Denied jobs because of location?
polycounter lvl 5
Hey! I'm an Environment Artist From Brazil.
I've recently been denied a couple of positions abroad receiving the feedback that: "It's hard to sort out visas for Brazilians" or statements along those lines. Keep in mind some companies approached me and some answered my applications.
That being said, I wanted to know: How hard is it for a company to sort out your work visa? How often do they do it? Has anyone faced the same issue?
Heres my portfolio, if it's relevant: www.artstation.com/andrefelipe
I've recently been denied a couple of positions abroad receiving the feedback that: "It's hard to sort out visas for Brazilians" or statements along those lines. Keep in mind some companies approached me and some answered my applications.
That being said, I wanted to know: How hard is it for a company to sort out your work visa? How often do they do it? Has anyone faced the same issue?
Heres my portfolio, if it's relevant: www.artstation.com/andrefelipe
Replies
...and there is lack of knowledge and incompetence as well. Not talking about you, but HRs. Sometimes they don't know the details of visa appliciations or as embarrassing as it might sound they don't know the details of who they are contacting.
An 80lv Interview will not cut it. get your word out, do publications in art magazines, give talks etc.
This is really usually stuff more experienced people do, the cases where a junior gets shipped into the US are rare because this stuff is just super expensive and this expense has to be worth it.
One of the reasons why I didnt get my job at blizzard back in 2009, was despite that I had already worked 8 years of various titles, I wasn't like "fuck yeah, lets do this!" but "this is all kinda strange to me, but i'd love to give it a try". that was too much of a risk to take for a big company. And thats me with already 8 years under my belt, doing this for you without much experience, or titles published, or publications, or talks, or ANYTHING that proves an immigration official that you are the person they can not find inside the country, is just not going to cut it.
And this is really not here to push you down, what you have is nice, its a great base. But the possibilities to get into the US, especially under the current administration are rarer than ever.
So on top of your chances being slim, at the moment they are extra slim.
@PaladinoDosBoliN How old are you? If you are under 30, you can probably get working holiday visas for various countries. A lot of the time, they don't start until you actually enter the country.
You will stand a better chance of getting work once you're a permanent resident if you work towards that, since there is a bias towards locals with laws to protect them.
Also remember the general heartless dog eat dog mentality of the west, if you're from Brazil you may have a hard time getting used to that unless you're in a city that has a more familial community dynamic (Like Montreal)
And whatever you do don't go to Toronto since its a spineless shit hole city by North American standards. And watch out for high cost of living.
You also may consider going east with you're talents.
I want to move to Montreal, so I wanted to visit next year, I applied for a tourist visa. See, I have a job, family and a lot of ties here in brazil so I believed it wouldn't be a problem getting a visa, apart from that I had an invitation letter from a native stating I would leave when I said I would.
Visa was denied on the basis that "I couldn't provide sufficient evidence I would leave Canada at the end of my stay"
This was a huge blow, and if I was denied a tourist visa, imagine the pain immigration might be... I'm a tad bit unmotivated now!
But i won't give up, thanks for the heads up.
pm'd!
Apart from that, how would one go about using unemployment support as a tourist?
It seems silly that they would treat potential tourists as criminals, don't you think? But again, that's just probably what they think about Brazilians: That we're all criminals.
Anywho, this post is more about game industry jobs, less about my canadian tourist visa being denied...