{"id":997,"date":"2026-10-11T23:06:27","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T03:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn449-f26\/?p=997"},"modified":"2026-10-11T23:06:27","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T03:06:27","slug":"the-translation-of-international-talent-in-the-american-job-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn449-f26\/the-translation-of-international-talent-in-the-american-job-market\/","title":{"rendered":"The Translation of International Talent in the American Job Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

Devon Williams<\/span><\/p>\n

Professor Amos<\/span><\/p>\n

JRN 449: International News<\/span><\/p>\n

11 October 2026<\/span><\/p>\n

The Translation of International Talent in the American Job Market<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 2016, Syrian data analyst Almothana Alhamoud <\/span>told NPR<\/span><\/a> reporter Deborah Amos that one of the most difficult parts of transitioning into the American workforce was learning how to market one\u2019s skills and past international work experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo learn to sell yourself, that\u2019s the hard part, it\u2019s the work culture thing here,\u201d Alhamoud told Amos.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alhamoud came to America with a bachelor\u2019s degree in computer engineering and experience as a data analyst for Syria\u2019s Agriculture Ministry. His first American job was as a nightshift cashier, until Upwardly Global, a nonprofit that helps work-authorized immigrants and refugees reenter professional careers in the U.S., became his pathway to a more fitting job in IT.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now ten years later, the cultural problem Amos documented has broadened. Audra Brown, National Director of Employment Services at Upwardly Global, said the organization still helps job seekers \u201ctranslate their experience into the U.S. job market,\u201d while also \u201cworking with employers to make sure they understand how to evaluate immigrant talent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Migration Policy Institute <\/span>reports<\/span><\/a> that about 20 percent, roughly 2.1 million, of college-educated immigrants were unemployed or working low-skilled jobs in 2022, as opposed to 16 percent of U.S.-born college graduates. Similarly, foreign-born workers composed 19.1 percent of the U.S. labor force in 2025, <\/span>according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/span><\/a>, but still were less likely than American-born workers to hold managerial or professional positions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Upwardly Global describes this difficulty in details as small as how an applicant describes past accomplishments.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMany of our job seekers come from collectivist cultures, where when you\u2019re going for a job, you\u2019re talking more about \u2018what my team did and what my duties were,\u2019\u201d said Brown. American hiring culture, she described, expects achievements to be described individualistically: \u201c\u2018I did this. I made this impact.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Even \u201cbecoming comfortable speaking about their own work and self-advocacy is a cultural nuance that they need to practice,\u201d Brown said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Networking also is a challenge for participants who come from professional backgrounds where a credential leads directly to a career, said Brown, without the necessary secondary connection of marketing oneself to others. International CVs, in contrast to American resumes, can include photographs and several pages of information that would be unusual on a standard American resume, and this format discrepancy is vital with the rise of AI hiring practices.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fiona Maazel, Upwardly Global’s interim Vice President of Marketing and Communications, said recruiters are facing an application pool inundated with AI-generated material.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAI has opened the floodgates, and now you’re getting a bajillion resumes that AI has produced,\u201d Maazel said. \u201cYou might be screening out really valuable talent, but also you’re overwhelmed.\u201d These AI systems working to select candidates for interviews can filter out international talent when their applications do not fit the American models they are trained on.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cATS and AI screening tools might automatically discount someone because their background doesn\u2019t\u2026 fit the U.S. experience,\u201d Brown said. Employers may overlook a foreign degree, an unfamiliar company name or a career uncommon in American applications.<\/span><\/p>\n

That has given Upwardly Global the task of certifying that these candidates are still worth consideration when their applications can be less familiar.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese are highly trained professionals who have been vetted by us,\u201d Maazel said. \u201cWe can vouch for them. These are real people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Brown stated that Upwardly Global is employing AI on their end as well by building AI-enabled resume and interview practice tools because existing products are \u201cnot necessarily tested or built with an immigrant professional in mind.\u201d It also reorganized its resume guidance around the skills that automated screening systems search for and avoid that which it is trained to reject.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brown says these employment disparities and barriers still vary widely according to profession, English ability, immigration history, and extent of displacement. About 40 percent of Upwardly Global\u2019s participants, she said, are refugees or asylees, some of whom arrive after years outside their professions or without documents needed to verify their past professional credentials.<\/span><\/p>\n

Migration Policy Institute research<\/span><\/a> in 2019 has identified English proficiency, race, and legal status as influential predictors of whether college-educated immigrants work below their skill level. In one analysis, 55 percent of immigrants with very limited English were underemployed, compared with 15 percent of those who were fully proficient.<\/span><\/p>\n

Federal immigration policy is similarly making employment status more unstable for many workers. <\/span>President Donald Trump suspended<\/span><\/a> most refugee admissions in January 2025, and the United States only <\/span>admitted 16,292 refugees<\/span><\/a> in fiscal year 2026, compared to the more than <\/span>100,000 admitted in fiscal 2024<\/span><\/a>. Beginning October 30, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security ended automatic extensions of employment authorization documents (EADs) in certain categories, with limited exceptions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mary Lee, Upwardly Global\u2019s director of employer engagement, said it is a \u201ccommon misperception\u201d that immigrants, refugees, and asylees necessarily require employers to sponsor visas. Upwardly Global now advises eligible job seekers to write \u201cfully work-authorized\u201d at the top of their resumes to preempt that incorrect assumption.<\/span><\/p>\n

The organization is also seeing participants face interruptions in work authorization due to new renewal requirements. \u201cSometimes it creates a gap,\u201d Brown said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now that there are fewer pathways for migrants to enter the U.S., \u201cwe\u2019re starting to see our demographic shifting to people who’ve been here longer, who have been out of the professional workforce longer,\u201d she continued.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Maazel, reduced immigration makes it \u201ceven more pressing, I think, and more valuable,\u201d to aid skilled immigrants already in the country in their search for employment.<\/span><\/p>\n

While \u2018selling oneself\u2019 is still a necessary missing skill taught at Upwardly Global, the organization now faces the more complex problems of AI screening, credential recognition, and changing work-authorization rules. The onus now falls to employers to learn how to \u2018translate\u2019 international experience and backgrounds into a U.S. lens and to train automatic hiring systems to do the same.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Devon Williams Professor Amos JRN 449: International News 11 October 2026 The Translation of International Talent in the American Job Market   In 2016, Syrian data analyst Almothana Alhamoud told NPR reporter Deborah Amos that one of the most difficult parts of transitioning into the American workforce was learning how to market one\u2019s skills and<\/p>\n

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