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How to Properly Address H1B Education Requirements

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


  1. Does the candidate have a US bachelor’s degree or higher?
  2. Does the candidate’s degree match their specialty occupation?

Many H1-B candidates do not have US bachelor’s degrees because their degree is from outside of the United States. Some candidates have not completed their degrees or received specialized training through other means. If this is your client’s situation, you need to prove that they have the equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree or higher for their visa to be approved, and this must be documented with a credential evaluation. Candidates with three-year degrees, four-year degrees from countries other than the US, or incomplete or missing education can have their work experience evaluated for equivalency to years of college credit in their industry. This work experience must show that the candidate learned new, and progressively difficult, specialized skills through this work experience, and took on more and more responsibility. Three years of progressive work experience is the equivalent of one year of college with a major in that field. Credential evaluators with the authority to convert years of progressive work experience into college credit can help you and your client fill in the educational gaps between the US educational system and the educational system of the country your client’s degree is from.

To prove that your client’s degree matches their job title, you need to provide evidence that the education and training required for your candidate’s degree prepare your client for the duties required in his or her H1-B job. To do this, you can submit a detailed overview of the specific duties of your client’s job, your client’s employer, and how the complexities of your client’s job relate to his or her degree. Meeting the evidence standards for this requirement may also require an expert opinion letter, documentation that similar companies require employees to hold your client’s degree for similar occupations, and even printouts of degree fields typically associated with your client’s job.

In recent years, CIS has required that H1-B candidates’ degrees be an exact match for their job title. While employers will hire candidates with degrees in related fields, CIS will not approve their visas if the degree is not an exact match. This is a new CIS trend that must be taken into account when filing an H1-B petition to avoid an RFE. If your candidate holds a generalized degree or a degree in a mismatched field, get in touch with a credential evaluator. With the progressive work experience conversion, an evaluator can fill in the gap between your client’s degree specialization, and your client’s job title with years of progressive work experience in your client’s job title.

When you look for the right credential evaluator for your client’s case, make sure you choose one that follows CIS trends and has a deep understanding of the nuances of education internationally.

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.

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H1-B Checklist to Avoid an RFE in 2016

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


CIS has a big job to do and red flags make their job of sorting through hundreds of thousands of petitions easier. Filing an impeccable petition also makes their job easier. While CIS is known to issue an RFE for no apparent reason, most RFE’s can be avoided. That means it’s time to break out your H1-B checklist.

  1. Is your client’s job a specialty occupation?

What does this mean? To CIS, a specialty occupation is a job that requires your client to hold a US bachelor’s degree in the field or higher, or its equivalent to carry out the duties of said job. Their job must require specialized skills and knowledge to perform. How can you prove this? A copy of the ad for your client’s job that includes minimum requirements can be used as evidence, as well as similar postings for similar jobs working for similar companies. If your client’s job requires a bachelor’s degree or higher but similar positions do not, you need to supply more evidence. This means expert opinion letters, which can be useful anyway, as well as evidence that shows the skills needed for this particular job are more advanced due to the unique nature of your client’s particular job.

  1. Does your client’s education meet the requirements for their job?

Once you’ve established that your client’s job is H1-B qualified, it’s time to make sure you’ve proven your client is qualified for his or her H1-B job. This means they have a bachelor’s degree or higher in the required field, as well as the necessary training and work experience the job requires.

  1. Is the value of your client’s education clear to CIS?

If your client’s degree is from a country outside of the United States, it will need to be evaluated for US equivalence. Anything besides a very straightforward US bachelor’s degree needs a credential evaluation. Never submit an H1-B petition with a foreign degree without a detailed credential evaluation. This is an increasingly common RFE trigger. The Indian and other three-year Bachelor’s degrees commonly trigger RFE’s because of the missing fourth year. A credential evaluator can convert years of progressive work experience in your client’s field of employ into college credit to account for the missing year. Progressive means that the candidate’s work required them to take on more responsibilities and develop their knowledge base and skill set to meet the increasing demands of the work. Three years of progressive experience in the field can be equated to one year of college credit. All that is needed is a well-documented evaluation to prove it.

