I am going to go ahead and get started. Just waited a few minutes. So thank you. Everyone for joining me and welcome. Today I'm going to talk  with you about job search strategies for international students who are in non stem programs.  My name is Erica Ford, and I am the International Career Development Coach in the Central Career Services Office. Just as a quick note career services is a network of offices across Cornell's campus.  If you happen to be tuning in from Cornell Tech, there is also a Cornell Tech career office  and we support students throughout Cornell. The Central Office sees most students at Cornell, but there are some programs that we don't support. I think of the law School, most of their programs and the vet school as examples.  Susie is joining us from the graduate school. And she focuses on non academic tracks for Ph. D's and master students, too. Right? More industry tracks.  So  just a a couple of examples of some of the varieties of career offices that exist at Cornell. There are lots of them, and if you would like to know if you have more than one support office, you can reach out to career@cornell.edu, for guidance.  and we can point you in the right direction.  I want to emphasize that today's session is unlike a lot of the job search strategies, strategy workshops.  It's really geared toward strategies that will help international students that are generally different from domestic students.  I did do a presentation on job search strategies for all students back in January, and that session is posted to the career services.  What is it called, the Career Services  media library. There we go. And I have a QR code to direct you to media library. If you like to watch that session that'll give you more in depth. General job search strategies from career exploration through networking and other topics. And today, we are going to focus on  these specific topics.  So establishing your career goals specifically as they relate to immigration, but also just general career goals.  We're going to talk about building relationships with employers through internships and experiences, building your resume as well.  we'll talk about the different types of jobs that are allow for your one year of opt. Since you are  hopefully all non non-stim students.  We'll talk about certain tools and strategies that support the international student job. Search  challenges and strategies related to sponsorship  and having a but backup plan.  So in regard to establishing your career goals. You want to think about your short term and your long term goals. Those  both of those goals will have an effect on the decisions that you make and how you navigate your job. Search  those goals may include working temporarily in the Us. Maybe you just want to do an internship and one year of work on opt, and you plan to go home.  or you don't want to do opt. And you plan to go straight home. Maybe this.  maybe you're here for internship tips. But this entire workshop may not be as helpful to you if you're only looking for jobs back home. Working in a third country, I think. Canada. I think Australia. I think the Uk.  Or you plan to go on and pursue further education. Maybe you have long term employment  plans and goals for the Us.  Whether that's a temporary work, visa, or something more permanent, like an employment based screen card. There are lots of immigration pathways, and I am not an immigration expert, even though I know a lot of things enough things.   I believe later on I mentioned that you should talk with an immigration attorney. But I will take this moment to say, if you do have long term immigration goals, whether they're employment based or family based. You really want to work with an immigration attorney. This is in their will house, their expertise. Their services are fee based.  But they they are really helpful and knowledgeable of us. Immigration. If you need some recommendations, you can reach out to me by email,  or just message me in the chat. I will not say my email here, since this will be record. It  also related to your goals. Think of like what types of jobs do you actually want? Are there industries that interest you? What specific roles or job titles are you looking for? If you don't know, can you do some research and discover opportunities  that may be interesting to you, or if a good fit for you, and think of different company profiles, do you want  for-profit? Do you want nonprofit? Do you want governmental experiences?  Large mid size, smaller start up types of companies.  Do you want entrepreneurship? Or do you plan to start a company of your own  and  at the graduate level are you seeking, or if you're an undergrad, do you intend to go into an academic career path? Or do you want to stick with industry or non academic careers? These are all important things to think through and  plan and discover about yourself if what you want.  I know that as international students, too, you have family back home that have expectations for you and desires for you. You have support networks who may be far from you at this moment. So I also encourage you to talk with them about what your goals are, and because they know you the most.  you can really bounce ideas off of each other and think through strategies and interests that are relevant.  Next, I want to talk about building relationships with employers through internships. I also mentioned earlier building your resume through internships. So think of internships as one way to get good experiences  that will help you along your career journey.  The National Association of Colleges and Employers recently released results of a survey. They surveyed 255 employers. Most of them are members of NACE, others were not and they asked them, what are some top characteristics they're looking for in  students, that they plan to hire in 2024. And one of the things that sit out to me is that one of the top factors that those employers use to determine whether or not to offer a full time job to  a candidate is internship experience. So if they are deciding between 2 candidates, they will give preference to the one with internship experience.  Based on that, and knowing that employers value hands on experience and also knowing that it can really help you to grow. My encouragement is if you are in a program that allows CPT, allows internships that you pursue  internships. If you're not in a program that allows CPT. But you're studying for longer than a year. There's nothing keeping you from doing an internship back home.  There are some employers who give more preference to those who have US-based work experience. So if you can get at least one internship based in the US, that will be to your benefit.  