You may need a beneficiary qualification Expert Opinion Letter (also called a Work Experience Expert Opinion Letter) to respond to a beneficiary qualifications RFE to demonstrate your credentials in order to work in a business, to start your own business, or as part of your visa application.
Work experience Expert Opinion Letters are very common for H-1B petitions to establish that a beneficiary meets specialty occupation requirements.
A Work Experience Expert Opinion Letter can be used to ascertain whether or how work experience aligns with and would be equivalent to academic coursework within a US degree. Based upon a candidate’s employment history as documented via employer support letters (i.e. company names, titles, roles and responsibilities, and all job duties), our evaluators will examine and provide a report detailing the expertise, knowledge, and skills that the candidate has acquired through their professional career and relate this experience to the skills and knowledge that would be developed through a US baccalaureate degree.
To hire a foreign employee in a specialty occupation, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) requires that the position and the candidate meet the requirements of a specialty occupation (learn more). Since a specialty occupation requires that the minimum entry requirement for the position must be the equivalent of a relevant US bachelor's degree, the candidate must demonstrate this equivalence.
Here are a few reasons why you might need a work experience evaluation to support an H-1B application.
-
You earned a degree in a discipline that is different than the area you are seeking a position. This is a common issue. As per a report written by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, only 27% of college graduates work in a job requiring a college degree related to their college major. An Expert Opinion Letter of work experience can explain whether or how your work experience, in conjunction with your academic degree, would be equivalent to a degree in the discipline required of your position.
-
You earned a 2 or 3-year university degree. In some countries, a university degree takes less than 4 years. To demonstrate the US equivalence of your degree, an expert may be able to explain how your degree (in conjunction with work experience) would be viewed as equivalent to a US degree.
See examples and learn more about how this type of RFE relates to specialty occupation requirements or learn about the H-1B on our sister site, h1bexpert.com