Another common problem that trigger RFE’s for even the most qualified candidate’s petition is that they have a degree that doesn’t call itself a degree. Many countries have degrees that require postsecondary education and the necessary stages of education to meet Bachelor’s degree requirements, but don’t actually have the word “degree” in the title. These certifications also require a credential evaluation because while in some countries these are degree equivalencies, in other countries they are not. Because this is not clear and straightforward, without a credential evaluation CIS will not have enough evidence to approve your client’s petition.

  1. Do your client and his or her employee have an employer-employee relationship?

What is an employer-employee relationship? To establish that your client and his or her employer have this kind of relationship, the employer must be able to hire, fire, promote, pay, and otherwise control the work that the employee does. To prove that this is the case, submit a copy of the employment contract, and other documentation that clearly displays the nature of your client’s work.

  1. Does your client’s degree match his or her field of employ?

Just six or seven years ago, H1-B candidates were able to get their visas approved with a degree in a field related to their job. Now, CIS requires an exact match. Employers hire employees for specialized positions with bachelor’s degrees in related fields all the time. CIS, however, does not approve their visas. Instead, they get RFEs. If your client’s bachelor’s degree is generalized or in a field related to but not an exact match for his or her job, have a credential evaluator review their educational documents. Oftentimes, a detailed evaluation that takes work experience into account to draw an equivalency to a degree in the matching field.  Years of progressive work experience in the field can be counted towards this matching degree specialization with the three years of experience to one year of college credit conversion. This can both work to account for the missing fourth year in three-year Bachelor’s degrees, AND to write an equivalency for a specialized degree in your client’s exact field of employ.

Before you file, sit down with your client, your client’s employer, and your credential evaluator and go through these questions. Ask, is this true? Then ask, have we provided the evidence necessary to clearly prove to CIS that this is true? Don’t ever file without doing everything you can to make sure you and your client got the petition right the first time. There’s no need to wait for 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.

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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 RFE than to Overturn One

Credential Evaluation, Visa Approvals


st, 2016. That means CIS does not have to issue an RFE to get the information they need out of you to make an informed decision. Preventing an RFE is much easier than answering one.

An RFE is a tool CIS uses to make the right decision about your petition. When they cannot make a decision based on the evidence you provided, they request more. While this is not the end of the world, and can actually be utilized as an opportunity to strengthen your case, an RFE is a red flag. A red flag is another tool CIS uses to streamline the massive amount of work they have to do to cut 233,000 petitions into 65,000 Visas. If you receive an RFE, that means a glaring omission of evidence has drawn CIS’s close attention to your petition, and it will now be picked apart. Minor errors that would have otherwise gone unnoticed will come to light.

At the same time, answering an RFE is not necessarily a straight-forward process. To successfully answer an RFE, you need to sit down with your lawyer, your employer, and your evaluator to see exactly what is being asked of you and how to go about answering it. Some RFE’s are realistically impossible to answer. The “Nightmare” RFE is one of these, and we’ve been seeing more of them every year. While these can be answered, it requires strategy that only an evaluation agency with international education and federal case law experts on hand to work on your case. At CCI, we have been able to get around 95% of all of the Nightmare RFE’s we work on overturned, but these RFE’s cause a lot of unnecessary stress to H1B candidates and can be easily avoided.

How can you avoid an RFE in the first place?

