Seattle employment summary (job market, living in, legal)

[hamiltron]

Howdy,

Kay, here's the story my story, hopefully someone here could help me out.

I am currently living in New Zealand and a few month away from finishing my Bachelor degree with Math and Finance, topped with Graduate Diploma in Finance (and possibly a post-grad in finance in two month).

For some reason, I decided that Seattle is one of the places I would like to live. To live, one needs a job (although some might find this arguable, let's let it flow for the sake of discussion).
I would like to start looking for a job, but I have a small problem.
I currently have no idea about employment, visas, expat employment etc in Seattle (and the rest of the states) for that matter.

I've been a long time member of a expat type forum in NZ, so I can only guess that you people can point me in the right direction much faster than me simply googling stuff.

So I guess I'm trying to find information on:
What can expect if moving to Seattle
What is the market for fresh graduates like (finance industry mostly, or anything business...anything but straight accounting)
What are the best places here to look for a job (I can only assume, job search customs in NZ and anywhere else I tried are different to yours)
and anything else which you might think is useful

[azoria]

You're immigrating legally I presume? You will be landing in Seattle with a residency permit and a green card ready?

[allforcats]

Hi, hamiltron.

The first aspect you need to deal with is legal entry into the U.S. What is your citizenship? If you're not a U.S. citizen, here is the U.S. State Department's complete information on that subject, including what requirements you need to fulfill to work in the U.S. as a non-citizen:
Visa Home

To get an overall idea of the employment situation in a very large area around Seattle, here is the combined classified advert sections of the two leading newspapers. If you browse carefully through this, you can get some idea of the job market here:
Seattle area jobs, employment advice and information | NWjobs

About the word "expat": I'm not sure if you mean NZ expat or U.S. expat. When Americans use the word, they usually mean U.S. expat.

Have fun researching!

[Radek]

IF you need help finding a local contact to help you out, my family helped bring a family into Seattle from Kenya, and as such they know a large amount about the process.

DM me and I'll send you some information to reach them with.