Comment by ColinWright | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ColinWright | Hacker News Reader

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    > The OP appears to be trying to get an internship
    > position in the US while being in Egypt.  It is
    > absolutely positively has nothing to do with the
    > cover letter, so your comment is just off by a
    > very wide margin, ...

Are you sure about that? It's been a long time since I had much to do with internships as opposed to job applications, but it always seemed to me that the cover letter was the hook that made me want to check the CV to see if there was evidence supporting the claims made. I don't see why that should have changed at all, but I'd be very interested in learning why you claim that the cover letter is completely irrelevant.

    > ... it sits at the top because of your massive karma.

Actually it now has 18 points. I'd be interested to know for sure what effect a contributor's karma has on their comment ranking. I know it used to, but I was sure I'd seen a comment from the mods saying that the effect had been removed. With no points shown it's now rather harder to be sure, or to do experiments.

> Are you sure about that?

Positive. No US company will bother with visa headaches for an intern regardless of how exciting the cover letter is. Further compounded by the fact that he's from Egypt, which is a 3rd world country with a highly unstable situation. I suspect you were never exposed to all the pleasures of the US visa process, which would explain your rather naive view of the situation.

Internships in European countries are entirely plausible. US visa situation is an exception to the rule among developed countries.

For example, Facebook has London offices, which is their go-to solution for US visa troubles.

Egypt might be "3rd world" in somebody's book, but I've never heard about the visa process being particularly racially biased (at least US visa process).

>I've never heard about the visa process being particularly racially biased (at least US visa process)

I just dont even know where to begin. The only way I can understand this statement is if you never heard anything about the process, period.

Its not about racial bias. Its about background checks, and making sure that the internship is genuine and in one of your uncle's US companies. Plus you should appear confident and genuine, in the in-person interview.

Microsoft bothered with the visa headaches for me when I interned from Australia. It makes sense, too: internships lead to full-time positions.

Are you serious? Why would a U.S. company want to hire an intern that they have to get a visa for? Unless this guy is applying for internships with Facebook in Egypt, there's absolutely no incentive for a U.S. based company to seek to employ foreign nationals for a position that is largely non-skilled.

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