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Hi All,
I want to thank the contributors of this forum for helping with preparation / information about L1 Visa Interview.
I had my L1B Blanket interview scheduled for today with my family (Spouse & Infant) at Chennai
I got the benefit to skip multiple queues out of respect for the crankiness of the child. It makes sense to have documents in following order : I129S (All pages), 1 page of 797, Passport and DS160 of Primary Applicant, FPDF DD (N/A if Credit Card). Rest all the documents weren't needed for me at-least. After paying FPDF Fee of $500, you get multiple receipts stapled to your application form. Post that you go for biometric verification, followed by Visa Interview.
The above process took 10 min. for me (out of that for 5 min. I was just rearranging my massive pile of documents (3 sets of every damn document). It took hardly 5 min. for a person to validate my documents, for me to pay the visa fee, check the biometric and stand in back of an existing interview)
VO :
1) Requested for Passports
2) Company Name (Its a known Fortune 100 company, VO instantly reconfirmed the headquarters of the firm)
3) Designation (raised his eyebrows and muttered "thats intense" )
4) Salary in the US. (90k-100k)
5) What is your specialisation // My role is non-IT, Operations Role hence gave couple of points of explanation. But I realised that VO wasn't catching much hence simplified it little, which really helped.
VO asking my spouse :
1) When did you get married (6+ yrs)
2) What the birth date of my child / perhaps, the question was how old is the child
Took few seconds and stamped approved. Confirmed back verbally saying your visa is approved. Returned me 2 sets of I129S+797. Overall interview must have been for 2-4 minutes.
My thoughts : // Totally my myopic and less experienced opinion.
a) Preparation is in our control and we should do that with utmost effort. Even after preparing / rehearsing all possible questions, and there was only 1 relevant question and even for that I had to make course correction. I could hardly say 60% of what / how I had framed the ans. So point is, prepare to the best of your abilities. Think of logical questions that might come up out of your answers. Over-prepare as you might miss few things during the interview.
b) Its totally my opinion - Getting an L1B visa is 95% luck i.e. depends on the kind of VO that you encounter. The VO in my case was a really calm, composed person.My wife overheard in adjacent interview that the VO was digging a lot, so no matter how hard you prepare if you are dealt an unfavourable VO, there is nothing that you can do except state your case to the best of your abilities.
c) Talk slowly. Indians, when slightly nervous, talk a lot faster. Given the technical information that you are trying to explain to the VO, its better to be speak slowly and clearly. The challenge that I was facing was that the VO was talking very softly, hence I had to request him to repeat some of his questions twice. My hearing might also be an issue.
d) Its a dicey situation for L1B - You want to explain that your role is specialised but you cannot simplify too much for VO, else you run the risk wherein VO feels its not specialised field. My take : Simplify it for VO, the better they understand what you will be doing, its better for them to take a call. If they don't understand what you are saying, they'll not simply grant you the visa, benefit of doubt will not go to you, it'll go for admin processing / RFE / etc. So simplify your job and stress on why you're qualified to do it. I agree that people applying in IT domain have tough time given the preconceived notions (Just because you built a tool and only you know it, doesn't auto qualify you for visa anymore.) Things tend to go much deeper than that.
e) Finally, the name / brand of your company and salary also matters a lot. I anticipate that there are the algorithms / flags as part of the system evaluation. If salary > x for L1B, Green. If Company part of following List, Green. etc. So I could actually see my case getting stronger just looking at reaction of VO to my company name and my designation. IT roles, as a I called above, I would assume has higher scrutiny.
It has been stressful last couple of weeks but all is well that ends well.
Best of luck people. Enjoy.
I want to thank the contributors of this forum for helping with preparation / information about L1 Visa Interview.
I had my L1B Blanket interview scheduled for today with my family (Spouse & Infant) at Chennai
I got the benefit to skip multiple queues out of respect for the crankiness of the child. It makes sense to have documents in following order : I129S (All pages), 1 page of 797, Passport and DS160 of Primary Applicant, FPDF DD (N/A if Credit Card). Rest all the documents weren't needed for me at-least. After paying FPDF Fee of $500, you get multiple receipts stapled to your application form. Post that you go for biometric verification, followed by Visa Interview.
The above process took 10 min. for me (out of that for 5 min. I was just rearranging my massive pile of documents (3 sets of every damn document). It took hardly 5 min. for a person to validate my documents, for me to pay the visa fee, check the biometric and stand in back of an existing interview)
VO :
1) Requested for Passports
2) Company Name (Its a known Fortune 100 company, VO instantly reconfirmed the headquarters of the firm)
3) Designation (raised his eyebrows and muttered "thats intense" )
4) Salary in the US. (90k-100k)
5) What is your specialisation // My role is non-IT, Operations Role hence gave couple of points of explanation. But I realised that VO wasn't catching much hence simplified it little, which really helped.
VO asking my spouse :
1) When did you get married (6+ yrs)
2) What the birth date of my child / perhaps, the question was how old is the child
Took few seconds and stamped approved. Confirmed back verbally saying your visa is approved. Returned me 2 sets of I129S+797. Overall interview must have been for 2-4 minutes.
My thoughts : // Totally my myopic and less experienced opinion.
a) Preparation is in our control and we should do that with utmost effort. Even after preparing / rehearsing all possible questions, and there was only 1 relevant question and even for that I had to make course correction. I could hardly say 60% of what / how I had framed the ans. So point is, prepare to the best of your abilities. Think of logical questions that might come up out of your answers. Over-prepare as you might miss few things during the interview.
b) Its totally my opinion - Getting an L1B visa is 95% luck i.e. depends on the kind of VO that you encounter. The VO in my case was a really calm, composed person.My wife overheard in adjacent interview that the VO was digging a lot, so no matter how hard you prepare if you are dealt an unfavourable VO, there is nothing that you can do except state your case to the best of your abilities.
c) Talk slowly. Indians, when slightly nervous, talk a lot faster. Given the technical information that you are trying to explain to the VO, its better to be speak slowly and clearly. The challenge that I was facing was that the VO was talking very softly, hence I had to request him to repeat some of his questions twice. My hearing might also be an issue.
d) Its a dicey situation for L1B - You want to explain that your role is specialised but you cannot simplify too much for VO, else you run the risk wherein VO feels its not specialised field. My take : Simplify it for VO, the better they understand what you will be doing, its better for them to take a call. If they don't understand what you are saying, they'll not simply grant you the visa, benefit of doubt will not go to you, it'll go for admin processing / RFE / etc. So simplify your job and stress on why you're qualified to do it. I agree that people applying in IT domain have tough time given the preconceived notions (Just because you built a tool and only you know it, doesn't auto qualify you for visa anymore.) Things tend to go much deeper than that.
e) Finally, the name / brand of your company and salary also matters a lot. I anticipate that there are the algorithms / flags as part of the system evaluation. If salary > x for L1B, Green. If Company part of following List, Green. etc. So I could actually see my case getting stronger just looking at reaction of VO to my company name and my designation. IT roles, as a I called above, I would assume has higher scrutiny.
It has been stressful last couple of weeks but all is well that ends well.
Best of luck people. Enjoy.
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