Today, I will post about the E7 visa application software developer that I worked on recently.
First, the client was a Swedish student who graduated from a university in Sweden (majoring in Software Engineering Management) and came to Korea on a tourist employment H-1 visa.
While studying in Sweden, he came to Korea as an exchange student, completed one semester, and returned to his home country. However, his experience as an exchange student in Korea led him to finish the remaining semesters in his home country, graduate from his university, and then apply for an H-1 visa to return to Korea.
Anyway, just because the E7 visa applicant meets the requirements doesn't mean the visa will be granted.
The hiring company's requirements are even more important.
So, I said to him, "I've seen your resume and understand your qualifications, but I also need to understand the company's requirements. Either tell the company representative to call me, or if the company is sure about hiring you, give me the contact of the person in charge." I then spoke with the company representative.
The company also wanted to hire him, and the company's qualifications were also met, so we proceeded with changing his status from H-1 to E-7 visa.
For the company, the number of domestic employees registered in employment insurance was sufficient, and this was their first time hiring a foreigner with an E7 visa.
Also, the company's business registration certificate listed software development and supply as its business type. After reviewing the company's introduction and website, it was clear that their main business was software development and related tasks, and they needed to hire talent for that.
In other words, the applicant's major (Software Engineering Management) and the field they wanted to hire for matched perfectly. It was a good case.
However, the applicant had no relevant experience (he graduated from university in the summer of 2022 and received his degree). The basic requirement for the E7 visa is that if you graduate from a foreign university (bachelor's degree), you need at least 1 year of relevant experience. He almost couldn't apply because he didn't meet this requirement.
However, during the consultation, I found out that he graduated from one of the top 200 universities in the world as ranked by Times in 2022. After carefully checking all the documents except the work certificate, we applied for a change of status to the E7 visa.
※ Graduates of the top 200 universities as ranked by Times are exempt from the experience requirement.
- (Those with more than 1 year of professional work experience in a Fortune 500 company) If they do not meet the education and experience requirements set for the job, they may be allowed if there is a need for employment.
- (Bachelor's degree holders (or expected) from top global universities*) Even if they do not meet the 1-year experience requirement in their major, they may be allowed if there is a need for employment.
*Refers to the top 200 universities ranked by Times magazine and the top 500 universities ranked by QS.
For those unfamiliar with the H-1 visa (tourist employment), I'll briefly explain what the H-1 visa is. Then, I will go over the 2022 Times top 200 global university rankings and the E7 visa application software developer one by one.
H-1 Visa (Tourist Employment)
Eligibility
◆ Youths (aged 18 to 30) from countries that have signed an agreement or memorandum of understanding with South Korea on tourist employment, who enter Korea primarily for tourism and intend to work for a short period to cover their travel expenses.
◆ Maximum stay period granted at once: As per the agreement.
Visa Issuance
1. Application Institution
Overseas consulates in charge of the countries with which the agreement has been made.
- However, Austrian citizens can apply for a visa at the Japanese Embassy, Chinese Embassy, Shanghai Consulate General, Hong Kong Consulate General, and Taipei Representative Office as per the agreement.
2. Issuance Details
Visa type, validity period, and stay period as per the agreement with each country.
Visa Issuance Quantity (Quota)
3. Fees
If the counterpart country charges a fee (related to the working holiday visa) to our citizens, a fee will be charged to the citizens of that country based on reciprocity.
※ As of 2018, Japan, France, Chile, Hong Kong, and Spain do not charge our citizens a visa examination fee for working holidays, so citizens of these countries are also exempt from the visa examination fee.
4. Required Documents
Change of Visa Status (From H-1 Visa to another type while in Korea)
(Standard) Generally, changes in status are restricted.
(Change to Professional Qualifications) For professional occupations (doctors, lawyers, professors, pilots, language instructors, etc.) and specific activities (E-7), if the requirements are met, a change in status is possible.
- However, this does not apply to the UK, France, Ireland, Denmark, Chile, Italy, Israel, and Belgium.
(Others) Changing from another visa status to tourist employment (H-1) is not allowed.
Employment Activity Standards
◆ If the counterpart country changes the employment period for our citizens, the employment period will be adjusted reciprocally, but the maximum employment time per week is limited to 25 hours.
《 Employment Period by Country 》
Employment Type: Contractual, part-time, etc. regardless of employment type.
Restricted Occupations (E-1 to E-7):
‣ Entertainment-related occupations such as hostesses, dancers, singers, musicians, acrobats (E-6).
‣ Professional occupations that require specific qualifications (doctors, lawyers, professors, pilots, language instructors, etc.) and occupations under E-7 (specific activities).
