Finding a job in the United States and New York City

• Employer-sponsored visas such as H-1B, L-1 and O-1 require a petition from the employer to USCIS. H-1B petitions for capped jobs depend on an annual registration and selection. See US visas and green cards.
• Students on F-1 may not work off campus in their first academic year; later they need CPT, OPT or STEM OPT authorization. Talk to your designated school official before accepting any job.
• Dependents (for example H-4 or L-2 spouses) have different rules; L-2 spouses are authorized to work incident to their status.
• Never start work before your status or EAD allows it.

• Keep your résumé to the point and focused on results, and adapt it for each application.
• The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission advises employers not to ask for a photograph of applicants and to avoid questions about race, national origin, age or religion, so leave these out of your application. Workers aged 40 and over are protected against age discrimination.
• Prepare concrete examples of your work for interviews, including interviews by phone or video.
• Use the pay range in New York job ads to judge an offer and to negotiate.

Employers, universities and licensing bodies decide how to treat a foreign degree, and many rely on reports from credential evaluation services: independent, non-governmental organizations that evaluate education completed outside the United States. The National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES) lists its member organizations; check which service your employer, school or licensing board accepts before you pay for an evaluation.

Regulated professions, starting with medicine, need a New York State license. The New York State Education Department's Office of the Professions publishes the licensing requirements for the professions it oversees and lets you verify licensees online. Check early whether your profession is licensed, because you cannot practice it without the license.

Workforce1 Career Centers, run by the City's Department of Small Business Services, offer free career counseling, résumé and interview help, training referrals and referrals to New York City job openings at 18 centers across the five boroughs. Contact the Workforce1 team online or visit a center.

Every new employee completes Form I-9. You fill in Section 1 by your first day of work, and your employer must examine your original documents within three business days of your start date. You choose which acceptable documents to present: one from List A (for example a foreign passport with an I-94 showing work authorization, an EAD or a green card) or one from List B plus one from List C. An employer may not demand specific documents or reject valid ones because of your national origin or citizenship status; the Justice Department's worker hotline is 1-800-255-7688.