Thread: work visa for California

Hi could anyone be kind enough to shed some light on temp work visas in America, particularly California as me and a friend would like to work over there for a couple of months. We would like to use our trade as plasterers to find work as this is something we would love to do in the future permanently. has anybody done anything similar before? I'm wondering if anybody could give me advise on areas like finding work and accommodation over there?

Any response is much appreciated

Hey Ian,
You are certainly not alone in trying to get thru the US Visa process! There are various websites you can check out including this one..

http://www.overseas-emigration.co.uk...migration.html

There are also links on other threads on this forum (have a skirt around.. you'll find them!)
Good luck!

~ Hope

thanks for the reply, will defo take a look at that website. thank you.
yeah i'm gonna scan these pages for any info possible. i had a quick look on my break at work, need to find out about temp work visas, i hope i will find someone who knows about them. will have a look! thanks again

Hi Ian

I'm here in California with my husband on his work visa. Have a look at these sites - they might give you the info you're looking for.

http://www.unitedstatesvisas.gov/

http://travel.state.gov/visa/visa_1750.html

My husband got his visa by being sponsored by an employer who we met with when we over on holiday a few years ago. The visa process is lenghty and there are no guarantees - that said it is definitely worth it but it is my understanding that if you want to work here legally you need an employer here to sponsor you.

As far as accommodation - we still own a house in the UK and wanted to rent til we figured we want to stay permanently and we knew the area we wanted to live in so we were able to find our rental property on craigslist

http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites

If you've got any other questions or want a more in-depth explanation of what we did let me know.

Wow thanks so much for the reply! I don’t think I could of expected a more helpful reply than that lol thank you!

Well I’m at that stage where I hunger for absolutely any information on California (I’m sure you remember what its like lol) but one of the first things I need to consider is location, we would need somewhere which is obviously safe, sunny, with affordable rental accommodation and of course somewhere where plastering is high in demand as that’s the type of work we want our career to be in. I think once we have an idea on this I can move onto finding a sponsor

Thanks for the links, the first two have made my head spin! :-S I’m still not sure as to which visa I’d need to apply for, maybe a H2B or H1B. What kind of work does your husband do over there?

My husband is a structural engineer - he designs the steelwork for buildings and now does a lot of seismic re-fitting. It was the years of experience more than the qualification that got him his visa. I'm actually more qualified than he is and was on a higher wage than him in the UK but he got the work visa first!! But on my visa there's no limit on how often I can go backwards and forwards so I do spend time in the UK working.

He got sponsored and is on a H1B which on its own is good for up to 7 years but we've already put in for permanent status.

As to location - we're in the San Francisco Bay area and we live in the county of Marin - very safe here. I mean seriously safe. It took us ages to get used to seeing people leave their wallets, handbags, laptops, phones etc on tables in bars and restaurants and walk away outside for a cigarette. They'll put their belongings on a seat in the cinema and go back out to get food and no-one touches the stuff! When we moved into our apartment the locks didn't work properly and when I said to the property management company and landlords about it they were all like 'Whos gonna break in??'!!!

Obviously some parts of the Bay area are a little less nice but the city is nice and I not keen on cities - only my personal choice.


Check out Wikipedia cos it's spot on for what it's like here weather-wise!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California#Climate