No Visa Yet? How to Answer "Do You Require Visa Sponsorship," Salary Expectations and Culture Fit in the Screening Call

What do you do when you’re job hunting abroad without a visa? This article covers how to answer “do you require visa sponsorship?”, how to optimize your visa situation so you get to the interview, and how to handle salary expectations and culture fit in the screening call. First, a recap of what the screening questions are for.

Screening questions and their goals

Main goals

• Check that the candidate meets the basic requirements
• Verify the resume
• Confirm the candidate is feasible
• Lower the failure rate in later stages
• Test communication skills
• Understand motivation and culture fit

Secondary goals

• Check that the candidate meets the basic requirements
• Understand motivation and culture fit
• Test communication skills
• Lower the failure rate in later stages

Each screening question and its goals

1. Self-introduction
   • Check that the candidate meets the basic requirements
   • Verify the resume
   • Test communication skills
2. Work experience
   • Check that the candidate meets the basic requirements
   • Verify the resume
   • Lower the failure rate in later stages
   • Test communication skills
3. Motivation and interest
   • Understand motivation and culture fit
   • Lower the failure rate in later stages
4. Skills and qualifications
   • Check that the candidate meets the basic requirements
   • Verify the resume
   • Confirm the candidate is feasible
   • Lower the failure rate in later stages
5. Language ability
   • Test communication skills
   • Check that the candidate meets the basic requirements
6. Timeline
   • Confirm the candidate is feasible
   • Check that the candidate meets the basic requirements
   • Verify the resume
   • Understand motivation and culture fit
   • Lower the failure rate in later stages
7. Visa and work permit
   • Confirm the candidate is feasible
   • Check that the candidate meets the basic requirements
8. Salary expectations
   • Confirm the candidate is feasible
   • Check that the candidate meets the basic requirements
9. Culture fit
   • Understand motivation and culture fit
   • Test communication skills

Visa and work permit: how to answer “do you require visa sponsorship?”

Visas are a huge topic, with many sub-routes you can hack. At the screening stage, I’d say your visa status accounts for about 50% of the outcome.

If you already have a legal local work visa and won’t need sponsorship in the future, then compared with someone who has no visa now and will need sponsorship, with everything else equal, your chance of reaching the next round can be up to five times higher in many countries.

There’s a lot of complexity and luck behind visas. If you were destined to have that visa, you’d probably have been born with that country’s citizenship. One of my mentees worked in the US and Canada for years, but when it was time to apply for a long-term visa, an election came, then the pandemic, and in the end they had to go back to Taiwan, disappointed.

You could say visas are often a matter of probability. Even so, there’s a lot you can hack.

Main goal

• Confirm you’re feasible: your eligibility, meaning your current and future visa status.

Secondary goal

• Check the basic requirements: here this means matching their needs, and whether they have internal resources to help with a visa application.

At large companies, whether a role can sponsor a visa is usually decided when the job is posted. Besides asking someone on the inside to find out for you, you can sometimes tell from the JD (whether local work authorization is required).

From the outside: if there are many local job seekers at that time, expect much less chance of them hiring a foreigner.

At small companies, in the cases I’ve seen, sponsorship is mostly easier after a fast-growing Series B. Before Series B, companies change a lot and need core people who can contribute right away, so they may not have time to wait for a visa (though it depends on the country’s visa processing time, or whether you can start working first).

What to watch when you answer

• Be honest: When you explain your visa, state your current status and needs clearly. Don’t mislead.
• Show you’ve prepared: If you need sponsorship, make it clear you understand the process and are ready for it.
• Lighten their load: If possible, offer solutions that reduce the company’s concerns about the visa.

Optimizing input and output

Basically, I think of it like this:

• Green light: you don’t need visa support now or in the future. You probably already have permanent residence or citizenship.
• Yellow light: you may need visa support either now or in the future. Examples: you’re applying for a partner visa, you won the US visa lottery, or your permanent residence is waiting to take effect.
• Red light: you need visa support both now and in the future.

