Built for ISSS offices and international career services
Career Match filters for H-1B sponsorship density. STEM-OPT extension pathway honestly reflected. Cap-exempt research-institution pathway surfaced as distinct option. Home-country and third-country alternatives supported.
JobCannon for International Student US Career Pathways serves university International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS) offices, career services offices, and international student career advisors supporting F-1 students through OPT, STEM-OPT extension, and H-1B sponsorship pathways. Career Match against the 2,536-career knowledge graph filters for H-1B sponsorship density using LCA and approval-data signals — students see careers and employers with structurally higher sponsorship rates rather than the universal match without visa filter. STEM-designation alignment surfaced for STEM-OPT eligibility planning. Cap-exempt H-1B pathway through universities and qualified research institutions reflected as distinct option for PhD students and postdocs. Non-STEM students see honest harder-pathway data informing earlier-and-more-aggressive sponsorship-employer targeting. Home-country return and third-country alternatives supported via universal match data with country-specific filters under university partnership engagement. ISSS offices see STEM-designation alignment data; career services offices see Career Match output and skill-cluster baselines. Bridge product between immigration-compliance and career-counselling functions that historically operate in silos. International student access free; university dashboard runs on Business tier or scoped under partnership for international-student-heavy institutions and consortium engagements.
Visa-realistic, sponsorship-density-filtered, honest about the lottery.
Career fit first, visa-realistic pathway second.
For a university serving 4,500 international students
International student access stays free. University dashboard runs on Business tier ($199/mo flat) for single-campus deployment or scoped under partnership for international-student-heavy institutions and consortium engagements.
Try it with a micro-team
For independent coaches and therapists
For startups, teams and HR
For agencies, L&D and scale-ups
For 200+ person companies
All plans currently activated manually via the contact form — we review each request within 24 hours and provision access the same day. Self-serve checkout coming once we've heard from the first wave of teams.
Tell us your international student volume, your STEM-versus-non-STEM mix, and your ISSS-career services coordination model. We respond with a partnership scope within three business days.
International students on F-1 visas face a structurally different career-planning landscape than domestic peers. OPT (12 months post-completion) plus STEM-OPT extension (24 additional months for STEM-designated degree programmes) plus H-1B lottery sponsorship is the dominant pathway, and the visa-realistic landscape filters which careers are practically accessible. Career Match against the 2,536-career knowledge graph can be filtered for H-1B sponsorship density — careers and employers with high historical H-1B approval volumes versus low-volume employers — using LCA and approval-data signals. The platform does not file immigration paperwork; we surface the visa-realistic match data the student and ISSS or international career advisor work from.
ISSS offices typically focus on immigration compliance (F-1 SEVIS reporting, OPT applications, STEM-OPT extensions, transfer-in/out work) rather than career counselling, while career services offices typically focus on career counselling without deep visa knowledge. The platform sits at the bridge — international students complete the battery as part of their first-year orientation or pre-OPT-application preparation, and both ISSS staff and career-services staff see the structured output relevant to their work. ISSS sees STEM-designation alignment for STEM-OPT eligibility planning; career services sees Career Match output and skill-cluster baselines for placement support.
The H-1B lottery introduces a probability layer no career assessment platform can deterministically resolve. What we can do is filter by historical sponsorship density (LCA and approved-petition data published by USCIS) and surface employers and career profiles with structurally higher sponsorship rates. A computer science graduate seeing 500-plus historical H-1B approvals at large tech employers is in a structurally different landscape than a humanities graduate targeting a sector with sparse historical sponsorship. The platform reflects this reality without pretending the lottery does not exist; the international career advisor conducts the realistic-pathway conversation with the student.
STEM-designated degree programmes carry the 24-month STEM-OPT extension, which significantly improves the H-1B pathway by providing three lottery cycles instead of one. Non-STEM students face the harder pathway: 12-month OPT, single H-1B lottery cycle, and tighter sponsorship-employer concentration. Career Match output filters this honestly — non-STEM students see a smaller realistic-employer set and the platform does not soft-pedal the harder landscape. Career-services advisors use the data to inform earlier-and-more-aggressive sponsorship-employer targeting for non-STEM international cohorts.
University-employed and qualified-research-institution H-1B positions are cap-exempt, providing a sponsorship pathway without lottery dependence. PhD students and postdocs targeting cap-exempt research positions, plus students entering university-administration roles, see this in Career Match. The platform reflects the cap-exempt landscape as a distinct pathway rather than collapsing it into general H-1B planning. Career advisors at research-intensive universities use this for graduate students considering academic-versus-industry trajectories.
Yes, and it matters. Many international students assess the realistic landscape and choose home-country return or third-country positions rather than the US persistence pathway. Career Match supports international career-fit data — the same skill capability and Big Five output applies whether the student targets US, home country, or third country. Country-specific filters available under university partnership engagement; otherwise the platform shows the universal match landscape and the international career advisor and student decide which national landscape to target.