Visa Timelines and Planning for Post-Covid Work Overseas

This is an audio topic published as part of the Meetup on working overseas.

When you first start the process of applying for a visa, you'll note on some countries websites, they will give you an idea of how much time each step of the process takes. In fact, the web has brought about a lot more transparency into sort of expected timelines. COVID-19 has delayed a lot of it, but they'll note that on the website and they'll give you a general guide (to the overall timeline). It can be quite long. It could be up to a year, but at each stage of the process, there's usually a form (to submit) and then you'll get an acknowledgement that that's been filled out and then you're waiting. So you're gathering a lot of data and then you're submitting it and then you're waiting. So it's important to list up the timeline just to temper your expectations.

For immigration, you have more of the control because you're applying for a visa from the country. If you are applying for a job and they're going to sponsor you, then you need to just be used to having more patience because it's not like applying for a job in your home country where everyone understands your background and you can see, you know, that your work status and your languages are fine. Everything is understandable (in your home country). When you're applying for a job overseas, it's harder.

And the defacto response is silence unless you are referred or you have a friend who works at the company. And in that case, you know, you might hear back from your friends or from the contact that you got. So just think about, you know, do you want to give yourself a year to be working? Is that your timeline, does that correspond to your plan for the visa? Are you going to get the visa yourself first and then look for a job? Or is that dependent upon getting a work visa first? Which is going to be tough in pretty much all cases just because that's what's the process supposed to be.

But in places like the U. K., they have a new process to apply for work visas and you find the company and then they will go get you the visa. You do have to be careful about companies that promise to get you a visa but then never do. You have to be careful about companies that want lots of your personal information so that you know they're not a scam, they're not gonna misuse that information.

You have to be comfortable with the legal system to know that you're not covered by any protections until you actually accept the job and get the visa. And the legal system of your target company might be different from your home country. That said, you should definitely try to sketch out the timelines and then what's the basis for the timeline. Again, if it's just applying for jobs and you hope to get a response within a year, that's different than applying for a migration visa in Canada, or the U. S. or Singapore, and then receiving it because you're pushing forward that process. Those timelines have a little more firmness to them.

Thanks very much.