‣ Occupations that involve gambling or are against good morals.
Study Activity Standards
◆ If the counterpart country changes the study period for our citizens, it will be adjusted reciprocally based on mutual agreement.
< Study Period by Country >
- Type of Study: Attending academies, language training, and other educational activities.
- Restricted Types of Study
‣ Regular academic courses corresponding to D-2 (study abroad).
‣ Studies conducted while also assisting in foreign language education.
※ If a foreigner studying Korean at an academy includes a Korean conversation course, it is not considered as the foreigner's own Korean learning but as a conversation instructor activity for Koreans (requires a conversation instructor visa status), and thus is prohibited.
As observed, the H-1 visa (tourist employment) is a kind of "taster visa" issued in agreement with a few specific countries, allowing limited activities (work + study + tourism). Since not many people from the aforementioned countries come to Korea with an H-1 visa, it's not well-known to the general public.
Next, we will look into the 2022 Times Top 200 World University Rankings, which was the only advantage and hope of the client.
<Times' Top 200 World University Rankings for 2022> |
1 University of Oxford (United Kingdom) 2 California Institute of Technology (United States) 2 Harvard University (United States) 4 Stanford University (United States) 5 University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) 5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States) 7 Princeton University (United States) 8 University of California, Berkeley (United States) 9 Yale University (United States) 10 The University of Chicago (United States) 11 Columbia University (United States) 12 Imperial College London (United Kingdom) 13 Johns Hopkins University (United States) 13 University of Pennsylvania (United States) 15 ETH Zurich (Switzerland) 16 Peking University (China) 16 Tsinghua University (China) 18 University of Toronto (Canada) 18 UCL (United Kingdom) 20 University of California, Los Angeles (United States) 21 National University of Singapore (Singapore) 22 Cornell University (United States) 23 Duke University (United States) 24 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (United States) 24 Northwestern University (United States) 26 New York University (United States) 27 London School of Economics and Political Science (United Kingdom) 28 Carnegie Mellon University (United States) 29 University of Washington (United States) 30 University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong) 30 University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom) 32 LMU Munich (Germany) 33 University of Melbourne (Australia) 34 University of California, San Diego (United States) 35 The University of Tokyo (Japan) 35 King’s College London (United Kingdom) 37 University of British Columbia (Canada) 38 Technical University of Munich (Germany) 39 Karolinska Institute (Sweden) 40 Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris (France) 40 École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland) 42 KU Leuven (Belgium) 42 Heidelberg University (Germany) 44 McGill University (Canada) 45 Georgia Institute of Technology (United States) 46 Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (Singapore) 47 University of Texas at Austin (United States) 48 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (United States) 49 Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong) 50 University of Manchester (United Kingdom) 51 Washington University in St Louis (United States) 52 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (United States) 53 Wageningen University & Research (Netherlands) 54 Australian National University (Australia) 54 The University of Queensland (Australia) 54 Seoul National University (South Korea) 57 Monash University (Australia) 58 University of Sydney (Australia) 58 University of Wisconsin-Madison (United States) 60 Fudan University (China) 61 Kyoto University (Japan) 62 Boston University (United States) 63 University of Southern California (United States) 64 Brown University (United States) 65 University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) 66 The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Hong Kong) 67 University of California, Davis (United States) 68 University of California, Santa Barbara (United States) 69 Utrecht University (Netherlands) 70 UNSW Sydney (Australia) 71 Leiden University (Netherlands) 72 Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands) 73 Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Germany) 74 Humboldt University of Berlin (Germany) 75 Zhejiang University (China) 75 Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) 75 University of Zurich (Switzerland) 78 University of Tübingen (Germany) 78 University of Warwick (United Kingdom) 80 McMaster University (Canada) 80 University of Groningen (Netherlands) 82 Emory University (United States) 83 Free University of Berlin (Germany) 84 Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China) 85 Ohio State University (Main campus) (United States) 86 University of Glasgow (United Kingdom) 86 University of Minnesota (United States) 88 University of Montreal (Canada) 88 University of Science and Technology of China (China) 88 Sorbonne University (France) 91 Institut Polytechnique de Paris (France) 91 Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Hong Kong) 92 University of Bristol (United Kingdom) 93 University of Maryland, College Park (United States) 93 Michigan State University (United States) 96 Ghent University (Belgium) 96 University of Copenhagen (Denmark) 98 University of California, Irvine (United States) 99 Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) (South Korea) 