L1, L2 Visa

Thanks a lot immihelp for the visa process.

I have interview at 9.30 AM on 6th Nov @ chennai & got my visa approved.

There were two L1 rejections just before me ( both were suggested with apply in better category), so i was a bit nervous

Questions asked -

Title in US?
Salary in US?
About company?
What special you have for US assignment?
Duration of stay in US ?

Thank golden words.. I am approving you visa...

Suggestions:

Don't panic, be confident...
All you answers must be very short... It should not be technical ... should be understand by any human.

It's like you are miss world, and you need to tell about your beauty to someone.. just in two minutes. So please be specific.

Don't use any slang or any short form...and word like "like", "kind of", "Something like" etc.

All the best friends.

Thanks for this site and I am sure this site is helping a lots of people who are waiting for visa interview.

On 6th Nov, I attended interview and got L1A approved.

My appointment at 10:30 AM and reached 12:00 PM inside the visa interview office.

When I submitted DD for the receipt and the cashier rejects because the Payable to "VFS Global services" and it should be American General Consulate". I would request you to please check the actual payable with OFC team before attending interview.

The good part was my credit card didn't work into their system but it accepted cash. The time was very less and I went out side and collected money from ATM and given to the cashiers and they accepted and then attended visa interview and it cleared. The questions are same as mentioned in the other persons.

My Suggestions will be goto consulates interview with valid credit card with valid ATM card in case of card will not work. The cash can be accepted if DD will not work.

I can say, all the staff members are very cooperative. Visa officer was very nice and he asked me come within one hour with cash and attend interview. So, please feel calm and confidence when you are in consulate interview room.

Wish you all the best.

First of all thanks to forum and all members for sharing their experiences which were really helpful for many people i am being one of them.

Now it's my turn to share.

My appointment at OFC was on 29th Oct, it went fine as shared by many.

My Visa interview appointment was on 30th @ 11 AM.

I joined the queue @ 10.30 AM. I entered inside @ 11.40 AM. I attended along with my wife & 4 yr old daughter.

Inside support staff asked to take 3 sets of I129S+I797(first page) along with DD's and passports.
Then you need to submit DD's in counter & collect the receipt.

Wait for your token to be displayed. It was really quick in case of me, i didn't have time to sit.

While my token displayed, i went to the counter along with my family and waited for 2-3 mins as there was another family process going on.

Finally VO asked me to come, Following are the questions

Why do you want to go to US ?
I explained in similar lines of specialization & my presence required for the project.

How many reporting to u ?
None. As it's L1B.

Who do you report to ?
Reporting manager of US who is at Client location US.

Does he look other projects as well other than ur client ?

What's ur Title?

What's ur role & responsibilities in client project?
Explained as in I129S.

Are you working in SAP ?

Who is your employer ?

Will you be reporting to manager of Client?

Who does your manager report to ?

How long you are working with your employer?

What's ur US salary?

What's ur Indian Salary per annum ?

Finally he stamped on 3sets of I129S. I felt happy inside. Then he started typing in the system for about 2 minutes

Then VO said congrats, your VISA is approved. Handed over 2 sets of I129S back explaining one set to your HR and one at port of entry.

Wish everyone all the success.

Thanks
Ram

I would be attending L1 A Blanket Visa Interview @ Chennai in next 10 days.
If Visa Officer asks my Roles & Responsibility within how much time I need to answer the question ?

Based on your suggestion I will pepare the response for a period like 10sec/30sec/2min etc.

This is because pople say that generally the whole iterview gets wrapped up in 2-3 min

Appreciate your response.

Hi,

Thanks to this forum for giving me an idea of L1B interview preparation and confidence

My visa is not approved for some reason. Not sure, what is the VO's expectation.
But still i want to put my experience.

My OFC and interview was on the same day 3rd November, 8 AM and 10.30 AM.
OFC went fine as usual. There is nothing new to know about that.

Here are my L1B interview questions -

VO is kind of very serious looking.

