Updates on Companies in Pakistan, Sponsoring H-1B Visa

 

Now, it’s Royal Cyber!

As per my source, Royal Cyber is now offering H-1B Sponsorship to candidates who fulfill following criteria:

• Minimum of 16 years of education – with 4 years bachelor’s degree.
• 5 or more years of professional development experience.

Royal Cyber

US Headquarters

Royal Cyber
55 Shuman Blvd, Suite 1025, Naperville,
IL 60563 USA.

Pakistan Office

Suite # 1101-1104, 11th Floor,
Ceasers Towers (National IT Park),
Main Shahrah e Faisal,
Karachi, Pakistan.

Click to view a complete list of companies in Pakistan who sponsor H-1B Visas.

The Sponsor will send the H-1B Package Documents to the Candidate

 

This post is a part of series of posts that makes up “The Complete Process Trail for H-1B Work Visa”.

Once your H-1B petition I-129 is approved and your Sponsor received the I-797B Approval Notice from USCIS, your sponsor will courier you, that original I-797B along with a copy of your petition which includes all documents submitted to USCIS for case approval.

The H-1B Package you will receive from your Sponsor via courier include following documents:

1. Original I-797B Approval Notice as show here
2. Copy of your H-1B Petition I-129
3. Copy of all documents which your sponsor submit along with your H-1B Petition I-129 to USCIS
   1. Copy of your Resume / CV
   2. Copy of your Degrees / Transcripts / Certificates
   3. Copy of your Passport
   4. Copy of your Education Evaluation Letter
   5. Copy of your Offer Letter with complete Job Description
   6. Copy of an official letter from Sponsor describing why you are a best fit for the job
   7. Copy of your US Itinerary
   8. Copy of any other supported documents that Sponsor has submitted to USCIS

How courier will deliver your package?

The delivery mechanism for such a package is little different from normal courier deliveries. Once the local city office receives your package, they will call you on your mobile/cell phone and confirm with you if you are expecting a package delivery from USA. Once you confirm them, they will send the rider to your location and the rider will deliver the package and get your signatures at the time of delivery.

Receiving and Accepting the Offer from H-1B Work Visa Sponsor

 

This post is a part of series of posts that makes up “The Complete Process Trail for H-1B Work Visa”.

Once you clear the technical interview and are shortlisted by the H-1B Work Visa Sponsor, your second and last interview will be scheduled with the HR/Management. This interview serves a mean to interact with the management/HR of the company and sort of an introductory knowledge session about what company is all about, their vision, mission , future roadmaps etc.. It is very rare that a candidate who qualifies the technical interview, got rejected because of the evaluation results from his management/HR interview.

Next, the Sponsor will extend an offer to you verbally, which details your role, job description, salary, benefits, etc.. If you agree or after final negotiations, they will send you an Official Offer Letter on company’s letter head, which will be a proof of employment for you throughout your H-1B Work Visa processing.

Make sue you discuss and have a clear understanding on all of the following before accepting the offer:

1. Contract Type – Consultant or Employment
2. Sponsor’s % and your % in case of Consultant Contract OR per month Salary in case of Employment Contract
3. General idea of rates/salaries in prevailing market
4. General idea of Tax Deductions & your Take Home Salary

H-1B Work Visa Sponsors and their Selection Process / Criteria

 

This post is First of a series of posts that makes up “The Complete Process Trail for H-1B Work Visa”.

How to find H-1B Work Visa Sponsors?

So how you will find an H-1B Sponsor who sponsor candidates with similar expertise and skill sets as yours? There are different ways in which H-1B Sponsors float sponsorship opportunities in the market.

1. Join Local Office for some duration  – Some sponsors publish their local job vacancies with H-1B sponsorship as an “added” advantage. So once you are selected, you will have to join their local office for a year or more (depending upon your specific case) and thereafter they’ll process your H-1B. Also, some sponsors tie the processing of H-1B sponsorship with your performance in their local office, so it is not necessary that once you joined their local office, you are also selected for the sponsorship as well.
   
   So, in order to find such sponsors, refer to my post “Companies who Sponsor H-1B Work Visa for USA in Pakistan” and follow Job Opportunities from these companies on:
   
   Rozee.pk
   pak-jobs-IT
   Company’s own website
   
2. Trusted References Only – Some sponsors do not float their ads directly in the local market, they work through their existing established local trusted references. So, in this case, you have to leverage upon the professional and social circle you are in. In my opinion, I could be wrong, professional networks like LinkedIn.com or Rozee.pk might help in this case. Because your complete professional profile is visible to your contacts and they can see if you are a good fit for the opportunity or not.

Selection and Interview Process

In first case above, the selection process is pretty much the same as with any other selection process for local Job Opportunities. Therefore, I’ll now discuss the second case in detail below.