  1. Triple-check your answers on all of your documents and forms for consistency. Inconsistent answers – even if they are small mistakes – can trigger an RFE.
  1. Prove that your H1B job is a specialty occupation requiring a US bachelor’s degree or its equivalence or higher. You can do this by showing the ad for your job, documentation that similar jobs for similar companies require a bachelor’s degree or higher, and with an expert letter.
  1. Clearly show that your degree is a US bachelor’s degree or higher or its equivalent. If your degree is from outside of the US, you will need to have your education evaluated by an authorized credential evaluation agency. If you have a three-year degree, you will need to find an agency with the authority and expertise to convert classroom contact hours and years of work experience into college credit hours to account for the missing fourth year.
  1. Your degree must be specialized. This means if you have a liberal arts degree, or a generalized degree, CIS will not accept this as proof that you actually possess the specialized skills and knowledge necessary to be qualified for your H1B job. If you have a generalized degree, you need to talk to a credential evaluation agency that will take a close look at your course content and your work experience, and make the proper conversions to college credit hours to show equivalence to a specialized degree.
  1. Your degree must EXACTLY fit your job offer. This means that even though your employer hired you because your degree in a related field and your experience working in the field was enough to prove to them you have the specialized skills and experience necessary to be successful in your new job, CIS needs more. If your degree is not an EXACT fit for your job, you need a credential evaluation from an evaluator who can take a close look at the course content of your degree and make the necessary conversions, and who can also convert your years of work experience in the field into college credit to show equivalency to the exact degree CIS requires you to have.

Don’t wait for the opportunity to overturn an RFE. Remember, an RFE is a big red flag waving high over your petition. The best way to address an RFE is to avoid it. Don’t give CIS an excuse to nit pick your petition. Tell them everything they need to know to make an informed decision on your petition the first time.

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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How to Bridge the Fatal Gaps Between Your Degree and Your H1B Job

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


If your job offer is for accountancy but your degree is in economics, CIS will raise a red flag. If you have a generalized degree and are hired for any job that meets the specialization standards of an H1B Visa job, CIS will raise a red flag.

CIS requirements clearly state, “USCIS precedent decisions have confirmed that a generalized degree in business administration, absent specialized experience, is insufficient to qualify an alien beneficiary in a specialty occupation […] a petitioner with a business administration degree must establish a particular area and occupation in the field of business administration in which he is engaged.”

CIS states, “A generalized degree, absent specialized experience, is insufficient.”

Does this mean H1B candidates with degrees in fields that don’t exactly match but are related to their field of employ are out of luck? Absolutely not.

Even though your education alone cannot prove that you have the specialized skills and knowledge necessary to qualify for your H1B job, your education combined with work experience can. Employers hire candidates with related degrees because they have gained the specialized skills and knowledge they need for the job by directly working in the field. To prove specialization with a related or generalized degree, you need an evaluation of your education and work experience from a professor authorized to grant college credit for your work experience. ONLY a professor authorized to do this can write the evaluation you need to get your H1B Visa approved.

Authorized professors can convert years of progressive work experience into college credit to bridge the gaps between your job and your degree. Your work experience must be in the exact field of you H1B job. To qualify as progressive work experience, the nature of the work must have required you to take on progressively more work and responsibilities representing your progressively growing specialized knowledge base and skill set.

Don’t wait for an RFE or Denial to get your degree and work experience evaluated. While an RFE or Denial is not the end of the world, it is a big red flag to CIS that will trigger a close scrutiny of your petition. Minor errors and glitches that would have otherwise gone unnoticed will be unearthed because attention has been drawn to your petition. With hundreds of thousands of H1B Visa petitions to mire through, CIS uses red flags to make the hard decision of who gets their Visa approved and who does not for the set amount of annual Visa slots. Make the decision to approve your Visa easy by making your specialized knowledge and skill set clear with a credential evaluation from a professor authorized to convert work experience into college credit.

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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3 Reasons Why Your Client or Employee Got an RFE and How to Deal With It

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

One of the big reasons we are seeing RFEs is because petitioners aren’t providing enough evidence for USCIS evaluators to clearly judge the value of their degrees and how it pertains to their H1B jobs. Here are three main reasons education RFEs are triggered and how you can avoid them in the first place, or deal with them as they arise.

