5/23/2007

In order to meet the Bachelor's degree plus 5 years of progressive experience for EB2, the only experience that satisfies the requirement is post-bachelor's degree five years of experience. Accordingly, even if one has six years of progressive experience either prior to or during the Bachelor's degree program such as internship, those experiences are not counted in calculating the 'progressive 5 years of experience.' The experiences that are counted for the 5 year progressive experiences are those following receipt of the bachelor's degree.

It is thus extremely important to remember that unless he/she has at least 5 years of experience after earning a four-year bachelor's degree, he/she will not be qualified for EB-2 I-140 petition even if the labor certification application required a bachelor's degree plus 5 years of experience and he/she has such years of experience.

The confusion is exacerbated by the DOL practice that does not necessarily require post-bachelor's degree experience. Certification of such labor certification has no meaning for the proof of EB-2 qualification, even though it may help to weed out groups of U.S. worker candidates in the recruitment process.

The same rule does not apply when alien beneficiary has to prove experience requirement with the requirement of a master's degree, in which case any experience prior to or during the master's degree program can be counted to prove the experience.