Getting your qualifications recognised

A degree or a professional licence from home is not automatically recognised here. It is also not worthless, which is what many people conclude after the third employer looks past it. What stands between the two is an evaluation.

What an evaluation is

An agency compares your qualification to its American equivalent and issues a report. Employers and universities accept that report where they would not accept the certificate on its own. WES and ECE are the two most widely accepted.

What it takes

Usually six to ten weeks, sometimes longer if your university is slow to respond, and it costs money. Most agencies need transcripts sent directly by your university rather than by you, which is the step that catches people out and the reason to start early.

If your profession is licensed

Nursing, medicine, law, teaching, engineering and accountancy are licensed state by state, and an evaluation is only the first step. The rules differ between states, so the answer for Texas is not the answer for Maryland. Your chapter almost certainly knows somebody who has done it in your state and your profession.

The honest part

This takes months and costs money at the exact point when you have least of both. Doing it anyway is the difference between a career interrupted and a career ended, and the people who put it off for a year mostly wish they had not.

The official page for this Ours explains it. Theirs is the authority, and it is the one that changes.

Nobody has recorded when this was last checked.

Not legal, immigration, tax or medical advice. This is what people who have done it wish somebody had told them.