  • Foreign Degree

For the same reason you wouldn’t just pay for a pair of shoes in the United States with foreign currency, you shouldn’t just petition the USCIS for a visa with your foreign degree. Why not? Because its value is unclear. Just like it’s the responsibility of the individual to exchange your money at the border, it’s also their responsibility to translate the value of your education across educational system structures. Your client can do this by sending in an evaluation of their foreign credentials along with the initial H1B petition, or if they receive and RFE, order an evaluation. In these evaluations, international education experts will examine the academic content of your client’s educational experience and write an evaluation of its US value equivalence.

  • Right Degree, Wrong Major

This kind of RFE is surprising many petitioners and their employers because it’s a new standard. Until recently – like most employers – the USCIS would approve applicants whose advanced degree was in a field related to their field of employ. In the past five or six years, these standards have tightened and now the USCIS requires petitioners’ degrees to exactly match their field of employ. If your client has the right degree in the wrong field, you still have options. A detailed credential evaluation can show that your client’s degree in, for example, computer sciences, is the functional equivalent of an engineering degree with a detailed examination of your course content, work experience, and whether or not your client’s degree in engineering would qualify him for admission into a computer sciences master’s degree program.

  • Questionable Evaluator

Say you foresaw the first two hang-ups and ordered a credential evaluation but were still met with an RFE. Sometimes, RFEs are issued because your client’s credentials were evaluated by an evaluation agency with questionable credentials of their own. It’s of the utmost importance the value of your client’s education be evaluated by international education experts with the knowledge and authority to accurately translate the meaning of the degree. Help your client choose carefully when selecting a credential evaluation agency. The agency should be affordable, easy to reach, and make you and your client feel comfortable when corresponding with them. They should be able to provide you references with grace and ease, have great reviews, and clearly be able to show their experience working with the kind of case you are working with.

The best way to address an RFE is to meet all of the evidence requires in the first place. But if your client does get an RFE, don’t panic! While this is an undesirable and beyond inconvenient situation, it is not an NOID, it is not a Denial, and it is nothing out of the ordinary. Take the time to read over your RFE carefully with your client, fully understand what is being asked of them, and help them submit all of the evidence requested in order on time.

Sheila Danzig is the director of Career Consulting International at www.TheDegreePeople.com, a foreign credential evaluation agency. They specialize in difficult cases and RFEs, Denials, NOIDs, 3-year degrees, etc. and offer a free review of all H1B, E2, and I140 education at http://www.ccifree.com/.

3 Reasons Why Your Client or Employee Got an RFE and How to Deal With It Read More »

Case Study: H1B Nightmare RFE – APPROVED

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


With this client in 2013, she submitted her credentials for a nursing degree along with an evaluation from another agency. The USCIS responded with a Nightmare RFE and she and her attorney came to us. We were able to answer the RFE with an expert opinion letter and an evaluation by international education experts Professor Kersey, and me. We showed that the client did indeed have the required credentials by US education standards by demonstrating that her bachelor’s degree was the equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree in Nursing. While we cleared up the education situation, our client’s attorney went on to answer the other queries submitted in the RFE.

Rates of RFE responses to H1B petitions have skyrocketed in recent years. Just less than a decade ago, only about 4% of all H1B petitions received an RFE. Now one in every four petitions submitted is met with an RFE. Alongside this increase, we are also seeing a sharp rise in difficult RFE’s like the Kitchen Sink. Attorneys are finding that more and more clients are faced with RFE’s that are near impossible to successfully answer, especially given the time allotted. At CCI, we specialize in difficult RFE’s. It has been a challenge to find creative solutions to seemingly impossible problems, but it’s a challenge we – and the attorneys we work with – rise to time and again.

