I left Amazon recently on h1b (reasons irrelevant here) and was on 60 days grace period ending in 30 days from today. i was able to land 4 offers and i need help in choosing the best path forward. TC is around 140-150 with 5 Yoe for most . The problem is that i have one consulting firm Kforce offering me competitive salary and green card processing within one month of joining and willing to file h1 transfer asap but their contract states that its 18 mo contract and if i leave during that time so they can take me to court to pay for charges incurred in training etc. Other companies are direct hires with good companies and willing to sponsor h1 transfer but are very slow in processing which may actually end up expiring my 60 day grace period. Ideally i want to join these other companies but above is the issue. If i join kforce temporarily (ethically wrong) then they won’t let me go easily. What should i do besides doing the obvious which is to request other companies to make offer and file h1 b transfer quickly as i have done so already but to no use as they need approvals etc.
Go for established companies. Consulting companies will squeeze you out. Have seen a few of my friends take that path and regret. Again YMMV.
Join any company and pay out of pocket for premium h1 transfer it's only 1.5k.
Thats not the issue. The hiring process itself is the issue . Offer (taking all approvals from senior management) plus background check plus preparing for h1 transfer . Im willing to pay for premium but delay is from the process itself
Got it.
Join leftovers
If you let these other employers know about your situation then they may be able to fast track the preparation of your petition. You just need a receipt notice for your H-1B transfer to start working for one of these other employers you are talking about.
30 days is enough time to file transfer paperwork. You don’t need approval within that timeframe to keep status. Consulting company might also have higher RFE risk.
I have received RFE every time KForce filled for the extension. This was before trump era. Imagine the situation now. KForce gave me hard time to accept a new job which i was not interested at all. The manager was literally threatening me.
If i sign the contract and make kforce file the h1 transfer petition and before joining date i join another company would kforce threaten me in that case is my concern because thats the best path i see to have atleast 1 employer file while i wait for others and if other petitions are successful i can just not join kforce
You would have to let the employer know about it. All you have to do is file the petition before grace ends. Yes it takes time to put up a petition. But note this, all these lawyers can be instructed by HR personnel in the company to put all regular cases aside and work only on yours. This is done several times with my teammates itself
Can a company actually take you to the court? I have heard that we can freely leave the company at any time. The rules in US are in the favor of employee.
You can leave them whenever you want but they can take you to court and claim for the money they have spent on you in training and other charges as per laws i think
1. Join on Receipt. 2. At the most, there would be a need to go out and get consular processing done. When you have an option of full time, wouldn't suggest contract. Please do check with attorney of the companies that have offered you.
Say you’d like to join kforce to them but that you also have 3 other offers that look attractive and none of them have claw backs, and what’s keeping you from going with kforce is the claw back terms. They might be willing to drop them.
That will raise red flags in the eyes of kforce because even before joining im asking them to drop a clause for leaving at will. So they could imply that im joining them just to fix the visa status and leave them later.