99 Dartmouth College (United States) 101 University of Helsinki (Finland) 101 University of Bern (Switzerland) 103 University of Basel (Switzerland) 104 Aarhus University (Denmark) 105 Nanjing University (China) 105 University of Birmingham (United Kingdom) 105 Purdue University West Lafayette (United States) 108 University of Freiburg (Germany) 108 RWTH Aachen University (Germany) 110 University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) 111 University of Adelaide (Australia) 112 University of Bonn (Germany) 113 National Taiwan University (NTU) (Taiwan) 113 Vanderbilt University (United States) 115 Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Netherlands) 116 Lund University (Sweden) 117 Université Paris-Saclay (France) 117 Queen Mary University of London (United Kingdom) 119 University of Göttingen (Germany) 119 University of Oslo (Norway) 119 Penn State (Main campus) (United States) 122 Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) (South Korea) 122 Lancaster University (United Kingdom) 124 University of Southampton (United Kingdom) 125 University of Alberta (Canada) 126 Case Western Reserve University (United States) 127 Maastricht University (Netherlands) 127 University of Leeds (United Kingdom) 127 University of Virginia (Main campus) (United States) 130 Georgetown University (United States) 131 Uppsala University (Sweden) 132 The University of Western Australia (Australia) 132 University of Hamburg (Germany) 132 Arizona State University (Tempe) (United States) 136 Rice University (United States) 137 University of Vienna (Austria) 137 University of Auckland (New Zealand) 139 Technical University of Berlin (Germany) 139 Radboud University Nijmegen (Netherlands) 140 University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh campus (United States) 141 University of Nottingham (United Kingdom) 142 University of Rochester (United States) 143 University of Technology Sydney (Australia) 143 University of Antwerp (Belgium) 143 University of Exeter (United Kingdom) 146 University of Mannheim (Germany) 146 Ulm University (Germany) 146 Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) 146 Newcastle University (United Kingdom) 150 University of Arizona (United States) 151 City University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong) 151 Yonsei University (Seoul campus) (South Korea) 151 University of Sussex (United Kingdom) 154 University of Florida (United States) 155 Université de Paris (France) 156 Pompeu Fabra University (Spain) 157 Wuhan University (China) 158 Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) 158 Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russian Federation) 158 University of Aberdeen (United Kingdom) 158 University of Colorado Boulder (United States) 162 University of Ottawa (Canada) 162 Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) (China) 162 Durham University (United Kingdom) 165 University of Würzburg (Germany) 166 Bielefeld University (Germany) 167 Indiana University (United States) 168 Northeastern University (United States) 169 University of York (United Kingdom) 170 University of Canberra (Australia) 170 Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain) 172 University of Cologne (Germany) 172 TU Dresden (Germany) 172 University of Bologna (Italy) 172 Tufts University (United States) 176 Stockholm University (Sweden) 176 University of Lausanne (Switzerland) 178 Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) (South Korea) 178 University of Liverpool (United Kingdom) 180 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany) 181 Huazhong University of Science and Technology (China) 182 University of East Anglia (United Kingdom) 183 University of Cape Town (South Africa) 183 University of Notre Dame (United States) 185 Technical University of Denmark (Denmark) 185 Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) (South Korea) 185 University of Gothenburg (Sweden) 185 University of Leicester (United Kingdom) 189 Cardiff University (United Kingdom) 190 King Abdulaziz University (Saudi Arabia) 190 Rutgers University – New Brunswick (United States) 192 Macquarie University (Australia) 193 Queensland University of Technology (Australia) 193 University of Barcelona (Spain) 193 Texas A&M University (United States) 196 Medical University of Graz (Austria) 197 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany) 197 University of Hohenheim (Germany) 197 Sapienza University of Rome (Italy) 197 Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (Italy) 197 University of Geneva (Switzerland) |
Next, we will delve into the "Application Software Developer" profession, one of the 87 job categories for which the client applied for an E7 visa.
E7 Visa Application Software Developer
❍ (Job Description)
Individuals who develop various software such as word processors, accounting management, databases, statistical processing, document approval programs, etc., for use by companies or individuals, and modify the software environment according to the computer system's usage environment.
❍ (Examples of Applicable Jobs)
Data Management Application Programmer, Financial Management Application Programmer, Information Processing Application Programmer, Game Programmer, Online Game Programmer, Protocol Developer, Network Programmer.
❍ (Employment Recommendation Issuance)
- Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy (KOTRA), Minister of SMEs and Startups (Small and Medium Business Corporation): Applicable only to small and medium-sized enterprises.
❍ (Qualification Requirements, Visa Issuance, and Residency Management) General standards apply.
Lastly, you can check the required documents for changing the E7 visa residency qualification (changing the visa within the country) at the blog address linked below.↓