreePeople.com, we understand that preparing a petition takes time and can become very stressful. Having an advanced degree from a country outside of the United States – particularly from countries like India that have three-year bachelor’s degrees instead of four-year degrees – can cause trouble. If your employee or client has a degree specialized in a field related to but not exactly matching their field of employ, this can also cause trouble. There are many reasons your client or employee’s education can cause confusion when their petition is filed. Everything from mistranslations to confusion about credit hours can trigger an RFE or a Denial for an over-qualified, clearly adept H-1B visa candidate. Making sure your client or employee submits an accurate credential evaluation that meets the requirements of his or her H-1B visa along with the rest of the petition on April 1st is an essential way to save you time NOW and save you more time LATER. Don’t wait for an RFE, Denial, or NOID to address your client or employee’s education.   We offer a variety of low-cost rush delivery options for the last minute, no-cost consultations on your situation, and we can address your complicated cases quickly and successfully. About the Author   Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of TheDegreePeople.com a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/?CodeBLG/ or call 800.771.4723.]]>

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    Job Description and the Degree Requirement: Is Your Candidate H-1B Qualified?

    Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

    st. If the past several years are any indication of what is to come, you will only have a five-day window to get your client or employee’s petition in the H-1B lottery. Before you even get started, there are two very important questions about whether or not the job and the employee are H-1B qualified you and your client or employee should be asking:

    1. Is the job itself a specialty occupation?
    2. Is my employee or client educationally qualified for this specialty occupation?
    To qualify for H-1B visa status, the job must require a US bachelor’s degree or its equivalent or higher to show that the position requires the employee to possess specialized skills and knowledge to carry out successfully. Mid-sized companies in particular are asked to justify why someone with a bachelor’s degree or higher is required for the job, and you need to show this through evidence and documentation. For example, the ad for the job can be used as proof if it indicates that as a minimum qualification the employee must have a bachelor’s degree or higher. You can also show that similar jobs for similar companies also have these specialized requirements. However, if the job requires a generalized degree – even if it is a bachelor’s degree – you may run into problems because a generalized degree does not indicate that specialized knowledge and skills are required. This is where alternative forms of evidence, like expert opinion letters and examples of similar jobs for similar companies come in particular handy. It is on you to prove that you require a highly skilled employee with a specialized knowledge base to successfully carry out the duties of an H-1B job. Say you’ve established that your company absolutely needs an employee with a bachelor’s degree or higher and a specialized knowledge base and skill set to carry out the duties of this H-1B position. NOW you need to show that your H-1B candidate is that employee with the required education and specialized knowledge base and skill set. How do you do this? If your candidate has a bachelor’s degree or higher from a US college or university with a major that is an exact fit for their field of employ, it is straightforward. If your candidate has a degree from a different country or with a major in a different field – even if it’s in a related field – from their field of employ, you will need to take one more step to meet this H-1B requirement. CIS does not accept a three-year degree as the equivalent of a US four-year degree at face value. However, when evaluated for academic course content, an evaluation agency with the authority to convert classroom contact hours into college credit can use this technique to take a close look at your client or employee’s degree and bridge the missing year. An evaluator with the authority to convert years of work experience into college credit can follow the 3-1 rule and convert three years of progressive work experience in the field into one year of college credit. Both of these careful evaluation methods can also be utilized to show specialization in the candidate’s field of employ if they have worked in the field or taken enough classes throughout their college career in that field. Don’t wait until it’s too late to get started on your employee or client’s H-1B petition. This is US immigration, which means it’s a bundle of details and documentation that often takes time and energy to get in order. If your client or employee needs a credential evaluation to show that they meet CIS educational requirements, start looking for the right credential evaluation agency to meet your needs. The right agency should be able to right an evaluation as unique as your client’s education, and they should have a firm understanding of CIS trends and the different academic requirements for different visas. About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI, TheDegreePeople.com, a foreign credentials evaluation agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://www.ccifree.com or call 800.771.4723.  ]]>

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    It’s Easier to Prevent an EB2 RFE than to Overturn One

    Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

  • Your education must match the education requirement on the PERM. If your education is not a match, it will trigger an RFE or Denial. If your degree does not match the education requirement, you need a credential evaluation. If your degree is anything other than a straightforward four-year bachelor’s degree from the United States, you need a credential evaluation, and you need to submit it with the rest of your petition and documentation.
    1. Your bachelor’s degree MUST be a single source degree. This is where this first factor can get tricky. With other Visas like the H1B Visa, CIS allows candidates’ evaluators to combine work experience with years of college to equate to a bachelor’s degree. This is NOT the case with EB2, the bachelor’s degree must be from a single source degree. To work around this, you must find an evaluator well-versed in federal case law that allows for using five years of work experience to show equivalence to a US Master’s Degree. At CCI we can do this, and it takes a LOT of research, evidence, and documentation.
    1. Beware of mistranslations. If your transcripts and educational documents needed to be translated into English, the value of your degree may have been inadvertently changed in translation. One common mistranslation is Baccalaureate to Bachelor’s degree, and these degrees are NOT the same. Similarly, the Russian specialist degree is often mistranslated as well. The kandidat naouk is generally the equivalent to a US doctorate, but cannot be TRANSLATED as a doctorate degree.
    John Kersey, international education expert, explains, “In international education, the same term may mean entirely different things. Most bachelor’s degrees in Pakistan, for example, are only two years long and are comparable to a United States associate’s degree, not a bachelor’s degree, which requires three to four years of study. The European Master degree typically represents four years of postsecondary education, and is thus comparable to a United States bachelor’s degree, rather than a Master’s degree, which requires five to six years of postsecondary study.” Some translation firms are now offering evaluation services as well which has compounded the problem. International credential evaluation is highly nuanced and complex, not to mention translation firms do not know the particular degree requirements of each Visa and how that must impact the way the degree is evaluated. The solution? A skilled credential evaluator with expertise in international education can pick up on mistranslations. Be sure to let your evaluator know that your educational documents were translated and find a credential evaluation agency with evaluators who at minimum hold a degree in higher education that includes significant study in international education systems. These evaluators will be able to pick up on mistranslations and have a nuanced understanding of which equivalencies are seen as valid in the eyes of CIS, as well as universities and colleges. Find an evaluation agency with evaluators well-versed in federal case law who can evaluate your work experience into the degree you need to meet the educational requirements on the PERM. Get it right the first time. Don’t make CIS ask again, and don’t give them an excuse to pick your petition apart. These are tricky factors to keep in mind, but now that you know about them, you now have to tools to avoid an RFE. About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI TheDegreePeople.com a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFEs, Denials, or NOIDs, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723. Mention that you saw this in the ILW article and get 72 hour rush service at no charge.]]>

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