Glass Ceiling for Internationals?
I recently encountered a puzzling situation, something which I could only compare to the story of the Hebrews in the Bible. It all began when I ran into an old friend and his girlfriend at a restaurant.
My friend had always been one of the smartest people I knew, and he had gone to an international family in China for high school. His family was not particularly wealthy, so he had been forced to take financial aid at college. Yet despite all this, he had made it to one of the Top 5 colleges for math and computer science in the US.
He is now applying for full-time roles in quantitative finance, and he has gotten to the final rounds of almost all the places he had interviewed with. Yet, he still hadn't been able to secure an offer. I was perplexed, since he was far more capable than I when it came to solving interview questions and talking about his interests. That's when I started to wonder: was the fact that he required a work visa in the US what was screwing him over?
It was like a piece of Kosher food that had been made unclean by the presence of a fly. He had worked so hard to get to where he was, and yet he still couldn't find a job in the US. It seemed unfair, and I would love to find a way to help him. So, I turn to all of you: has anyone experienced something similar in their job search? If so, how did you overcome it? What advice would you offer someone in my friend's situation?
Marry a US Citizen
Next question please.
change girlfriend. next question.
International here. Don't think it's the visa issue as most great prop firms hire Chinese internationals in droves. Citadel securities in particular for example. CEO was a PHD grad student from China. It does seem to be a bit harder to get into bb trading programs tho.
Coming from a PE lens and not a HF, but definitely makes it more difficult. I've been helping run our recruiting process for a month now and my MD explicitly said to bin anyone that's international no matter what their fit/qualification may be because we are not going to sponsor under any circumstances. It's just an unfortunate fact of life.
You should tell your MD that he/she is an idiot.. Only costs 10k to sponsor a greencard which will come with 98% odds of success in 1.5 years. That's an investment and risk worth taking to get stellar talent over great talent.
Heaps of opportunities in HK. Or Singapore.
Also, with current changes in UK immigration, if he did graduate from a top school, he can get work permit in UK and find a quant shop there. Pretty sure quant shops there would happily sponsor him after 2 years work permit expires.
Also quant firms in Australia are eligible for Global Talent visa scheme, which gives candidates like 2 weeks to get Green card, then stay for one year then apply for citizenship. If you have Aussie passport you can move back to US under employer sponsorship visa (similar to H1B but without the lottery part, specially reserved for Australians).
Or just try Europe. Or find opportunities in home country.
So many options.
The US, or any country for that matter, is not obliged to give non-citizens anything. Each country has their own immigration laws, and it changes over time.
If your friend is that smart, he should be able to figure out different pathways for himself and weighing probability of each option and go for the optimal scenario.
Next please. Tired of this kind of story.
*to those internationals MS'ed me: you will fail your H1B lottery
Wow what a douche bag....here's a MS from a fellow citizen!