If an H-1B sponsor is interested in your profile, they will schedule your technical interview. The interview duration will be 30 to 60 minutes in which you will be evaluated in following technical and non-technical areas:

1. Technology (Java/.Net/C++/etc)
1. Hashing
2. Serialization
3. Collections
4. Multi Threading / Concurrent Programming
5. Network Programming
6. JDBC
7. Exception Handling
8. etc.
2. OOP
3. Frameworks
1. IoC (Spring, etc.)
2. MVC Frameworks (Spring WebMVC, Struts 1/2, etc.)
3. ORM Frameworks (n/Hibernate, etc)
4. Web Services (REST, SOAP)
4. Databases
1. SQL
1. Joins
2. Sub Queries
3. Views
4. Stored Procedures / Functions
5. Triggers
6. Query Performance & Optimization
2. Transactions & Locking
3. Big Data Handling concepts like Sharding and Partitioning
4. High Availability concepts like Clustering, Replication, etc..
5. Problem Solving – Scenario based
6. Communication
1. Command over English Language
2. Clarity of Thoughts
3. Confidence
4. Attitude
5. Mental Presence and Attentiveness
6. Punctuality

Besides above, you can be asked about any thing that you have written in your resume/cv.

As far as interview scheduling is concern, you can either receive an email or a phone call confirming your interview time and date. They will also let you know how your interview will be taken i.e. it could be over:

1. Skype
2. Your landline or Mobile phone
3. Goto Meeting Session
4. etc.

The interview could be Audio only (most probably) or both Audio and Video. Some important tips for the interview are as follows:

1. Make sure you are online/ready 5 minutes before your scheduled time. Save yourself from the embarrassment of last minute hiccups.
2. Make sure you are in a safe and sound place, where you can attend your interview peacefully with out kind of interruptions.
3. If you are giving interview on Mobile Phone, make sure it is fully charged.
4. If you are giving interview on Skype or Goto Meeting or any online audio/video service, make sure your Mic/Speakers/WebCam/etc. are all working correctly. Better make test calls to make sure every thing is fine.
5. Speak naturally with a medium pace (not too fast, not too slow) and slightly louder than normal voice.
6. Avoid short answers and very long explanations. Be specific with enough details to satisfy the interviewer.
7. Be prepared for the time when they ask you “if you any questions for us?”, keep a couple or more questions handy for the that time.

You’ll probably be notified within a week about the result of your interview and whether you are shortlisted or not. You will either receive an email (most probably) or a phone call.

In my next post, I will discuss what will happen once you pass the scheduled interview and make it to the shortlisted candidate?

H-1B Work Visa–Sponsor’s Share or Profit

 

In my last post, I shared the salary brackets for Employment Contract and Consultant Contract. The feedback, that I received on that post, contains a number of queries and comments on huge difference in compensation between the two models. So, I thought it is in the best interest of all to discuss Sponsor’s Share or Profit in my next post.

This is a known fact that all companies who sponsor H-1B, do it to save or make some money:

1. Companies need resources for their in-house project/product development and they can get quality resources in a cheaper rate if they have the means and access to human resource markets like Pakistan, India, China, etc..
   [ Benefit – Save Money ] [ Contract Type – Employment ]
2. Companies also deploy resources to other clients and earn a % share from the salaries of those resources via the Corporate-to-Corporate (corp-to-corp or c2c) model.
   [ Benefit – Make Money ] [ Contract Type – Consultant ]

I will now continue the example from my previous post, to help you understand how sponsor companies make or save money as discussed above.

Based on the salary ranges I mentioned in my previous post, a Java Developer can sign:

1. An Employment Contract of US$ 3,500 per month, OR
2. A Consultant Contract of US$ 40 per hour

Let us now calculate the per month salary of this resource for option #2 i.e. Consultant Contract:

As a standard, each resource is required to work 8 hours per day and five weekdays a week from Monday to Friday. Saturday and Sunday are weekend holidays. If we assume, there are 4 weekends in a month and an average month has 30 days then:

[ 30 (days in month) – 8 (weekend holidays) ] x 8 (hours per day) x 40 ($ per hour) = US$ 7,040 per month

This is more than double of what the resource can get on Employment Contract. So this seems un-fair or imbalance.  Actually it is not, because in case of Employment Contract, the resource is actually employed by the H-1B Sponsor itself, so sponsor already offered the resource a salary that is less than the prevailing market standard. And, this way the sponsor saves the money, because if they hire the same level of resource from the market that would cost them much more.

On the other hand, in Consultant Contract, the sponsor deploys the resource on to one of it’s client companies. The c2c contract between the sponsor and the client will mention US$ 40 per hour, but there will be a contract between the resource and the sponsor which states that a specific % of the resource’s salary will be shared with the sponsor

Based on recent trends:

70% to 80% will be the resource’s share

20% to 30% will be the sponsor’s share

So, if we apply the same to the compensation we calculated above:

US$ 7, 040 x 70 / 100 = US$ 4,928

Now, you can compare this compensation with that of Employment Contract:

Employment Contract – US$ 3,500 per month

Consultant Contract – US$ 4,928 per month

The difference between the two is:

US$ 3,500 per month – US$ 4,928 per month = US$ 1,428

That difference can be justified keeping the amount of risk involved in Consultant Contracts (for detail of risks please refer to my previous post).

