Hi, I moved from scotland a few months back and just recently got permission to work. The thing is most employers want at least an american high school diploma or GED. I left scotland with 8 Scottish Standard Grades(equivalent to English GCSE's I believe). Surely what I have already is enough, but how do I show this?? Is there someone I can contact to get some kind of evidence to show the employers that my scottish qualifications are equal to what they're looking for??

Hi Walker,

Get your school records sent over and present them. Most American HR ppl won't understand them, and won't be bold enough to admit that they don't.
My husband brought his over and gave copies to a few temp places he worked for and to his present employer. No questions asked.


Good Luck,

Rose

As a quick rule of thumb 5 Standard Grades at C or above is equal to graduating with honours from american high school. You can pay to have you qualifications assessed but just adding this information to your resume should help.

That's what I did - added a statement underneath my GCSEs and A-Levels explaining their equivalencies. I still get asked about it, but at least they can see that I do have (more than) the equivalent of a US high school education.

I had the same problem (except I had no qualifications at all). Spent $75 and 7.5 hours taking the GED tests and got my results today. Booked the tests and sat them all in the space of 2 weeks. Really not that hard. I was just thinking that it might be easier for you to get your GED and then it would make things a lot simpler for you with potential employers.

Just writing to thank everyone for the responses and advice. I ended up finding a company - "Career Consultants International" - who basically evaluate foreign educational awards and transfer them into their American equivalent. Turns out I not only have the equivalent of an American High School Diploma but 4 College Credits in History - in Scotland I'm considered pretty under educated! Don't know if it says more about how good the Scottish educational system is or how poor it's American cousin is - my wife is actually a teacher and assures me it probably says more about the American system

Anyways, just wanted to update everyone and recommend the company I used to anyone in a similar situation - their website is www.thedegreepeople.com. Cost $70 but was well worth it and only took about 1 week for them to sort it all out for me - if only the world of immigration moved so fast!