If you're not sure if you are eligible for CPT, which stands for curricular practical training, I should probably say that and is a type of work authorization that F1 international students can participate in. If you're not sure about your eligibility for CPT, I recommend talking with the International Services team in the office of global Learning.  If you're a J1 student, then you want to talk with them about academic training instead.  So let's say you're not eligible for CPT, because you're in a one year program, or you're in a program that requires you to be undeclared for your first 2 years like a lot of Arts and Sciences, and you can't declare your major, and are not eligible for CPT in your first summer.   Because of  that. You can't declare your major until spring of your second year. Therefore you can't do CPT in summer of your first year. Well, here are some alternatives I mentioned already  going home as an option. You don't need special work authorization to work back home. So maybe there are some opportunities that you can pursue that are related to your field of interest. But they're just outside of the US. You don't need CPT to work outside of the US.  Also on campus employment, research, or projects with professors. pre-professional clubs or campus activities  personal projects, independent study projects or joining project teams or group projects. I also think of resources like the Forage or Parker Dewey, which offer industry, level projects for specific employers, not for pay, just for experience. Those are really good resources.  And then joining professional organizations, also provides really good connections for networking, and also some opportunities that you may uncover for professional development and training that aren't considered work.   So you want to branch out and consider different ways that you can get experience in your field of interest.  and then figure out how to describe those experiences on your resume or in an interview.  Sometimes students, especially here at Cornell, get really discouraged if they are not doing as many things as their peers. Like maybe  up here got a really good consulting internship, for example, consulting is  very popular among Cornell students.  and you may feel well, my peers are doing all of these wonderful things, but I'm lacking in experience. I encourage you to instead focus on the things that you do, have the skills and experiences that you do bring to the table and finding opportunities, whether it's through formal internships or non internship experiences on campus to build your experiences and build your skills. That's really what it's all about.  So these are some foundational tips to help launch your job search.  Now, because you all  I assume are non stem students again. You only have one year of OPT.  and most likely you're using it the most the bulk of it, or all of it after graduation. So  a lot of students don't realize that there are a variety of types of employment that are allowed for OPT. And I took this list from the  Office of Global Learning's International Services page focused on OPT and OPT stands for optional practical training. It is a type of work authorization that F1 international students can participate in  before or after graduation most do after graduation.  And if you are a J1 student, you're looking at academic training again.  So.  and ask your sponsor whether it's Cornell or someone else if you're a J1 about employment options for academic training.  But in reference to OPT. These are the types of jobs that are allowed. Did you know this? You could even put in the chat if you knew about this, so you can work in paid positions or unpaid positions. You can work full time or part time as long as it's 20 hours a week or, more generally.  you can have multiple employers. You can do contract work, temporary work, freelance employment.  You can start your own company. It requires a company license for your state.   I mentioned unpaid, but you can volunteer. You can do an internship.  Volunteer work is usually unpaid, but certain internships qualify for being unpaid. But there are federal employment laws that determine which are eligible as unpaid internship. So make sure you're not being taken advantage of by doing an unpaid internship.  So these are the types of jobs that you could consider for your one year of OPT that are different from  full-time standard jobs. You're not required to do something other than full-time  standard jobs. But you have the option for your first year of OPT or your only year of OPT in this case, if you're non-STEM.  you'll want to speak with the office of global learning their international services team specifically, if you have questions about these types of jobs, and you can also find this information on their website under their OPT page.  So think about open, broaden your options  through understanding the different  types of jobs that you can do for OPT. That's another strategy. Cast a wider net, I often say.  Next, you want to be sure you're using the right tools and the appropriate strategy for your job search. So one important thing to know is different industries have different hiring timelines or peak recruitment seasons. This chart comes from the career development toolkit in the Job search section.  Believe that's where this yes, that is where this QR Code leads. If you like to scan it.  But you'll see here there's some industries like financing, consulting that start their recruitment for summer  the previous  summer, basically. And last year they started in spring, whereas other  industries like education, government, sustainability, advocacy, they start in the spring. So, depending on what industries you're interested in and the job roles that you establish as your goals.  You'll want to aim to look for and apply for jobs during those peak recruitment season that allows you  to take advantage of the most options available. and make sure you're not missing out on opportunities that  are available to you.   it's important to also note that, depending on your academic level. If you're looking for full time jobs, especially, there can be different hiring timelines based on your academic level. So I mentioned consulting earlier, it's the first one that comes to mind, not to say that you should  be doing consulting but they have later deadlines for graduate students. So you'll want to look into your industry and specific company standards. Different companies do different things. And again plan to look for jobs within that window of time. March marks the end of recruitment season for a lot of industries. So  if you're not currently applying to jobs, you'll want to be doing that if your industry is on this list through March.  