Ol`gita Major: International Economic Relations Status: Workygirl I am fond of chocolates, flowers, friends, loud music, watching movies, taking pictures and traveling!!!

How to Find a Job
Olya Bezvushko

It is usually happens that international students are treated like second class citizens while they are looking for a job. It is due to the students’ need for sponsorship to get the visa.

Be ready that employer have a wide range of attitudes towards foreign students. It’s hard to predict what their attitude will be before you spend time on applying. The main reasons why employers are not disposed to hire students from other countries are: their wrong perception that employing international students is expensive and time consuming process, and there will be a need to hire new people every 4-6 month, as students are working only for such short period of time. Besides, employees worry that when they hire an international student, they will have to stay with employees who speak poor English.

I made a small research to identify what employers are friendly towards international students. It turned out that among such companies are even large well-known corporations, like Wachovia, Ernst and Young, Conservation International, MTV World, Xerox, Institute of International Finance Citibank, JP Morgan, T-Mobile, Deloitte, Lehman Brothers and many others.

There are great job search resources for international students in many colleges and universities. So, first of all, check out what your school can offer you. If you cannot find anything, check the online career services resources from other colleges for example, Career Services handout for international students at the University of Virginia. You can try to find more guides as the one above, use this Google query, which offer great career resources for international students.

And of course, since it’s the Internet, there will be somebody trying to make a buck at your expense, so take heed of this warning from Northern Illinois University’s job search guide for international students.
Remember, that that websites are officially sanctioned by the USA government, which have the URL end with the “.gov” suffix. Domains, which end with the “.edu” suffix, can probably be trusted to provide helpful and honest information. 

You can also use these tips for online search:

     1. Narrow your options. Many job boards offer filters to help users refine their search results more quickly.  You should have the option to narrow your job search by region, industry and duration, and, oftentimes, you can narrow it even more by keywords, company names, experience needed and salary.

     2. Apply to the source. Instead of just applying for the posted job opening, one of the best strategies to finding a job is to first figure out where you want to work, target that company or industry and then contact the hiring manager. Also, many employers' career pages invite visitors to fill out candidate profiles, describing their background, jobs of interest, salary requirements and other preferences.

     3. Check online recruiters. Recruiters will help match you with jobs that meet your specific skills and needs. You can start with such sites as recruiterlink.com, onlinerecruitersdirectory.com, searchfirm.com and i-recruit.com provide links to online headhunters for job seekers.

     4. Consider video resumes. Video résumés are just one more way to stand out to employers.

     5. Run queries. Enter a query that describes the exact kind of job you're seeking and you may find more resources you wouldn't find otherwise (but be prepared to do some sorting). You run searches on everything else, from your high school sweetheart to low-fat recipes, so why not jobs?

     6. Discover your connections.  How many times have you been told that it's not what you know, but who you know?  Thanks to the emergence of professional networking sites like LinkedIn.com, job seekers no longer have to rely on the old standby of exchanging business cards with strangers.  These sites are composed of millions of industry professionals and allow you to connect with people you know and the people they know and so forth. (A word of caution: When you sign up for online social networking sites, you are in a public domain.  Unless you are able to put a filter on some of your information, nothing is private, and it can be difficult to erase once it is posted.)

If you are a foreign student with questions or tips, please send me your comments and opinions.