Career as a visa officer
Career as a visa officer – I had the chance of working at the biggest visa processing company in the world.This is a company that handles visa processing and documentation on behalf of the respective embassies.
As an employee of this company your main jobs will be to attend to clients who want visas from the embassy of the country they want to visit.
You accept the required documents and check them for validity.If the documents are in order,you need to take their passport for stamping.this passport is then sent to the embassy for the stamped visa if accepted by the embassy.
In many cases the visa maybe denied on various grounds.These types of visas are:
tourist visa
employment
self employment
invitation
business
friend and family visa
long term – pr – permanent residency
scientific internship visa
Also read – How to easily get a Italy visa from India
Also read – How to get a Canada Study Visa from India
Advantages of a Career as a visa officer
1.knowledge of visas and passports,embassy – you will get to know the absolute in depth details of the workings of the embassy because at times you may also be sent there for a few weeks to facilitate the process.you will learn the intricate details of the entire system starting from the client handing over the passport to you,upto when you give it back to them,stamped or rejected.
2.can join after 12th – one of the best advantages of this job is that noether do you need any starting experience in any industry nor a graduate degree.Many young students join directly after class 12 and build a good career here.you will be around many young people and is a good environment to work in.
3.good starting salary – I will say that for a class 12 student also,the starting salary is about 15k in hand,which is not bad and is on level with any BPO
4.easy transition in to other travel an tourism related careers – If you plan on getting into the travel and tourism sector,this is an excellent place to start.You can later do other travel related courses to further your career in this field.A start in the visa process holds very good experience and will benefit you alot.
5.can join airline and travel agency also after – just like the previous point,many girls from visa processing join airlines as ground staff and some as flight attendants also.It is a good stepping stone to other related travel agencies especially to online travel portals like makemytrip.com and yatra.com
6. Chance to get transferred out of country – I know many people who have got postings in the process that they were working for.For example if an officer is familiar with the visa process they will be sent to the branch office in that foreign country.I know friends who have joined the foreign office of Ethiopia,Australia and Iraq.
7. Good work timings specially for girls compare to BPO The biggest difference between BPO and a visa job is the timings – no night shifts at all here only normal working hours which coincide with that of the embassy of that country
8. Complimentary 2.5 days holidays per month – Not only do the working hours of the embassy coincide with the visa office,also the holidays do.If for example there is a national holiday for Italy and you are working in the Italy visa section,you also will get an off! great isnt it?
Disadvantages of a career as a visa officer
1/slow growth – Career growth in the travel tourism sector is good but within a visa processing company is slow.You need to work atleast 2-3 years in order to become a senior officer,after which another 2-3 years with get you to a deputy manager post.
2.lots of rejects from airline course companies – not exactly a bad thing per se,but in this line of work you get to meet lots of candidates who had joined airline and air hostess training institutes and did not get accepted.
3.lots of staff with standard no skills and knowledge of basic computers – due to the fact that there are lots of newbies getting hired in these processes and the attrition rate being high,many of the staff is raw and untrained in basic skills.Many do not even know basics of computers.
I believe if you want to get higher in life,you need to surround yourself with people who know more than you,not less than you.