Here are some other tools to use. Or here are some tools to use for international students, specifically, so hopefully, you all know about handshake. It is  one of the top job search platforms for students in the US. It's used by a lot of colleges and universities and handshake has a work authorization filter or multiple filters for work authorization. So I have a little  image here. Hopefully, you can see it better than I can see it.  Use my laser pointer. But here  you have 3 filters. Jobs that don't require US work authorization.  I'll come back to that and tell you I don't like this filter because it's misleading.  based on what employers select.  The second filter is for those that are eligible for US work visa sponsorship. So the employer has indicated that they're willing to sponsor this specific job. The third is for those who accept CPT and OPT academic training can be considered in that as well.  I'll explain the reason why I'm not  so much a fan of the first filter is because there's no such thing as a US-based  paid job that doesn't require work authorization.  If it's a position that's in another country, it doesn't require US work authorization. But it's going to require work authorization in the other country. So sometimes employers select work authorization not require when it's actually not true. It doesn't mean that you can't apply for those jobs. You do have work authorization if you're eligible for CPT and OPT, or OPT  but just know that this particular filter can be misleading if you're looking at US based jobs  trying to think, is there anything else about handshake?  I don't think there's anything else about handshake that I wanna say so, I'll move on to vault. So vault is a career exploration and job exploration tool that a lot of universities use. And US Cornell students have access to, and they have a section of their website that's devoted to internships. They call it their intern resource center, I believe.  and feel free to scan any or all of these QR. Codes to pull up those resources and bookmark them for yourselves.   but one thing, that vault  incorporated at some point recently is an indication that certain internship programs are  open to international students or international students are eligible for certain internship programs. Now, they have a lot of internship programs, at least a couple 100, I would say, in their  interim resource center. So what we did as career services in the central office is, we had one of our students go through  most, if not all, of those pages and pull out those programs that open or that are open to international students. So you can log into vault and click around and look page to page. But it can be a little discouraging if you want to just get straight to the list of programs that are international student friendly, you can email me.  And at this point I will say, my email address is, oh, it's here, in fact, yes, ef434@cornell.edu. So feel free to email me. If you don't want to bother with looking through all of those programs.  And you just want to get straight to the point.  What will help me to help you is if you include any industries you're interested in and job roles that you're seeking. Then I can pull information from lists.  Hopefully, we'll make this list  available to students through the career development toolkit. So stay tuned  the next resource hopefully, you all have heard of because I hounded you and emailed you nonstop in the fall to let you know that we were introducing this resource. It's called Interstride. It's basically a job search and career education platform that is focused on international students.  They have a lot of pages. There's a lot of information in there, but I do want to point out a couple of the resources interstride that are helpful for non-STEM students.  So within their US visa insights section, which don't have a screenshot of. But it's in their jobs section. It's a subsection of their job section.  They have a filter for searching by industry, and that's what this screenshot is here.  which hopefully, you can see better than I can see but  I know that at least one student who registered today is in hospitality, so you could go into interstride's US visa insights page, switch your industry to hospitality and see which employers  sponsor work visas for that particular industry.  They also have visa filters for CPT and OPT. So that's what these screenshots are. The data from those filters comes from  a 4 year old report. So it's not recent data, but between 2017 and 2020.  The Student and Exchange Visitor program publicized the top 200 CPT and OPT employers across the US.  So that information is publicly viewable and interstride has a filter where you can search for those employers in the platform. Or you can just Google SCPP, CPT, OPT employers and navigate to that report to pull it up yourself. The interstride data is, I put 2019 to 2020. But that's wrong. It's 2017 to 2020.  the reports go all the way back to 2003. It's still the top 200, but it gives like a range between 2003 and 2019. Here are the top 200  employers for CPT or OPT  so check that out as well. If you need some leads to know who is international friendly.    I think I will, yes, I will talk about this more on the next slide.  and then it's important to know that even if you're not looking for work-visa sponsorship, working with companies who are  eager to sponsor or have a track record of sponsoring is to your benefit because it demonstrates their willingness to hire international workers and international students, and  they are more likely to be familiar with CPT and OPT, which means you don't have to explain and educate them on what that means, or convince them to hire you.   And if you are interested in sponsorship,  they've been down the road of sponsoring an international worker before they probably have immigration attorneys that they already work with. They've demonstrated that they're willing to pay the additional  few $1,000 to go through the sponsorship process and the additional funds to pay immigration professionals to help with that process  and other things like cultural benefits, like if they have a more diverse and international workforce that increases the likelihood of them having   people who have shared experiences as you do and also others that you can learn from, so you won't feel so much as an outsider or like an outsider. So those are some reasons why at least targeting companies that have a history of sponsorship can be to your benefit.  