1. Who is your client ? Answered

2. What’s your India salary ? Answered

3. What’s your proposed US Salary ? Answered

4. After this, he just looking at me and asked the weird question. What’s your specialization - Conditions are – Do not talk about your HCL proprietary tools, Do not talk about your client tools and Do not talk about your proposed job duty ? You have only 3 sentences to convince me.

Answer – when I try to explain the specialization, he just interrupted me and said ‘This is part of your job, your one sentence completed. You have only 2 more sentences to talk’. Finally, I suppose he didn’t convince my answer. Not sure, what is his expectation.

P.S: The person who was standing before me in the same queue also got an same response. He also came for L1B visa interview.

I was totally upset. :(

Here are my doubts -
1. My wife is in US with H1B visa. If I want to apply H4 visa, will the above L1B visa rejection impact the approval of H4 ?

2. If not, Can I apply that visa anytime, or Do I need to wait for sometime like 3 or 6 months.

Can anyone please help me to get the answer for the above questions.

Thanks in Advance.

First of all, thanks to this forum for giving me an idea on interview preparation.

My OFC and Interview were on the same day, 8.30/ 11.00 AM. Kids under 14 are not required as mentioned in DS160.
I reached OFC at around 7.30 AM. As suggested by others, it was way too early. Reach only 15 Minutes before. I stayed in my car until 8.15 AM. I saw the queue for 8.30 moving very early. I guess may be we are the first batch so they left us inside very early. When I entered 2 OFC officials at gate verified our passports and DS160. I was very careful when filling up my DS160. I had filled it prior to this for my B visa. Yet I had typed my Kid's place of birth wrongly. That was really a surprise to me.

At this point, this forum really helped. All I did was just walk out. Auto drivers were waiting outside just for this purpose. He took me to a browsing centre. They charged me 600 Rs. Though the price was higher, they fill out all the details. However one advise here, keep your onsite stay details handy because when they refill, the old details gets wiped out. For me all the details were in my laptop and I had to call my Onsite/ Offshore PM to get the required details. This delayed the process for almost an hour. Do not worry about the delay unless your appointment is getting affected due to this. You can walk in directly to OFC once this is corrected. You are not required to stand in the queue. For me it took just 5 mins inside OFC.

D- Day - Interview.
I went to embassy at 10.30 after having a heavy breakfast as all my energy was drained out due to the hastle's I had to face due to DS160 issue.
I stood in the queue. The queue was long. They called us to the security check around 11.00. Then we were asked to wait there for another 30 Mins. By the time we went inside, it was 12.15.
All L1s were asked to arrange I197, other documents along with the passport. Don't worry guys with 'May I help you' would take care of this. They are very kind to arrange the documents for you. Once I did this I went to pay the DD's. I saw few people having issues paying by credit cards. Once I payed I was asked to go to one more counter to check the passports. To me my Kids photo was not scanned properly. So I was asked to go to one more counter to do the same.

Once everything was done, I was waiting for the interview call.

In another 5 mins my number flashed, I went to the queue.
I saw people in front of getting rejected.

My questions.

Me - Hello Officer. GM. How are You.
VO - Fine. Thanks.

VO - Show me your documents.
Passed on my documents which were tied together.

VO started typing something.

VO - Which company you are working
Me - ZZZ
 
VO - Who is your Client
Me - ZZZ

VO - What do you do for this Client
Me - 1 Liner explaining my role

VO - What is this specialized tool do
ME - 3 Liner explaining the Tool.

VO started typing something and started stamping. Then came the golden words, 'Your Visa is approved. I am retaining 1 set of documents with me. Hand 1 set over to your HR. Keep 1 set with you when your are travelling. Have a safe trip'.

Me - Thanks. Have a nice day.

Pumped my hands once I was out as I was waiting for such oppurtunity for 3 years. It was a sigh of relief after all my struggle.
I was prepared on lot of questions by having some Mock-Ups. This helped me a lot. And of course thanks to this forum.