Sheila Danzig is the director of Career Consulting International at www.TheDegreePeople.com, a foreign credential evaluation agency. They specialize in difficult cases and RFEs, Denials, NOIDs, 3-year degrees, etc. and offer a free review of all H1B, E2, and I140 education at http://www.ccifree.com/.

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Get Your H1B Petition Perfect the First Time

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

You need to clearly show the USCIS agent reviewing your petition that you have the specialized skills necessary to qualify for your H1B job.

How can you do this?

An authorized credential evaluation agency can help you bridge the gap between your job and your degree in two ways:

1) Close examination of your coursework.

At CCI, we have international education experts on hand all the time to take a detailed look at the content of your education. That means looking at the classes you took and what you learned from them. Even if your degree doesn’t reflect it on its face, a close examination of your coursework will clearly show that you do in fact have specialized knowledge pertaining to your field of employ.

2) Converting Work Experience into College Credit

An authorized credential evaluation agency has the ability to convert your work experience in the field of your H1B job into college credit hours. Evaluation of work experience and the skills and understanding gained by it can clearly show the USCIS that you are qualified for your H1B job.

You may be asking yourself, “Can’t I just do this on my own?”

No. You can’t.

We’re talking US immigration here. Unless you are an authorized credential evaluation agency or an international education expert, you cannot evaluate your own credentials in a meaningful and credible way.

At CCI, we will go over your case with you and identify exactly what you need to do to bridge any gaps in your petition that may stand in the way of you getting your visa approved. Call us anytime at 1.800.771.4723 or visit us online at http://www.ccifree.com/?CodeBLG/.

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Degree in the Wrong Field? No Problem!

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

But it’s just an RFE. Doesn’t that mean I get a second chance?

Technically yes, but actually no. Attorneys tell me that the USCIS views RFE’s as much needed red flags. They can use these to make their job of weeding out applicants easier. You need to get this right the first time.

That means getting your credentials evaluated. A detailed evaluation will examine your coursework to show what you specialized in even if your degree is general. This can also show that even if your degree is not in your exact field of employ, many of the classes you took are. An authorized credential evaluator can also convert years of work experience in your field of employ into college credit hours to bridge these gaps.

If this is the situation you face, we can help you. For a free consultation, visit us online at http://www.ccifree.com/?CodeBLG/ or call us anytime at 1.800.771.4723.

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Is Your Job H1B Qualified?

Credential Evaluation, Visa Approvals


For a job to qualify as an H1B job, it must be a specialty occupation.  That means the position must required a US bachelor’s degree or higher in a specialized field to properly carry out the duties of this job.  The job also much include applied theoretical and practical use of specialized skills and knowledge.  You and your employer must be able to show that similar jobs in similar companies require these same minimum requirements to show that the job is actually a specialty occupation.  If similar jobs in similar companies don’t also require a bachelor’s degree or higher, you need to be able to show why this specific job in this specific company is uniquely complex as to fit the H1B requirements.

On the same note, you must also make sure that YOU fit the requirements of your specialty occupation.  That means you are either licensed in your field of specialty in the state your job is located in, you have a US bachelor’s degree or higher, or you have enough progressively responsible work experience to be considered equivalent to the needed degree.  If your licensing or degree come from US institutions, great!  If your degree is from abroad, or you have the necessary work experience but not the degree to prove it, that’s also great, it just requires one more step: having your credentials evaluated for US degree equivalence.

We have international education experts at CCI on call every hour of the day, every day of the year with authorization to convert classroom contact hours and work experience into the US college credit hours you need to clearly show your qualifications and the value of your specialized skills.  If you have a degree but it is not in a specialized field, a credential evaluation can give a detailed analysis of your coursework and academic content to clearly show the USCIS that you do have the specialized knowledge necessary to properly carry out the duties of your H1B job.

For a free consultation on your H1B credential evaluation, visit us at http://www.ccifree.com/?CodeBLG/ or call anytime at 1.800.771.4723.]]>

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