Here's some other tools. So I don't want to  promote these tools necessarily. But instead, I will mention them as options.  So interstride goes back one year the data that they provide, which is helpful because it's recent. But what if you want to know  the last 5 years of sponsorship history of a company. These 3 tools can help you with that.  The first one is called H1B Grader.  They have a database and a browser plug-in. This is a screenshot of their browser plug-in. So it works with LinkedIn,  Glassdoor, and Indeed, I believe, and when you go into search for jobs in Linkedin's job section it will add a little  sorry, that's F1 hire. This is the database for H1B Grader. So let me rewind. So H1B Grader's database is good because they have a title search. So if you want to type in human resources something, you could see which employers have sponsored human resources professionals  which can help you sift through a lot of opportunities and pinpoint those international friendly companies  In general  H1B Grader, F1 Hire, and Ultimate H1B Sponsor Checkers' plug-ins work, all of them work with LinkedIn. All should work with Glassdoor.  Indeed, but F1 Hire works with handshake.  I will say that F1 Hire's plug-in, it has a lot of information to sift through, but it also has some helpful features like it helps you to track the job applications you viewed. They have a paid version and a free version, so does  I think the other 2 do as well. H1B grader definitely does  not sure about Ultimate H1B Sponsor Checker. But when you pull up a job or like Glassdoor is pictured here, or Linkedin is pictured here, it will show you before or after the job posting.  Does this employer have a history of sponsorship? And again, it may not. You may not be looking to be sponsored, but there are benefits of working with employers who have sponsored and have demonstrated their willingness to hire international workers and international students.  So I recommend checking out these 3 resources in addition to using  Interstride.  I will also send a copy of this presentation. So you'll have to QR codes and everything.  So here is a strategy that I propose.  For the international student job search. It is relevant for STEM and non-STEM students.  I like to think of employers in 3 different categories  or job opportunities in 3 different categories. There's what I call low effort which are employers who have basically made it clear that they hire international students.  Medium effort, those that you can assume hire international students based on their sponsorship history.  And then high effort, those where you have no clue, and you can't find any information to help you determine whether or not they are open to hiring international workers.  I recommend that you put most of your effort toward and really the least of your effort toward low effort opportunities.  jobs you find in handshake that say they accept CPT and OPT  internship programs involved that indicate they accept international students.  And maybe you've gone to a career fair. Maybe you've looked at the SCPP top 200 CPT and OPT employer list, or you've searched through handshake. Maybe you've heard from a friend, or you know, an alum, or you met someone  in an information session through handshake or the employer's website. But they've made it explicitly clear that they will hire you as an international student. If you fit their needs.  focus the majority of your effort on those types of employers  for medium effort employers. It takes a little more work. It takes some research to figure out  do they have a track record of hiring? And then do they have a track record of sponsoring? And if you're interested in sponsorship or just being hired? Do they have a track record of sponsoring for roles like mine?   it takes time to figure that out, but there are resources which we just went over that can help make that process a little easier.  I tend to recommend, if you find a job hosting, it's very easy to just plug them in to Interstride, or one of the other 3 resources and see have they sponsored an H1B before? Did they sponsor for 2023? What positions and app, what hiring level entry, level experience management  did they sponsor? If you're looking for an entry level role for a company that only sponsors software engineers or managers, it may not be worth your time to give your effort to those employers, especially if they haven't made it clear that they accept CPT and OPT, so you'll want to strategize and think through and plan through   the different types of opportunities. And then high effort, I mentioned. You have no idea if they are willing to hire you, you look them up. They don't have any sponsorship history, or they've only sponsored roles, that you would not be eligible for  or they've made it clear that they don't hire international students. Don't waste your time with those  opportunities.  And then you'll want to decide  for these 3 buckets, how much time and how many applications do you want to devote to each bucket? So I propose generally that you do a 6, 3,1, or a 7, 2, 1  The majority of your apps go to low effort, a few of your apps, or a couple of your apps go to medium effort, you could adjust as needed. And then, if you come across an experience that you're like, okay, I'm not sure. But I really am interested in this. It really fits my  goals and skill set, then that could be your one. And this is out of 10. So out of every 10 applications, you dedicate a certain percentage to low, medium, and high effort  opportunities.  I think that that will help to alleviate some of the frustrations that all international students feel when they job search. And then the additional frustrations that non-STEM international students feel when they're searching for jobs, because there's a lot of preference given to stem workers which I'll cover later on.  And then you don't want to limit yourself. Whether it's the type of company you're looking for, the location,    those are some of the two. The specific job title is another way that students may limit themselves. You want to cast a wider net if you can. So maybe out of every 10 applications you devote one to an opportunity that's not in your ultimate  job type, or three, two opportunities that are not in your ultimate employer, profile or prefer job type or company, size or company reputation. Maybe you'd take the chance and submit one application to a startup every other week, or something like that. Try to broaden the types of applications you're putting out there because you never know what opportunities you may come by.  That are to your benefit, especially employers that are willing to hire you for OPT.  There are chats.  