Here’s what a recent Drexel grad wants you to know about hiring international students 

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Finding a job post-grad is stressful for many people, but it’s even harder for international students with a tight visa timeline. 

Maria Romero is currently in the thick of it after finishing her degree in December. 

Romero has an F-1 visa, which allows international students to study in the United States, in her case moving to Philly from Mexico to pursue an MBA at Drexel University studying marketing analytics. This visa allows her to work as soon as she graduates, but she only has 90 days to find a job related to her field of study. 

After completing her undergraduate degree at a university in Mexico, Romero pursued finance and worked at a bank for a year, before moving to corporate finance. After five years in that role, Romero decided that something needed to change. Her role didn’t have any opportunities for growth and she had a strained relationship with her boss. 

So, Romero applied for a master’s program, determined to find a field and a role that she was passionate about. She had a great experience at Drexel, specifically finding community among the other international students, she said. 

Now, she’s trying to get back into the workforce and it’s been more challenging than expected, she said. Romero has been searching for a job for over two months and struggling to find anything. If she doesn’t find a job, preferably in marketing, by March, she has to leave the US. 

In this edition of Technical.ly’s How I Got Here series, Romero discusses what it’s like looking for a job as an international student and what she wishes employers knew about hiring immigrant employees. 

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. 

What has your experience been like looking for a role as an F-1 visa holder? 

It’s been very challenging. I’m not even getting interviews. I don’t know what else I could be doing. I don’t know if it’s my resume that has experiences back home, the climate that we’re living in, the perception of immigrants. I know that adds an extra layer, but I just didn’t think it was going to be this challenging. 

People are scared of what it means to hire an immigrant. They’re like, “Is the government going to shine a spotlight on me because I’m hiring immigrants?” There’s a lot of misinformation out there about the immigrant workforce. 

What are you looking for in your next role? 

I haven’t had the best experiences throughout my career, so I just want a job that excites me. 

I know a job is a job, and it gets tedious sometimes and no one wants to do it some days, and there are good days and there are bad days. But I just want a job that I actually like, I actually like my boss and I think that the company that I work for is actually doing something good. That’s what I really want.

What should employers know about hiring immigrant employees?

They should know that the legal immigrant experience is just like hiring an American. We have social security numbers. We have authorization to work. It really is the same in terms of paperwork. 

People should know that we want it a little bit more than the rest of the people because we’ve sacrificed so much. 

International employees are only going to enrich your team because they’re going to bring a whole new perspective. We are going to work harder. We’re going to give it a lot more, because, again, we sacrificed a lot, and we are gonna make it work. 

What are the rules around your visa? 

As soon as you graduate, you are allowed to work, but post-graduation, you only have 90 days to find a job. If you don’t find a job in those 90 days, then you have to leave. 

If I find a job before the deadline, then I can stay in the US working for that employer or any other employer for up to three years. A lot can happen in those three years, right? 

You can be an excellent employee, outperform everyone else but to convince your employer to then sponsor your work visa is a completely different conversation. That’s the visa that everyone’s afraid of, the word ‘sponsorship.’ They think that they’re going to be responsible for you, for everything that you do. 

That’s not the reality of things. That’s three years in the future. We don’t know where we’re going to be. I don’t know if I’m going to be working for you. It’s just getting that first step. 

What misconceptions do you want to clear up about international students?

The international community is very big at Drexel. Two-thirds of every class that I was in, was international students. So it was awesome to have people going through the same thing and being able to share that with others, and I know they’re also struggling to find a job. 

Almost all of them already had careers in their home countries, so the frustration is very similar. I know a few are going back home. They’re already making that decision. 

You also have to consider that there are people from all over the world, but there are also people who come from countries that they really don’t want to go back to because of the political environment. You have to think their families are there, their friends, their lives are there, and they choose to sacrifice everything to try to have a better life. 

That’s one of the biggest things people forget very easily, it’s not that I woke up on a Monday and said, “oh, I’m gonna move to the States.”

What advice would you give someone who is thinking of moving here to pursue a graduate program? 

I would totally say, do it. I would say, prepare yourself, because it’s going to be 10 times harder than you think. 

Always keep in mind the reason why you’re doing it because you’re going to forget it every day. You have to remember why you’re doing it and be patient. Whatever happens, it’s what was meant to happen. If I have to go back, then I’ll go back, I’ll try again.

This story, and all of Technical.ly's immigration reporting, is made possible by the WES Mariam Assefa Fund.

The WES Mariam Assefa Fund supports catalytic efforts to create more inclusive economies for immigrants and refugees in the US and Canada. It works closely with organizations and leaders focused on ensuring more equitable access to opportunity and wealth.