Writing this as cautionary tale for people working at Bloomberg and planning to leave before getting a green card. When you try to apply for a Perm from a new company Bloomberg refuses to give the experience letter needed to apply the perm. Also, managers are prohibited from giving any details of your work even if it is very vague information that will not compromise any confidential data. Even if this letter is not on office letter head. If you don’t expect your priority date to be current soon RUN from this place. Get experience somewhere that does not hate immigrants.
You can get two colleagues to write for you instead.
Ideally even colleagues are not supposed to but they can under the table. Also your colleagues need to be not stickler for rules. But yes this is the only work around.
From what I understand (please check with an immigration attorney), getting a letter from a supervisor who currently works at the company is considered primary evidence of work experience. Getting two letters from former colleagues is considered secondary evidence.
(mostly hearsay) Have heard folks in other financial institutions face this. Somehow someone at those companies think that giving out a letter stating a single statement like “you worked on Java (or other languages) “ will compromise their trade secrets. This needs to be called or more. Thanks for posting!
Makes sense. Think about how much bad publicity Bloomberg will get if they let people know their trade secrets, which involve employees still working with FORTRAN and C lmao.
Dear OP, thanks for posting this. Really valuable information. We can extend it to most financial companies.
Heard from a my colleague and a friend at ibm that they need to pay lawyer fee if they decide to leave before GC and with current wait time it's ridiculous
Target has a similar policy. Haven’t heard of anybody who was made to pay the fees but it’s definitely in the policy document and it’s mentioned in the employee separation instructions
Not surprised, Bloomberg can be a scummy company. As a former employee, I don't trust them
Fucking company.
Upvoted for visibility. Name and shame these predators
So my priority date won't be current soon but I am leaving Bloomberg soon. Does this mean my new company will not be able to file a GC for me with old priority date?
Your priority date stays the same if your i140 is 6 months old you can continue applying for new h1b using that. But your new company will need to file a Perm application for you and get new i140 so that you can get a green card when your date is current. Filing for perm needs a proof that you have relevant work experience this is where you will have a problem proving what experience you have from Bloomberg. But if you have worked at some other place for few years you can show that experience and it will hopefully be sufficient. If your coworkers from BB are ready to break the rule they can also give you a letter but you need their redacted w2 or paystubs to prove they worked with you.
I’m also in the same boat. My priority date is not current, but I do plan to leave after 6 months after my i140 approval. Also WHY is Bloomberg refusing to give out a employment verification letter!?? What’s wrong with them? Were you in the Engineering department at Bloomberg?
This applies for all departments?
Not sure . Applies for engineering / R&D.
Also, after talking to people working at tons of other companies this is a non issue everywhere else.