Thank you, Susie. Thank you. Thank you.  Great and thank you.   Next you want to set some concrete goals for your search. So I propose, you know if you're in classes. All of you are taking classes right now, unless there's some alumni, which you are welcome. But set some attainable goals for your job search.  There are a lot of students who waited until winter break to start searching for jobs. Which is fine. It's one way to do it, but I can imagine that they feel additional pressure if they haven't. And I've seen students who feel additional pressure if they haven't started interviewing.  started actually applying. And they're going to graduate May, or they want to do a summer internship. So  now is the best time that you can start making progress toward your job search. You want to do foundational tasks which aren't written on this slide, but having your resume review.  learning how to write strong cover letters  deciding on a strategy or standards for your search, the types of companies, the job titles, work with career services on all of those things. We also help prepare for interviews. So if you get called in for an interview, you'll know what to expect, especially as an international student. Maybe there are cultural expectations. There are questions that are  ask that you've never been asked before. Come, talk to us, and we can help culture through interviews. We can do a practice interview with you both behavioral and case interviews.  We also offer technical interview prep.   not going through, though all of that in detail here. But  check the career development toolkit in the resources section there, or look at the job search workshop that I mentioned earlier, which is posted to the Career Services media library, which I actually have on this slide. So this QR code and maybe Susie will help put urls in the in the chat, which is great.  So check out the media library and check out that other job search session that we did in January. So let's get back to talking about goals, so attainable goals, applications.  a number of applications per week. 3 to 5 is to me reasonable. Maybe you do one Monday, one Wednesday, one Friday, where you save all three for the weekend you just identify jobs you want to apply to throughout the week.  Do what works with your schedule and if you can only do one or two in a week, that's okay. Don't beat yourself up or if you can go higher and do more, you just wanna make sure those are good quality applications that you've given thought to and prepared well for written a cover letter form, for example. Talk to us again about how to write a good cover letter.  I mentioned don't save your job search for a break. So maybe you're like, okay, I'll worry about that during spring break. But spring break is pretty far into the semester. Maybe you'll do job searching for February break, which is much sooner. But that's just a few days, right? So if you spread out your job search, you'll end up making more progress by the end of your semester  as opposed to just saving your job. Search for breaks. And you want to stay organized. This is one of the biggest recommendations that I can make, and I think, based on my own experiences, searching for jobs.  and just talking with students. You won't really remember what you've applied for and that can. And when you apply and that can confuse you, that can cause you to do extra work. Maybe you've already submitted an application, and you go in and try to submit a second one, which hopefully their system will let you know you've already applied. But  maybe not. I don't know.  It helps you to keep track of who you've heard from and who you haven't heard from, who you can follow up with. Whether or not. You can make networking connections with Cornell alumni. There's just lots of benefits to  keeping up with the applications you have submitted thus far, and you can do that through something as simple as a spreadsheet  with basic information. When did you apply? What's the link to the job hosting? Who's the company? What's the title? And then we generally recommend that you save a copy of the job description, because a lot of employers pull those off of the web once they reach their application quota. So  please keep track of what you've applied to and save copies. Print to Pdf. Save a copy of the job description to your files.  You can also save yourself some time by setting up alerts on Handshake. LinkedIn, I'm sure, Indeed, and Glassdor have alerts as well. There's also Google Careers. They have a career website which isn't as functional as Handshake or LinkedIn. But you still may discover  opportunities there. So set up alerts.  Also please set up your Handshake profile, your LinkedIn profile. I don't have that here as well, but I went through and looked at the registration list today in Handshake and noticed that maybe two-thirds have something in your profile. A third of you don't. But employers can see your profile in Handshake  depending on your settings, of course, and depending on your settings LinkedIn employers can see your LinkedIn. So it's almost like you're giving a first impression to an employer. You're giving them information about your work history, and they can use that to determine whether or not they're gonna include you in a message about  a job that's open, or  whether or not they will respond to you. If you've reached out to to try and inquire about the job. So you'll want to set up your handshake, profile, your Linkedin profile. You'll also want to set up your handshake career interests  because your profile, your career interests and your search history teach Handshake what opportunities to recommend to you. So your first 50 or so jobs in the job section when you click on that. It's going to pick those  opportunities based on your search history and your profile and career interest. So please, please, please set those up if you need help figuring that out contact a career coach email, me and I can send you some instructions, whatever you need   and we can help you.  And you'll want to pursue quality over quantity.  So I talk with some students who are like, I've applied to 300 jobs, and I haven't heard back from anyone. What that may mean is that  your application quality may not be as strong as it could be. So work with us if you need to make improvements to your resume, make improvements to your job, search strategy. Make improvements to how you write cover letters. Please don't use cover letter templates. They work against you. There are strategies like that that where we can really coach you through your career services, and then you'll want to incorporate networking.  