6 Ways to Find an Employer Who Will Sponsor the H-1B1 Visa

Finding an employer is the hard part of the H-1B1, not qualifying for it. The visa is open to citizens of Chile and Singapore under each country's free trade agreement, the quotas have never been filled, and there is no lottery to enter.

What stops most applicants is that recruiters hear "visa" and assume H-1B, then decline because that process is expensive and only opens once a year. Plenty of employers who would sponsor an H-1B1 have no idea it exists.

The six methods below start with the employers who already know, and end with what to say to the ones who don't.

1. Start with a job board that filters by H-1B1 history

Migrate Mate is a job board for international professionals with 500,000+ verified U.S. jobs from employers with a verified history of sponsoring work visas, drawn from government disclosure data. Listings are filterable by visa type with H-1B1 Chile and H-1B1 Singapore listed separately.

Rather than identifying employers and then verifying whether they sponsor, you begin with those that already have, with their current openings attached.

Every listing also includes verified direct contact for the hiring manager, so you can raise the visa category with the person responsible for the role.

2. Check the government filing data yourself

An employer with a certified H-1B1 on record has done all of this before. They have counsel who know the category, they've calculated a prevailing wage, and they know no USCIS petition is needed for the initial visa.

The Department of Labor publishes every certified filing by employer, including visa class, worksite, and outcome. The quarterly files cover every foreign labor program in one download, so isolating your category comes first.

Set visa class to H-1B1 Chile or H-1B1 Singapore, case status to certified, and worksite state to your target location. The visa class filter matters most, since H-1B records sit in the same file and will otherwise dominate the results.

3. Bilateral chambers and trade bodies

Both countries have well-developed commercial networks in the U.S., and the organizations running them deal with employers who already hire Chilean and Singaporean professionals.

For Chile, AmCham Chile and ProChile's U.S. offices connect American companies with Chilean talent and know which of them have sponsored before.

For Singapore, the Singapore Global Network and the Economic Development Board's overseas offices serve a similar function.

These organizations are more useful than general networking, because the employers involved have already established that they hire from your country.

4. Alumni networks from U.S. universities

Chilean and Singaporean graduates of U.S. universities are the group most likely to have used this visa themselves, and to know which employers processed it without friction.

Your university's alumni association and international office can usually identify graduates from your country at named employers. Country-specific alumni chapters are often more useful still, since members share the same immigration route.

5. Industries where the category concentrates

Certified filings cluster in software engineering, finance, pharmaceuticals, and academic research, which reflects where specialty occupation roles and international hiring overlap.

Company size matters as much as industry. Very small employers frequently have no immigration budget or counsel, while some large ones operate standardized H-1B programs that accommodate exceptions poorly. Mid-sized firms already hiring internationally tend to be the most receptive.

Universities and nonprofit research organizations process immigration paperwork continuously, so an unfamiliar category presents less of an obstacle than at a company encountering it for the first time.

6. Make the case to an employer who says no

Some employers decline before understanding what is being asked of them, which is a conversation worth having rather than a closed door.

Lead with what's different from the H-1B: no lottery, no registration window, no USCIS petition for the initial visa, and a labor condition application certified in seven working days. The quotas have never been filled.

Present it as a short conversation with the counsel they already use rather than a new program to establish.

Finding H-1B1 jobs for Chile and Singapore

The easiest employers to find are the ones already open to sponsoring an H-1B1, or who have sponsored one before.

Migrate Mate lists 500,000+ verified U.S. jobs, drawn from government disclosure data and limited to employers with a verified history of sponsoring work visas. Listings are filterable by visa type, with H-1B1 Chile and H-1B1 Singapore listed separately, and every listing includes verified direct contact for the hiring manager.

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