I hope my post will help you understand different aspects of the contracts. A heads up for all you, this still is not a complete picture, there are deductions/taxation involved, which I will discuss in detail in my next post.

H-1B Work Visa USA–Recent Trends–Candidate Profile/Skills

 

So what kind of candidate profiles/skills, H1-B sponsor companies are interested in? I’ve depicted the most recent visible trends (in the last 3 or 4 years?) as follows:

Technology

1. Java Platform ~ 70%- 80%

2. .Net Platform ~ 15% - 20%

3. Others ~ 1% - 5% (Oracle DBA/Functional/Technical, SAP, etc.)

 

Job Role

Software Engineers / Senior Software Engineers / Software Developers / Team Leads / Technical Leads etc.

In short, they are interested in people who do “LESS TALK & MORE WORK” and their definition of “WORK is CODING”. A word of caution for you; if you have highlighted your Management experience and skills in your resume or cv, chances are that you will not make it to the shortlisted candidates.

Why is that so? my investigation suggests that there are numerous factors involved. First, “Demand leads the way” i.e. technical resources who are hands-on and can be productive from the very first day are actually in great demand in USA. But, don’t get me wrong, other job roles also have a demand, like:

Product Managers, Program Managers, Project Managers, Project Coordinators, Scrum Masters and other PMO related roles.

QA Managers, QA Engineers, Senior QA Engineers, Testers, QA Automation Engineers, QA Leads and other QA related roles.

But, typically those who are pulling resources from Pakistan or India or China, are bent on hard-core developers.

Second, developers rate are usually higher and hence better profit margin.

Third, communication is often a problem area with majority of Pakistani or Indian or Chinese resources and effective communication is a key requirement for any managerial or senior level position.

Companies who sponsor H-1B Work Visa for USA in Pakistan

 

One of the most frequently asked question I encounter is, which companies (local or foreign) are sponsoring H-1B Visa’s in Pakistan? I’m listing down a number of IT & IT Enabled Services (ITES) companies who are known to have sponsored candidates from Pakistan in past 5 years or more. And, I personally know and have met the candidates from these companies (except one).

Company in USA	Local Representation in Pakistan
Macrosoft Inc. 2 Sylvan Way 3rd Floor Parsippany, NJ 07054 http://www.macrosoftinc.com/	Macrosoft Pakistan (SMC-PVT) Limited 42-A, Abu Bakar Block, New Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan. http://www.macrosoftpakistan.com
Netpace Inc. 12657 Alcosta Blvd. Suite 410 San Ramon, CA 9458 http://www.netpace.com	Netpace Systems (Pvt) Ltd 1003-4, Park Avenue, Shara-e-Faisal, Karachi 75400, Pakistan. http://www.netpace.com
NetProSys Inc./ Progressive Systems (They seems to be out of operations by this name. And, unconfirmed news is that they have been acquired and/or re-branded by/as RaaWee, Inc. (see below)
RaaWee Inc. Eastside Atrium, 800 E. Campbell Rd, Suite 201, Richardson, TX 75081 http://raawee.com	Sidat Hyder Morshed Associates (Pvt) Ltd Beaumont Plaza, Beaumont Road Karachi 75530, Pakistan http://www.sidathyder.com.pk
NorthStar Technologies Inc. 161 Kimball Bridge Road Suite #200 Alpharetta, GA 30009 http://www.globalnorthstar.com	Sibisoft (Pvt.) Ltd. National IT Park Suite # 1214, Caesars Tower Shahrah-e-Faisal Karachi - 74400, Pakistan http://www.sibisoft.com
360training.com, Inc. 13801 N. Mo-Pac, Suite 100 Austin, Texas 78727 http://www.360training.com	Softech Corporation (Pvt) Ltd. # 502, 5th Floor, Anum Empire Shahrah-e-Faisal, Karachi, Pakistan http://www.360training.com

Besides the ones mentioned above, there are other ITES companies that have presence in Pakistan and are on the record to have sponsor H-1B visas. However, it might be possible that the actual candidates are sponsored from other countries (where they also have presence besides USA and Pakistan). I’m not personally, or through my contacts, aware of any sponsorship cases by these companies:

Company in USA	Local Representation in Pakistan
Mentor Graphics Corporation 8005 SW Boeckman Road Wilsonville, OR 97070 http://www.mentor.com	Mentor Graphics (Pakistan) Development (Pvt) Ltd Floors # 5-6-7-8th, Ali Tower 105 B2 MM Alam Road Gulberg III Lahore, Pakistan 54660 http://www.mentor.com
TRG
NetSol IR
Mixit
Primatics Financials

In the end, there are companies other than ITES sector that are also on the records to have sponsor H-1B visas:

• National Bank of Pakistan
• Pakistan Link
• Pakistan Publications Inc
• Taj Software Systems Corporation (Indian company, but have known to run ads for Pakistani candidates in Pakistan as well)