I don't think we have our any networking workshops in the media library, but there is one to come. That was done back in January. So stay tuned for that.  And if you'd like to just talk about networking, you're more than welcome to schedule an appointment we also have, which I don't mention here, either. The career development toolkit which covers resume standards, writing the cover letters, networking strategies, interview prep. So if you're not signed up for the career development toolkit  please visit our website career.cornell.edu, and the toolkit is linked to the homepage. If you're an undergraduate student, you're automatically enrolled. But if you're a graduate student, you're not. So  that is that.  Okay so let's talk challenges and strategies we've got 12 minutes. I feel like  I've been going on and on, and time has flown. so here are some things that may be sobering about job searching as a non-STEM student and as an international student.  So this is more like a pep talk than sobering. But I'm gonna get to the sobering realities.   You are your best advocate.  I advocate for you, career services in general advocates for you, our employer relations team advocates for you as Cornell students. But at the end of the day it's all said and done. You are your best advocate.  And I encourage you to figure out how to advocate for yourself with employers. And here are some  concrete tips for doing that. So because employers aren't always familiar with CPT and OPT, I talked about the  work authorization not required filter. As an example earlier you may get to the point where you have to explain to employers what CPT and OPT are, and it's helpful if you learn for yourself what they are. And there's a lot of  tools provided through Cornell's Office of Global Learning, where you can learn about CPT and OPT. I caution you against looking for information through things like Tik Tok  Instagram, unless it's a reputable person. Because  I've watched some of those videos and some people get information wrong. So you really want to work with International Services.  You can follow me on LinkedIn. I also have an Instagram page, check out my LinkedIn if you want some details about international student job searching. But please be careful not to get advice from people who don't know what they're talking about.  Use the resources that do know what they're talking about. and then equip yourself with a clear understanding of CPT and OPT. So look at the Office of Global Learning CPT and OPT pages.  It will walk you through all the details about those two types of work authorization, also academic training. I don't want to leave the jays out, but look at the academic training page. If you're not sponsored by Cornell, look at your sponsors resources, talk to your sponsor about work authorization, and make sure you have a strong understanding of what you are allowed to do on CPT and OPT  Then you can tell an employer  you don't even have to worry about sponsoring me for this internship. My school sponsors me for CPT, or if you're doing a post graduation internship, which is possible as well, my school sponsors me for OPT.  I'm not looking for your sponsorship at all. Maybe you are but if you're not, you can say that you don't need to sponsor me. I know this is a temporary work experience, and I'm very interested in doing this.  Let me explain to you  my school's work authorization that's given to me, and the timing of when I would be able to work those sorts of things. Advocate for yourself, and equip yourself with understanding.  I say here, be sure to communicate that it's through Cornell you don't have to sponsor. Cornell is my sponsor and employers don't have to do much for CPT or OPT. They just have to provide an offer letter.  One of the advantages for you as non-STEM students  is that STEM requires a lot more steps. STEM OPT requires a lot more steps for employers than the first year of opt. So your disadvantage in that you have to fewer years of work authorization. But you also don't have to hassle with the annual reports or evaluations, or the training plan and other things that employers have to do.  Also part of self advocacy is asking for help when you need it reaching out to your connections. Think of your professors as great resources. You have a host of career advisors across  Cornell's campus, in the Central Office and in your college you have  hundreds of thousands of Cornell alumni that you can connect to not all hundreds of thousands. But you could choose from to connect to people who were former international students, or they just were in your major, or in other related majors or not related majors, and have established a career in an industry or role that interest you.  Please rely upon your support network and reach out and build connections, build relationships, because you never know how those people might help you make progress in your job, search or pinpoint opportunities  for internships and full time jobs.  So please, please, please make networking a part of your strategy and your way to self advocate.  Also related to networking is contacting recruiters.  So you can actually reach out to recruiters through Handshake. You can also do it through LinkedIn. But the benefit of Handshake is these are recruiters that work with college students. These are recruiters that work with Cornell.  So don't be afraid to reach out to them. If you need help figuring out. Just reach out to me, and I can help you.  Also joining information sessions, going to the Career Fair which is next week on Valentine's Day, it's virtual. It's from 1 to 5 pm. And you can sign up through Handshake.  Those are great ways to get in front of employers and make a good first impression. Make sure your resume is ready for that. If it's not come, see, for your services. Come to a drop-in appointment to have your resume reviewed  and be ready to interact with recruiters  and  be ready to explain that you have access to CPT and OPT.   And then I mentioned this earlier. You want to prepare well. Part of self advocacy is that preparation aspect. You don't want to go into a situation where you come off as unprepared, and you lose out on an opportunity because you didn't take some time to like  write out questions before an interview, or come up with template responses that don't sound too rehearsed.  For common interview questions. You can do practice interviews with us, as I mentioned earlier.   I also, and some of our other staff too, can talk with you about  how to answer work authorization questions on job applications. I posted about this earlier today on LinkedIn. So look at my LinkedIn page  and then when should you bring up CPT and OPT. I also have a resource for that  in this Powerpoint. So how do you broach this conversation? How do you talk with employers about whether or not there they will sponsor. How do you negotiate  work-visa sponsorship?  