As usual, my advice is to find ways to move from red to yellow, then from yellow to green. The route depends a lot on your goal. Here I focus on people in the “red light” situation, which is where most people are.

At a high level:

1. If your age allows it (under 30 or 35, depending on the country), get a working holiday visa first, then switch to a local work visa.
2. Find a stepping-stone country where visas are easier. If your final goal is the US, consider getting status in Canada or Australia first, then use a treaty visa such as TN or E-3 to work in the US.

Some mentees’ paths

1. Got a working holiday visa to Canada and found a first job there, became a Canadian citizen, then entered the US on a TN. About five years in total.
2. Got a working holiday visa to Europe and found a first job, then moved to a company that also has US offices, and entered the US on an L-1.
3. Went to Germany first (a country with a relatively low immigration bar for Europe), got permanent residence, then used EU status to work in other countries.
4. Went to Singapore first to build finance industry experience and a fully English-speaking work record, then moved to the US. The odds of applying abroad from there are higher than from Taiwan.
5. Went to the US as a postdoc and, with their publications, applied for a US EB-2 visa.

It depends a lot on your final goal, your current age and field, and how long a timeline you can accept. I’ll write a full article on visa strategy.

Salary expectations

There’s a saying in Chinese that “talking about money hurts the relationship.” At work, if you don’t talk about it, the one who gets hurt is you.

Main goal

• Confirm you’re feasible

Secondary goal

• Check the basic requirements

At this level, the recruiter wants to confirm whether your expected salary falls within their range, meaning whether both sides’ needs are met.

So at a high level, you want them to feel that what you’re asking for is within the range they offer. For data, start with the JD if it lists a range, and simply answer with their range (for example, US$150,000 to 180,000).

How to answer

• Research the market: Before answering, learn the market salary range for the role. Abroad, sites like Levels.fyi and Glassdoor show many reasonable salary levels for each region. Often there’s no data for your exact target company or role, so you’ll need to estimate.

  Be careful: compare against similar companies, even the same city. Comparing Google in New York with a small Hawaiian startup will only keep you from the next round.

• Show flexibility: Avoid giving an overly specific number, and say you’re considering the overall compensation and benefits.

  I like to give the range from the JD. The goal here is only for them to know your expectation is within range, so giving a range works.

  I don’t recommend going above their range at this stage unless you’re sure you’re an exceptionally strong candidate. You can push the details up in the final negotiation.

• Focus on value: Stress that you care more about the value you can bring and long-term growth. Here you can use the research on the company and industry from the “motivation” section to state your strengths and what you hope for from the company.

Example answer

Based on my experience at ABC and five years in software engineering, my salary expectation is between XX and XX. But what matters more to me is the chance to work with the team and room to grow. I really like your core value “Do the right thing,” and I think there’s flexibility on both sides.

Culture fit

Simply put: will you fit in, or will it be a culture shock?

For example, if you’ve always worked at companies that build their own products (the client side), but now you’re moving to the vendor side, like a consulting agency, you’ll need a story that explains why you’re a fit.

Another focus is company culture (open and transparent, for example), or whether the company works differently from what you’re used to (remote or hybrid, for example).

The point is to put the recruiter at ease.

Main goal

• Understand your motivation and culture fit, using what I described earlier: identify the key needs (from the JD), the company culture and the differences (the traffic light).

Secondary goal

• Test communication skills

I think “how you say it” matters a lot here too. Try framing different stories to create connections.

What to watch when you answer

• Understand the company culture: Research the company’s values and culture in advance. Mainly, read the About Us page on its website or the text on its LinkedIn, and work it into what you say.

• Create connections: Use past experience to prove you can adapt to a similar culture.

  Our past experience is never a 100% match, but it’s rarely a complete mismatch either. For most people, this part is a yellow light.

  Building the connection is basically “connect the dots,” like linking overtime to passion for the work.

Summary

That wraps up the screening stage for now.

Of everything here, the visa is the most critical. For salary expectations and culture fit, you just need to be able to answer.

Thorough preparation and the right way of expressing yourself will win you the chance to move on to the next round of interviews.