I am currently working under OPT, and my program is not STEM (Air Traffic Management). I mentioned I will need sponsorship after my OPT expired in Feb 2016 during interview and also when I accepted the offer. However, until now my employer has not talked to me about applying H1B for 2015-2016. How should I approach my employer to talk about this ?
P.S. I accepted my offer on Feb 2nd, 2015, and just finished training 2 weeks ago. It seems like my employer may not have enough time to evaluate my performance.
It is too early to talk about it I guess. You need to first prove yourself in the first few months and then slowly bring up the topic on your performance and succession plan for the next year and indicate that you cannot work past certain date without that approval.
There are couple of things you need to know, you are too late to apply for FY 2016 quota as USCIS started accepting applications from yesterday April 1, 2-15. Secondly, as your OPT expires in Feb 2016, you will be in 60 days grace period, while you apply for H1B Visa for FY 2017 quota on April 1st, 2016, which does not allow you to work from the day your OPT expires until October 1st, 2016. This is something very important that you need to know… You can read the USCIS cap gap regulations.