I have those conversations with students quite often.  So self-advocacy.    I feel like this is part of what I said earlier. So let me skip some of this. Okay so I actually put the answer to two common questions. I get this question all the time. How do I answer  application questions about work authorization? Are you legally authorized to work in the US? Yes, because of Cornell's sponsorship. It's temporary, but it's still legal work authorization.  And then will you now, or in the future, need work-visa, sponsorship or some version of that question. The answer to that is also, yes, even if you don't intend to stay long term  you would need sponsorship if you were to stay long term. So my recommendation is to also answer yes to that question, and the office of global learning has a similar stance.   If you are like engaged to a US citizen, and you know you'll be eligible for a green card, or you have some other circumstances. Maybe you're from Canada, and you have access to TN visa. There are other things. That you may, there are other reasons why you may change your answer from these   standard answers that I'm recommending. You'll want to talk to Office of Global Learning and/or an immigration attorney for additional guidance.  When to bring up CPT and OPT? So you'll want to let an employer know that you have access to CPT and OPT as soon as you can. You're not required to disclose your citizenship  or nationality.  Because employers can't make hiring decisions based on those facts, but they can make hiring decisions based on your work authorization. I have talked with students.  I had a conversation last semester with the student who did not disclose that they had temporary work authorization, and the employer rescinded their offer. You don't want to put yourself in that situation by hiding that information from an employer. Please be honest.   And again rely on or lean on the fact that Cornell is your sponsor for CPT and OPT and as much as you can make that clear to the employer.  And just know that I as the International Career Development coach, our employer relations team, Interstride, other schools with international student populations are working with employers  to advocate on your behalf as well. So it is hard for us  and we know that it is hard for you to convince employers sometimes to consider you as an applicant. But know that those conversations are being had. And  I personally look forward to further advocacy educating employers on what it means to hire an international student for an internship, for example. So  that's happening behind the scenes. And there's more to come.  Stay tuned.   I will breeze through this. So I mentioned  self advocacy. Here are some tools that will help you. I talked about the CPT, OPT, and academic training pages, which are 1, 2, 3 QR. Codes  Interstride also has an employer guide to hiring international students for the US specifically. So it covers CPT, OPT. It summarizes CPT, OPT.  It doesn't talk about academic training.  It talks about H1B, O1, L1 and other types of commonly pursued work visas as well.  And then I found this really interesting article, which also posted to LinkedIn today. That talks about  why to share your immigration status during interviews. When,   whether to, and why so I recommend that as well.  Gonna go a little over which I don't mind doing. But here we are. So  Lastly, we're talking about having a backup plan. So this gets to the sad and sobering realities of job searching in the US as a non-STEM student.  The reality is that the greatest workforce demand in the US is for STEM workers.  That is a fact, because that is where  skilled workers shortages are. So  there is a point at which  non-STEM students have to grapple with that reality. You're probably grappling with that reality right now, especially if you start with your job search, or you job searched last semester and didn't see a whole lot of options for yourself in handshake or otherwise.   and this is why. So I acknowledge that frustration.  and I just want to reiterate that STEM is what is in demand. So you're pursuing fields that may not be in demand.  You could look for niche areas where your skills are in demand, though, and we can talk about that. Come, see me.   It's also important to know that even in industries that aren't considered STEM. I think of government, I think of education and other things.  STEM workers are still in demand there. So  in an educational institution, they may have trouble hiring software engineers to help building that, for example, whereas they have an abundance of teachers, even though that's becoming  less and less the case.  Teaching is teaching, is becoming an in-demand field because of the pandemic mostly  And then there are some companies who, many companies that give preference  for sponsorship to upper level jobs. So think management, think non-entry level jobs, think  level 2 positions, or I forget there's a word that I'm missing out on right now are forgetting right now. But those positions that are not for recent grads, usually, unless you're at the doctoral level, then you're going into more advanced positions, usually.  But you may find that even if a company is willing to sponsor, they're only sponsoring experience, higher level or management level positions.   And then for most work-visas, employers have to do a search  looking for skilled workers who are already citizens or residents before they go forward to petition for a lot of work. These there's some where they don't have to do this. But for the H1B and a lot of employment based green cards, they do have to post the job, give it a certain amount of time, and then prove that they  posted the job for that amount of time, and couldn't locate a skilled worker who was a citizen or resident first, and therefore are going on to sponsor an international worker. That's part of the process.  So that's another sobering reality. And then there are social political factors. We have an election coming up, and the results of that election may mean that we go back to a less friendly social political environment for immigrants and international students.  So that's the sobering reality. Employers also have to reason through the additional costs of sponsoring, hiring immigration professionals to make sure they're doing it right.  And then managing records of those immigrant workers or international workers like, is it time to renew the H1B?   