Why It Is Hard For Foreigners To Work In the U.S.?

Most of my readers are Americans.  But many of you know people who are foreign nationals who want to work here.  Please pass this information to them.

                                                               

Despite the plethora of worldwide agencies, it is very difficult to obtain work in the United States, even for employees of those agencies.  In many cases, some companies, as a matter of form, simply ignore people with foreign credentials (they even discount Americans who have worked abroad), even those from their own offices abroad..

Foreign nationals face a double whammy when they move or want to move here.  First, agency people are reluctant to do the paperwork necessary to obtain visas.  Second, and possibly more important, because the U.S.  is geographically isolated and many of us are infrequently exposed to people with advertising training in other countries, so there is a built in prejudice against foreigners..  One HR person commented to me that people from other countries don't know U.S. media.  That is laughable since anyone in the business under forty years old has not been intimately involved with  U.S. media operations since  the media companies became separated from the general agencies.

Most people who work in Europe or Asia are constantly exposed to people from other nations; they know that people assimilate and learn quickly.  Advertising is not a complicated business and the principals are the same throughout the world.  In the United States, we do somewhat better with with English speaking people – people from the U.K., South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.  But we are often adverse to others, no matter how well they speak English.  

Almost every day I receive résumés from people throughout the world.  I can honestly say that some of them are wonderful and might make a great contribution to American companies, but few will get a chance.  American ad agencies reject most of them out of hand. 

Case in point: I recently interviewed a wonderful person from Singapore.  She had worked for one of the major international ad agencies, spoke perfect English and had absolutely stellar CPG credentials.  Her husband was transferred here so she was totally eligible to work in the United States with minimum paperwork.  The woman from Singapore had been highly recommended to the U.S. office of her former employer.  She contacted the New York office, which had received the references, and the human resources person, despite the excellent recommendation, wouldn’t give her an interview; she was told to keep checking back with their web site to see if any appropriate jobs were posted.  I thought that was shameful. HR could have done the courtesy and found a half an hour for an interview. Had she called her former CEO, she probably could have gotten him to get her an interview, but she was reluctant to call in the favor.

There is no question that visa applications are a pain.  No one likes to do them. But when the talent is good, the extra work may be well worthwhile.  In this business, talent trumps everything else.

Most of the people here with working visas, initially got American jobs either through transfers or knew a senior executive who was able to champion their candidacy for employment here.  Sadly, there are actually several ad agencies which have instructed recruiters not to submit anyone who requires sponsorship of any kind. I can honestly say that in all my years of recruiting, I have only been able to place one foreign national here in  an initial U.S. job. Other recruiters tell me the same.  This even applies to Canadians and Mexicans who are eligible to work here under NAFTA; however it is somewhat easier to place a Canadian (I have placed several).

It is also difficult to place an American who has worked abroad.  (I once had a really good HR person tell me that she did not want to see an American candidate who had worked in Eastern Europe because she did not fully understand what an account person might do in one of those countries.  That is the result of our being geographically isolated.)

The truth is, many big city ad agencies don’t even want to interview Americans from another U.S. city.  The issue in recruiting (and hiring) is always talent.  We put square pegs in square holes and there should be no issue if someone has lived and worked somewhere else.  I suspect one of this issues, particularly in New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, is that we are snobs and cannot believe that an advertising person from somewhere else might actually be qualified or know more than someone home grown.

Ironically, once a foreign national has their first U.S. job, it is somewhat easier for them to transfer visas and move to another company.  I have placed many of them who simply required a visa transfer; but even doing that, with proven talent, some agencies are reluctant. 

My heart goes out to people who come here and want to work here but find it really difficult.