Anonymous Q&A: Moving to Silicon Valley from Southeast Asia, USA Hiring & Visa Roadblocks and Talent Ecosystems – E624
episode
BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
56 min
1 speaker
4 chapters
transcribed 17 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why do visa rejections often hide the real reasons for job rejections?
At the end of the day, the visa rejection is a polite reason for rejection, but it is not the real reason for why you're getting rejected. I think at the end of the day, every employer is basically saying, Is this person gonna add value to my company? And the way they normally think about it is, does this person come with the sufficient industry experience, sufficient rural experience, and sufficient country experience? Welcome to Brave. Learn from Southeast Asia's best tech leaders. Build the future, learn from our past, and stay human in between. No BS on Success. I'm Jeremy O, Venture Capitalist, Sarah founder, Harvard MBA, science fiction nerd, and dad of two daughters. Every week, we debate startup news, interview change makers, answer listener questions, and share personal insights.
Join our movement of over 40,000 members and get transcripts, resources, and community at www.bravesa.com. Stay well and stay brave. Hey, so this is an interesting start because what we have is we have a QA of myself from an anonymous listener of the podcast. And I figured this actually would be an interesting conversation to have, uh, that'll be helpful for many folks who are curious about US versus Singapore versus Southeast Asia technology ecosystem, but also I think a career perspective. And I hope that this is not only an honest reflection of my own career, but also something that might be helpful for those who are in a similar predicament or situation. So maybe could you introduce your context, whatever you're comfortable with at a high level anonymous way?
Yeah, thanks Jeremy for having me. So I've been working in the finance industry for the past six years and I'm looking towards the US Bay area for career opportunities to switch industries into roles that are at a startup, at a early stage startup, understanding how big tech is no longer hiring as much. So I'm looking into opportunities over there and being in my thirties and having uh been married. It for me moving out to the US is something I feel like is the right point of time in my life. And there are many questions around moving and I'm really curious to find out more today, Jeremy.
You know, I really empathize with this question because um you know The reality is I did do that move, right? If you look at my career, I think it's quite transparent that obviously I grew up in Singapore. I was in the army. Then I studied at UC Berkeley for undergraduate. And then so I had to make a decision to go there. Uh and then after that I made a decision to come back to Singapore. I work as a cons national consultant at Bain, right? And after that I made a decision to go back to the US to study. And then after that I made a decision to build a company in the US in Boston and New York. and stay there. Um and then after that made a decision to come back to Singapore and then stay in Singapore to, you know, through the pandemic, start a family, DC as well as now a start up.
And now I also travel and work because the company handles both uh Singapore side and the US side, right? So um I think there's an interesting dynamic where I've always been shuttling between those two countries. So I guess from your perspective, what's on your mind
Yeah, I think I think through applying jobs um in the US from Singapore, one of the key things is I first started off with LinkedIn and I realized like how slow things are. Like by the time it reaches LinkedIn, it's already too late sometimes. And for me, I guess the greatest struggle was um having to answer the question, uh do you need a visa to enter the US? For me, I think that that was a screener and And like most of the time you get instant rejection. After like two days, you just get rejection from from the different companies that you apply to. So I think for me I feel that the greatest struggle is understanding the space from where you are here in Singapore. And the second is getting past that visa because I know that Singaporeans have the H one B one, which allows it's a non lottery visa that allows you to more or less work in the US with minimal costs and only twenty percent
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
Why do visa rejections often hide the real reasons for job rejections?
0:00–13:16
2
How does applying for US jobs on LinkedIn from Singapore slow down the hiring process?
13:16–31:02
3
What advantages does a finance background (FP&A, CFA) give when targeting US startups?
31:02–46:04
4
Why is Silicon Valley’s fast‑innovation cycle so attractive to high‑risk talent?
46:04–56:22
Speakers
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