Whose visas or whose passport is about to expire, etc. and that's extra work that the employer has to commit to if they are willing to sponsor. And there are those who do but just know that's another barrier.  And then, when it's all said and done, if an employer does decide to sponsor, that doesn't guarantee that  the sponsorship process will end up successful. Many do but there are plenty that do not the US denies work-visa petitions or renewals for various reasons. So there's no guarantee, even if an employer is willing to sponsor that  that sponsorship would be successful. Therefore let's talk alternatives, and this is my last slide, and then maybe I'll do 5 min for questions. So how do you navigate these  unfortunate realities, the challenges of job searching as a non- STEM student?  Well, you'll want to think of other options and what are called parallel plans in addition to your  goals and desires in the US.  What are some alternatives to that? And you should think a couple of steps ahead, and unfortunately you have to be a few steps ahead of your domestic peers as international students, whether you're STEM or non-STEM but all the more so as non-STEM students. So think ahead. Think if you're a sophomore right now, think about what you're going to be doing after your senior year. Think about graduate education, if that's relevant for you, etc.  But what happens if plan A doesn't work. What's your plan B? Or your plan C? Or your plan D?  Or E, you know? And then devote some time to alternative plan. So I like to think in terms of percentages. So if I go back to the 10 job applications example that I use earlier, maybe 8 of those are in this one path, and then 2 of those are part of your backup path, or 6 of those, and 2 are plan A and 2 are plan B.     2 are plan C. Sorry, 6 of those are plan A, 2 of those are Plan B, and 2 of those are Plan C, that's what my percentages are here. Please follow me. Sorry for my terrible math. But please come up with some backup options.  And then consider, are there other countries that are more international friendly. There's been some news   from Canada because, they decided to admit, put a cap on the number of international students that they're admitting but it may not mean that they don't have demand for skilled workers from the US. So look into other countries, look into the HPI visa in the UK. Which you as Cornell alumni are eligible for up to 5 years post-graduation, and it will provide 2 years of work authorization at the masters  level or bachelor's level or 3 years, if you're completing your PhD, so you don't actually have to have a job at the time you're awarded the HPI  visa, unlike something like the H1B is shorter. But there are also paths to other visa types from the HPI that would allow you to stay longer. So that's one alternative.  There are also other visa types besides the H1B.   So if you're determined to stay in the US. You could talk with an immigration attorney about those other paths.  And they can have a really personalized conversation with you about alternatives. Immigration attorneys do charge high fees. I want to acknowledge that as well, but they are great resources. If you are determined to stay  another  path is pursuing further education, especially if you're in a bachelor's or master's program. I'm not saying do it because you want to stay, I am saying if you are considering it.  Maybe if you don't find a job you will start. You will also apply to  graduate programs instead, or in addition to your job applications as a backup, as a plan B.  So,  that is it.  Do you all have any questions? Let me check the chat.  Hi Susie, welcome back!  Thanks for putting all the links in the chat. Any questions? Ankita Ankita Sharma: Hi! Yeah, Erica, thanks for the presentation. I just had a quick question about what you said about OPT. So Ankita Sharma: If should we be applying to companies which do not sponsor as in like because if for one year, what we're eligible for is Cornell. If Cornell sponsors the one year opt that we have, and let's say we are okay with working in the Us. Just for a year, and we don't really care about sponsorship, but we just want that exposure. So do you suggest that then we tell companies like when Ankita Sharma: applying, and you know, when they ask, do you need sponsorship in the future? Do you suggest then we say yes, or should we say no then, because, like we don't really want them to sponsor us for H1B?  So my leaning is still saying yes. because it's future oriented.  If you're applying for a temporary job, then I think, saying, no is fine. If you're applying for an internship  that makes sense. But if you're applying for a job that doesn't have an end date.  Then, technically, the answer is, yes. If you were to stay  you should be ready, though, to  have a conversation with the employer. So there's what you put on the paper when you're applying  so, and I will take a step back to say, this is my recommendation.  but  these are your applications. So ultimately, you have to make your own decision. But because of the types of jobs that you would apply to if you're applying to a job. That's not a temporary job. Then the answer is yes, if you were to stay.  And therefore I think that the answer to that question should be, yes, if you're applying to a fellowship or a one year training program for recent graduates or a 6 month internship, the answer to that is no for this particular job that you're applying for. So I say, okay, it's okay to answer no, in that case. Ankita Sharma: Got it, or like, if it's a contractual rule or something like that. If it's a contract position, all of those things.  It's only for a year, therefore, you know, you won't need sponsorship. But if you're applying for a full time role that is permanent or ongoing. As long as you would stay with that company. You would need sponsorship after OPT.  Any other questions?  Okay, I will take that as a no and invite you to to visit  Cornell Career Services in the Central Office.  Depending on your program. You may have specialized support in your college, like NPS students, for example, have specialized support in their college   we also offer drop in appointments, not really appointments, drop in advising usually for cover letters, resume reviews, and to get you started with tools to support your job search. Those are  done by our peer career coaches who are very well trained and very skilled here in the Central Career Services Office. And then Monday, through Friday 1 to 4. Visit our website at career.cornell.edu email your questions to me at  ef434@cornell.edu, or career@cornell.edu, and follow us on Instagram at Cornell Career services  Yay!  I will stop recording now.