I owe a lot to this forum for my L1A visa interview preparation - hence I felt morally obligated to give back to this forum my experience, understanding and thoughts/tips about the process

Background:
I had 2 L1B's previously and 1 B1 which is valid at present. I have also travelled to USA multiple times for a total of 5 years in USA.

Experience:
I will skip the part about the Chennai weather, loooong queue and all the process before the interview because those have been talked about in most other posts and get down straight to the interview.

Me: Hi! Good Morning.
VO: Good morning.

VO: So..you are applying for L1A visa for XYZ company.
Me: That is correct.

VO: Who will your client be?
Me: ABC Company

VO: What is your yearly salary in USA?
Me: $72,000

VO: How many people will be reporting to you directly?
Me: Directly - 5, 4 indirect

VO: And what are their job titles?
Me: 4 Project Managers, 1 Senior Software engineer

VO: And what will your job title be?
Me: Onsite Delivery Manager

VO: What will your responsibilities be?
Me: As an onsite delivery manager, there are 2 parts of my job. In the first part, I will be managing a portfolio of 8 projects which involves..

VO: (cutting me off)..And what is the second part?
Me: The second part is assisting in growth of Type B (new projects) and Type C (business from existing projects in the form of change requests, enhancements etc.) revenues

VO: And who will you be reporting to, Sir?
Me: Client Partner, who manages multiple client relationships.

VO: What are the multiple clients he handles?
Me: At the moment DEF and GHI clients.

VO: Ok, Sir, I am approving your visa. I will keep one of these, please give one of these to your HR and the other to the immigration when you land in USA.
Me: Thanks. Much appreciated.

VO: You have a great day
Me: You too. Bye!

Myths:
After reading through innumerable posts on this forum and talking to associates in my company - some of them approved and some of them rejected - and finally attending the interview myself, first of all, I would like to debunk some myths around the process:

Myth: Approval or rejection is divine luck
Truth: Though luck does play a big part and prayers will always help, but that is not all. Proper preparation ultimately pays off.

Myth: You need to have minimum 12 years of experience to crack it.
Truth: I have 10.2 years of experience. I have heard (though cannot guarantee it) that associates with 8/9 years of experience have also cracked the interview.

Myth: Your USA salary needs to be minimum 80K to qualify as a manager
Truth: My USA salary is $72,000 and I know at least 5 other people with the same salary who have cracked the interview

Myth: More the number of direct reportees, the better chances you have
Truth: I have heard/seen people with only one direct reportee getting through

Understanding:
What I am going to write now are my personal opinions and hence will differ from a lot of other people in this forum. According to me, there are 3 crucial aspects that the VO's check in the interview:

1. Confidence: Though you can generally feel confident if you prepare well, however, if you will actually work as a manager in USA that gives a level of confidence that no preparation can give. The VO checks for this confidence (they are trained to) during the entire 2-3 minutes of the interview. Hence it is crucial to have the confidence and let your body language show it off. Also crucial is to maintain eye contact with the VO since that is also another sign of confidence.

2. Crucial question number 1 - What is your job title and your roles/responsibilities: Everyone preparing for L1A knows the importance of this question and they really prepare for this. However, there are some subtle points that I would like to stress. First is the word project should always be in plural; meaning you will be handling multiple projects. Second is your should try to use keywords like portfolio management, risk management, metrics reporting etc. Third is that you should try to find one thing about your job that probably noone else will mention in this forum. For me, I mentioned about my role in Type B and Type C business growth (see questions above). Try to find something unique (in a managerial sense) about your position.

3. Crucial question number 2 - Who will you be reporting to: Often, we make the mistake of answering this in one/two words. It is important to remember that you only have 2/3 minutes to convince the VO - so make the most of it. Mention the job title of your supervisor ALONG WITH HIS ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES in 1 sentence. Also make sure that your supervisor is at such a level that makes you a manager of multiple projects. What I mean is if you say that your manager is an account manager, managing one account, that makes you a project manager and hence ruins your chances. Think about it.

All in all, good preparation (which involves pouring over the posts in this forum for at least the first 20 pages) and confidence should make you successful.

