Recognition of foreign qualifications in the USA

While my IIT Delhi credentials were recognized, I was expected to sit for Engineer in Training exam and Professional Engineering exams before I could be a project manager or get a responsible position.

WES ist the most widely recognized evaluation for academic degrees. When it comes to professional certifications/designations check with state and federal accreditation bodies. Professional associations are often very helpful if Google is not.

This is an interesting one.

Even though I have a number of degrees from well established and internationally recognized universities, as they were not American I had to get them verified.  I had to pay for a group called Educational Perspectives to verify each of my four degrees.

I found this ironic as an institution like Imperial, College, part of the University of London (where I got  my Masters) is ranked in the top 1% of world universities, yet they felt they needed to check the equivalence of that degree against US degrees!  All my degrees come from universities that are highly ranked by the corporations doing those international rankings.

In another twist, the fact that my Doctorate was the UK style, i.e. pure research has also caused some issues for a few universities here.  They seem incapable of understanding how that system works. I was turned down for a post at a university as I could not show which courses I had studied when earning my Doctorate!

Members of any profession face hurdles when coming to the United States. Judging professional qualifications such as law, medicine, accounting, or dentistry falls to the individual states or territories in which any expat resides. States may grant reciprocity to professionals from without their state, or not. Likewise, they may recognize some foreign professional qualification, or not. Since the state itself is the licensing recognition authority for all practitioners within its boundaries, recognition will differ from state to state.

I did my law degree in Puerto Rico. Upon moving to Massachusetts, I was required to take their bar exam, which was far easier than the three full days of essay I had done in Puerto Rico. Despite the differences in legal systems (PR is a Civil Law juridiction) I passed their bar on the first try. I had hoped to find a position in admiralty law, which is pretty much a federal law practice. Boston was the Federal Court of Appeals for cases coming out of Puerto Rico, and it had upheld several very important maritime cases out of Puerto Rico. What I found was that I couldn't even get into any law firm as a law clerk. It soon became apparent that in law, it is best to study within the jurisdiction you intend to practice. No one in Massachusetts wanted a Puerto Rico trained lawyer. Indeed, very few were willing to look at any candidate who was not from a respected Massachusetts law school, or had an undergraduate degree from a major university. Looking through the listings, I noted that some firms tended to recruit from one or two major universities, and if there was an anomaly, he or she shared the last name of a partner of the firm.

The exception, of course, is anyone with a degree and experience within a specific branch of law that the firm is seeking. For instance: If you took your law degree in an Indian university, and worked in an  Indian legal office of repute that specialized in tax law, then you stand a good chance of being seriously looked at in any firm that has clients doing business in India. And while you will be required to pass the state bar exam, you may even find them willing to employ you while you are studying for that state bar exam.

But again, within the United States, everything related to the professions is state-specific.

Hi

I do have a British Degree and did not have any problems with employment etc.
If your degree is not published or recognized you may have to have them  evaluated by a recognized agency. This could be Googled.


Hope this helps

Hi there,

I have a bachelors degree in Social Work, could I use this profession to live in America, or could I get a working visa. I also have two young children 8 and 10, would they be able to go to school in the USA. My mother would also be coming with me. We would have quite a bit of income from renting our current properties in the UK, my profession and my mums pension.

I have no idea where to start but would love to come and live in America for a year to see how I like it and how I get on.

Many Thanks

Charlotte Hall

Hi

Usually the Govt requires people with unique skill sets, such as Computer programmers, Aeronautical Engineering, Script writing, Bio-Engineering etc.
A Degree in Social work  may not be in demand from prospective employers.    Also, with the current refugee crises  and tighter Immigration controls thing are getting really tough to get here.
I hate to break this negative news to you , however, if you know your status then you could find work around.   
Also, you have mentioned that you wish to bring both your children and your Mom. This could be a stretch. Depending where you wish to live the cost of living changes from state to state.
My recommendation is for you to come here first and then  bring your family one at a time. Its a long process to get your feet in to the the USA legally. The year 1916 would have been much different. The Democratic govt did not care who came here and from where and their backgrounds etc. This created a huge problem here for the tax payers of the USA.  One has to pay for someone else's well being, such as schools, housing etc.
If you dont mind me asking , what religion are you affiliated with? There may be some ways to work around it.

Hope this helps

Tc

It's definitely hard, but the trick is to find an employer who values your strengths and services and can sponsor you. It's not an easy road,  but I've known many people who have made the leap across the pond.

But not all the employers want to sponsor us.

Meagan08 wrote:

But not all the employers want to sponsor us.

If you don't have the expertise that they look for in an employee, there's no reason they would want to sponsor you.

If your expertise is the same as thousands of Americans (who don't require hours of paperwork and extra expense from the employers), there's no reason they would want to sponsor you.

You stated in another thread that you have experience in banking in Nambia. Since there are thousand upon thousand Americans who have extensive experience in American banking and don't need extra OTJ training, it's very unlikely an employer would bypass them to sponsor you.

You also wish to be a "Personal Assistant and Blogger and Fashion Assistant", both of which you haven't done in the past. Not to rain on your parade, but assistants of any kind are two a penny in the US. Almost all highly qualified PAs have a business degree and speak another language. All the PAs in my daughter's firm have Bachelor degrees (some currently attend law school), type 80 - 100 wpm, speak English, Spanish, and another language fluently (Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, or Vietnamese), plus other office and computer skills.

How do you think an employer would ignore that readily available pool to hire someone whose immigration issues would require them to jump through hoop?