My husband has been looking for mental health care work for the past few months with no luck. He is from UK and has over 18 years experience in the field but no degree. He went to one interview and they couldn't even bother to check up on his references even though they seemed very interested in him. Does anyone know of any companies or hospitals or forensic facilities that hire mental health care workers from abroad?

IS anyone else running into this problem with finding a job? ONce employers see he is from England they quickly dismiss him for the job because they can't be bothered or don't even call him back for even retail jobs. That is definitely discrimination for national origin. We live in the NJ/NYC area and there are tons of jobs availabe, just notwilling to give him a chance. It's pissing us both off.

Has he turned his UK CV into a US style Resume ? Also... does he state anywhere on the CV / resume that he is authorized to work in the US for any employer and does not require any additional sponsorship ?

I was told to place this info on my resume because a lot of employers believe that because folks are from overseas, they require gobs more paperwork to employ them. As we all know, the truth is that as long as he has an EAD or his green card, it's just like employing anyone else !!

If he doesn't feel that people are bothering to contact past employers, would it be possible to have some form of reference available to take to interviews. This could be quite a generic reference from a past employer but could contain something along the lines that they would be willing to provide any additional information in the event that it was required.

I'd also suggest, if possible, approaching some kind of staffing agency and using them to make the initial approach to any potential employers. The recruiter might do a better job of explaining the situation that your husband is in regarding past employment etc.. and may pain ta favourable picture to potential employers. I know that I hit many brick walls applying myself but as soon as I had a recruiter putting my details out there and explaining my situation, I had job interviews lined up.

Not sure if any of that will make much difference but it can't hurt.

Best of luck

Mark

I did make sure that it stated "Authorised to work for ANY Employer" on my resume and on the internet job boards. I had numerous bites within days of submitting my resume on Monster and eventually got employed by a company that approched me.
I also had the disadvantage of being based in upper Michigan where there are more wolves than people! (Just kidding).

What I found refreshing was that the application form I had to fill in had no box for date of birth or sex. An attempt not to discriminate against either age or sex is something the UK could learn from! (Ok so my name is n't Robin, Ashley or Jamie so guessing my sex was kind of easy!)

Also bear in mind that if he is looking for a professional level job in mental health he will probably be required to have a certificate of equivalence (people like Psychologists and the like need this to confirm their training is equivalent to that a US PSychologist has had).

I haven't had any problems with people dismissing me from the interview process since I've lived here (2 years) and I don't have any indication on my resume that I need work authorization, so I'm not sure how much this is really a factor.

I also did bring with me a professional reference from my last job, so that f they are enuinely interested they can see what my work ethic is like.

One thing that I have found is that many US employers and staffing agencies seem to have a problem with checking overseas references so if they are being lazy they will try and get a candidate where they dond't have to do this.

Try taking a look online to see how mental health jobs in the UK vary from the same jobs in the US - you may be surprised - either in training requirements, qualifications or even pay.

*smacks forehead*

Thanks for the heads-up about stating explicitly that I'm authorized to work here. I'd assumed employers would know that if I'm applying for work here, I'd be authorized to work. Stupid me. Never make assumptions.

I've just started on my job search and it's overwhelming.

If I've already applied for a job and I DID NOT explicitly state that I'm authorized to work, should I re-send my application or add a message saying so? Or just wait and see what happens?

Wow, I never wrote anything about my work authorization on the resume!! Well, I will do it from now on - maybe I'll be getting more calls

I've put on my cover letter that I am authorized to work in the USA and I've been getting calls, especially from staffing agencies. I have a job interview tomorrow. It seems like there are lots of jobs in this area.

A good portion of employers never check references so that's not a very good indication of interest. In my experience, people are not dismissed because of where they are from and since discrimination of that sort is illegal, few employers would simply write someone off. More likely it has to do with his lack of degree or equivalent certification in this country. The advice about indicating his work authorization status in a cover letter is also wise, although I assume an interested employer would ask about this up front in an interview.