H1B, H4 Visa

Hi All,
Thanks for sharing your experience. This site has helped me a lot to prepare for my interview.

Before posting my today's experience I will give you some background about my case. I work in EC model. My employer is very small company with hardly 10-15 employee.

And also my client is small healthcare related firm with around 2000-3000 employee. Now about my visa. Mine was visa extension. I had my previous visa stamped in Nov

2010 with same Employer and same Client and it was only for a year. So it got expired in Nov 2011. Then my extension petition was approved and in Apr 2011,I came to

India for some personal reason and went for stamping in May. That time my visa was not approved and received 221(g) instead. I had submitted all the documents as

requested within a week. Now comes the tough time. Wait time. No updates from consulate and no where to track the status of my case. Then in July I had received mail

from consulate that my case is being sent back to USCIS for further review. Now I had lost all hopes. I knew this is going to take forever. I spoke with my employer

and we decided to wait for two more months. So till Sept I did not receive any update from USCIS and hence we decided to file a fresh H1 B petition in premium

processing. And this petition got approved in Sept, so I went for H1 stamping interview today (9th Oct) at Mumbai Consulate.

Here is how my interview went :

Me : Good Morning
VO : Good Morning. (Took my passport and I 797).

He scanned my passport and of course found about my history on PIMS.

VO : Why are you going to US
Me : Going for temporary work assignment

VO : I see that your visa was not approved in May this year. What was the reason.
(I was 100% sure this question would come so was well prepared)
Me : During last interview, the officer was not convinced that I work for this particular client. So this time around I have requested client letter in more detail.

VO : May I see this new client letter.
Me : Sure. In the letter they have also mentioned about location and probable duration of the project. You can see it there.

VO took at least 5 minutes to read the letter. It seemed he read entire letter carefully. And he got convinced about it this time.

VO : So anyway. What is your highest qualification.
Me : Answered appropriately.

VO : Salary?
Me : Answered

VO : Employer name and location
Me : Answered

VO : Who manages your work at client location?
Me : My manager ZZZ. He works for Maantic.

VO : Where does YYYY work from?
Me : From our main office. But he visits client site twice a month. And we discuss about any issues during his visit.

VO : How many employees from your company working at client location.
Me : Answered.

To my surprise he asked me to provide few names of my collegues as well, which I provided. And then he typed it on his system. Very strange ! ! ! And then again he has

started reading my client letter.

VO : (reading letter) So I don't understand. This letter says your client doesn't have any authority over your work assignment or your day to day activity. Then why do

they require you to work in their office?
Me : Actually we need to interact a lot with the client people to understand the requirement. And also I train end users on the different product which we are developing. So client requires me to be available in their office.

And that was it. I think my answers was convincing enough for him.

VO : I am approving your Visa. You will get your stamped passport within 3-4 business days.

My suggestion is to make sure you know all the possible questions and then prepare their answers properly. Talk to your employer if you have any doubts. In fact create a questionnaire and try to put as many question as you can find on all the forums. And then write down exact answers also. It will be helpful in building your confidence for the interview. In fact I think it worked for me because none of the above question was unexpected. I was prepared for all the questions VO might ask.


All the best to all of you.
- Vivek