M458 wrote:randomstudent wrote:1. If you go to a good school and get good grades, that should be enough to catch the attention of at least a few firms. Then if you have a good personality and work well with people, that should help you convert your interviews into at least one job offer.
2. As far as the visa issue, some of my international classmates have told me one or more of the following: (1) It is impossible to get some government jobs without a greencard or U.S. citizenship. (2) Many smaller firms will not sponsor international students for a greencard because of the hassle and cost of the petitioning process.
So in some respects, some international students feel like they have to get a job at a big law firm if they want to get a job at all in the U.S. I would hasten to add that I have not researched this issue myself because I am not an international student. But this is what I have heard from some of my friends.
International student here and I wholeheartedly agree with the bolded. As an international student, it's pretty much big law or bust.
Thirded. Sure, you could get a small firm job on OPT and they love you so much they'll sponsor your visa, but if you want to be 100% safe you should be looking for a big or high-paying medium sized firm that has sponsored H1B's before. If they're paying you 140k, they don't care about the 15000 it costs to sponsor your visa.