Cheers and good luck

Hi All,

First of all, this is the best site to seek any help around any type of Visa questions.

My Experience!!

Interview Date - 3rd Nov 2014, Biometrics completed in Delhi itself

I cam e to chennai a day before to get settled and took a hotel near to Consulate (Around 4 Km away). Weather was not good and it rained all day due to which i got sick just before the day of interview. Nevermind!!

D-Day - My interview was at 8 am and i have left the hotel around 7: 20 am and reached the venue around 7: 40. Not to my surprise around 100 folks were in front of me. Me and my wife standing outside in the rain under the umbrella and waited for around an hour. We finally got in to the building and then all checks happened. In the haste i lost my MRV slip and got terrified. Dont worry it's not required anymore as they only need the DD.

Here is the surprising stuff. In front of the consulate.

Me. Good morning sir, how are you
Consulate. I am fine, Can i have your documents?
Me. Sure, provided passports & other docs (Me and my wife)

Consulate. (In a very low voice) Who is your client?
Me. I am sorry sir, ( Just to ensure i heard the right question), then he repeated
Me. My client is ZZZ

Consulate - Your Visa is Approved
Me - Surprised like anything:)

Tips:
1. Dont reach the venue early, only 15-20 min before the time. No point standing for endless hours in such bad weather
2. Look in the eye, I was looking at the consulate even he was taking the interview of the candidate in front of me
3. Have Faith in yourself and always belive that you will get the VISA
4. Pray to God

Thanks,
M
 

Fellow aspirants,

I work for an UK based investment bank in Chennai as a Storage administrator. I have been working with them for last 3 years 3 months. In total, I have 6.6 years experience in the nominated field. My work has been recognized globally within my company; therefore, I have been offered this position in US. And this is an unprecedented case because the company I work with, do not encourage such transfers.

My visa interview has been scheduled to occur on 13th Nov, and I have been closely watching the experiences shared by other fellow aspirants and I incline to believe that many of them are developers or they have knowledge in company owned products.

On the other hand, I have rich experience in heterogeneous Storage products and have passion towards automation. I have been doing an amazing job in the company I work with and am sure everyone appreciates it. Now the point is, how am I going to handle to below questions?

1. What is your specialization?

Well, I will attempt to persuade the VO with the skills I possess in the Storage technologies, but would it work?

I would like to know whether any UNIX/Storage admins who have managed to get L1B visa recently. Any cases you are aware of? Believe me it may look like a regular question, but I really value your time and contributions. Thank you for your time.

Highly appreciate it.

This the 3rd time i am applied for L1B Blanket.

1st time got rejected
 and
 2nd time got approved.

Now, its 3rd time.

->OFC as all know, its documents verification just be there before 20 mins.

->Next day its PA date. be there before 20 mins.
Fortunately i always got morning 8am slot.

-> All process well defined and Consulate Crew are very friendly and will guide u well.
    Once u get the token no and the window no.
    Just wait for u no to be appear on electronic screen.

The questions asked me are below.

Me: Good Morning.(Smile)
VO: Good Morning.(Smile)

VO: Which Company are you Working with?
Me: Told

VO: How long are with this company?
Me: Told

VO: Which Client are you going to work for?
Me: Told

VO: Can you spell Your Client name?
Me: Spelled the Client name (it was simple, but may be VO want check my presence of mind )

VO: Which place in US are going to Work?
Me: Told City and State.

VO: What is ur US Salary?
Me: Told.

Then Moment Of Truth..

VO: What is your Specialization?
Me: Explained the products i have expertise.

VO: These are Products?
Me: Yes

VO: Are you work for YYYY Company?
Me: Yes (I already told this previously but i again got this question)

VO: Are you traveled before to US?
Me: Yes. Many Times.

VO: Are You faced any problems during your stay in US?
Me: No. It was Smooth.

Finally.

VO: Your Visa is approvable. Give me 2 minutes i will prepare your documents.
Me: Thank You.

Tips: Be Confident and Have Presence Of Mind Always.
         Be Specific to your Answers.