Why would a company go the expense and time commitment of sponsoring a visa for someone, and in particular, someone who hasn’t landed in their target country yet and is trying to do a job search from overseas?

What are the possible reasons or motivations?

1. The hiring company has multi-country operations (and in particular your home country + target country), and they have had success transplanting professionals from one to the other.

2. You have domain experience that a company wants. Badly enough that they are willing to sponsor you. This is usually a combination of Industry + Professional pedigree (Marketing, Business Development, Operations, etc.) + (perhaps) specific market segment expertise.

3. Personal relationship. You establish a relationship with someone who is in a position to hire and make this kind of decision and that person believes in you or wants you enough, that they are willing to do this.

4. If there is a labor shortage and your skills and experience are rare enough to warrant being imported.

5. Lastly, and the least strong, you brand yourself as someone with a first class track record of performance and you sell it.

(Again, this is under the assumption that you are trying to land a job from outside your target country as opposed to landing first, and then looking.)

Whether you are in-bound to the US / Canada or outbound to Europe, Asia or elsewhere, this applies.

If you are interested in an international move, the follow-up question is then, who are the players in your target market. The general approach, applying to lots of posted jobs without a target focus, just isn’t going to cut it. You have to target organizations and develop a strong “why you” case with a view to convincing them to even look at you.

There are always exceptions, but in my experience, this is the hard reality.