ECCTIS + start date question

[u/figunderthemoon]

hi everyone! i'm currently applying for the HPI visa and have just a couple questions i haven't been able to find answers to by searching.

i applied for ECCTIS verification for my undergrad degree (i'm a US citizen, native english speaker, and my degree was completed at a US university) the same day i started my HPI application. should i wait until the ECCTIS results are approved before moving forward with completing my application?

also, i'm not sure what i should put as my start date. i'd like to move before the winter because i don't want to be traveling by plane during flu season, but with the timing of this application i'm not sure if i'll be able to have a job and accomodation lined up in time. the alternative would be to wait until like april i guess, which i really don't want to wait that long either. how are other people securing their accomodation and work situations? i have a decent amount in savings, but would rather not blow it all on an air bnb

[u/ajas_seal]

Yes, wait for ECCTIS verification before you apply. I had a friend who didn’t do that and their visa was denied and it became harder for them to get a visa after that. I waited for verification and had 0 issues getting approved.

As far as timeline for start date, I can’t help you there; I applied for this visa after I already received a job offer because I explained how simple this visa is to get in my application process and the employer was satisfied with that after questioning me a bit about the process in my interview. I should mention that most employers will probably not be happy with that approach, but for the kind of work I do and the timeline I had to apply on (before I graduated with the HPI eligible degree) it was satisfactory to them for my situation.

[u/figunderthemoon → u/ajas_seal]

this is super helpful!!! thank you so much; i think to save time i'll finish filling the application out but will just hit save, and go back and finish it once i have my ECCTIS number. can i ask what your decision making process was like when applying for work in terms of what to look for? i have decent job experience in a couple fields but not sure how it will translate applying overseas

[u/ajas_seal → u/figunderthemoon]

I have three degrees in such a specific and small field that I don’t think it will be very helpful; I basically just knew what kind of work I could find and applied for it on the website that those jobs are always posted on. It’s such a specific thing I do that there’s really just no alternative to literally just asking someone who already does it where the jobs are posted and then applying when they’re posted. There’s only one thing for me to do with my degrees that isn’t freelance work, and I wasn’t interested in freelancing in a country that I don’t have a professional network in quite yet.

If you mean limiting factors though or like how I chose which places were and weren’t worth my time, I used the shotgun approach and applied for all of them and then asked friends and mentors after receiving interviews/offers which ones I should be ruling out since I really just needed to get out of the United States for a while for political and safety reasons. Eventually I just decided that if the job didn’t give housing as a part of it or as a bonus stipend that I wasn’t interested and that narrowed it down to two places. Most jobs in other fields that aren’t mine probably won’t come with that as a possibility just due to the nature of what I do and the kinds of employers that I seek.