Visa application strategies for unemployed freelancers in developed countries

Because I have just got an American visa and a Schengen visa for more than ten years, I am unemployed. Here is my experience in applying for a visa. It should be emphasized that the focus of this post is not to teach you how to fill out a letter of credit. By default, you can complete these tasks yourself (or under the guidance of other online strategies). Here, I mainly want to talk about several basic principles for unemployed people to apply for visas in developed countries with my own examples:

1. Credit accumulation principle

Actually, applying for a visa is similar to applying for a credit card. The better your credit history, the easier it is for you to apply for a credit card, and the higher your credit limit. What is the credit history of the visa? To put it bluntly, your work unit, travel record, the number of developed countries you have been to, and whether you have a history of refusing visas or overstaying will all have an impact on your visa credit record. Before applying for these two visas this time, I used up one and a half passports (I lost half of the first one). I have had two American visas (I have been there three times), three Schengen visas (I have been there at least six times), one Canadian study visa (I have been studying in Canada for one and a half years), and the entry and exit records of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. These are all extra points. Most of the credit goes to my first job, because working as a migrant worker in a Fortune 500 multinational company gave me the opportunity to go to many places and provided strong guarantee and support for applying for a visa. What conclusion did this lead to? In fact, your first job after graduating from college is to go to a big company that can let you travel all over the world. This is not only beneficial to your future career development, but also allows you to quickly accumulate a good visa credit line without spending all your pockets. Even if this job can't send you to all parts of the world for training, you should use your working time to apply for several visas with "influencing factors", such as Schengen visa, American visa and Australian visa. As for Southeast Asian countries, in fact, everything is chicken ribs, and most of them are signed. It doesn't matter whether they want it or not. Also, as long as you have a Beijing hukou, you can easily get a college diploma of 2 1 1. I suggest buying one sometime, even though I have no plans to go to Korea.

2. The principle of honesty and reasonableness

Many friends who have no formal jobs have a headache when they apply for visas, because most developed countries need to provide financial guarantee for visas. For most people, the most powerful financial security is your salary. If not, what should I do? Many friends think of fraud. Personally, I think this is a big deal, because you never know how powerful the people at the visa office are, especially now that the Internet is developed. If you really meet a blind visa officer, you can even try. Once fraud is detected, it is not as simple as refusing a visa. It is possible to blacklist you, and the loss will be too great. Some friends borrowed a large sum of money from family and friends and temporarily deposited it in their personal accounts as proof of funds, which is also not desirable, because many embassies don't look at proof of funds now, and people want to see your debit card, so you temporarily deposit a large sum of money without explaining the source, which is easy to be suspected. Here we assume that you have enough financial resources to support this trip before applying for a visa. For example, your budget for this trip is $3,000, so all you need to do is prove that your savings and income are enough to pay for this $3,000, and you still have a surplus. Although I didn't go to work, I did freelance work, opened an online store to do WeChat business, and also earned income. To put it another way, you need to develop a good consumption habit, don't spend it every month, and save a little money every month as a travel fund in the future.

Tell the truth, or be reasonable. This is mainly about your travel itinerary, which may be the most important material for you to apply for an American visa and a Schengen visa. What you need to do is to make this trip meaningful and convince the visa officer that you have really made sufficient plans and preparations for this trip. Take my application for an American visa as an example. I made a two-week trip, sightseeing in San Francisco for 4-5 days, visiting my uncle's house in America for 3-4 days, and sightseeing in Chicago. When filling in the DS 160 form, the American visa system actually allows you to choose an uncertain travel plan, so I chose this one. Even so, in order to cope with the staff of CITIC Bank, I made an accurate itinerary and made a summary of my activities and accommodation in various places. In the DS 160 form, I honestly filled in that I am umemployed, and then said in the explanation column below that I am in the period of professional rest, and I hope to travel to the United States. After my trip from America, I will go to countries in Central and South America via America. During my trip, I also made a final statement. I will eventually leave the United States for Mexico City by plane. From the visa officer's point of view, this is very reasonable.

As for my Schengen visa, according to many online statements, it is not recommended to travel for more than 30 days. But in the end, due to the plane ticket and my actual travel plan, I made a full 43-day trip. In order to explain the rationality of this trip, I attached an explanatory letter to the visa materials, telling the visa officer that I had only been to Paris and the northern city of Lille when I went to France before. I really hope to visit some famous cities in southern France, such as Bordeaux, during my holiday. Then I hope to go all the way from France to the east, pass through Switzerland, Germany (Oktoberfest), Austria and Hungary, and finally leave Schengen for home from Hungary. I think this travel itinerary plus a letter of explanation is completely reasonable in the eyes of any visa officer, and the final result also proves this point. The visa officer generously gave me 50 days to stay.

Abuse is better than lack.

In the process of DIY visa materials, we must prepare according to the latest official materials list of the embassy. Some materials in the list must be provided in some way, but materials that are not mentioned but you think may support your visa should also be provided in some way. For example, applying for a Schengen visa in France is no longer required to provide a hotel reservation form. It is optional in the list, but if you are unemployed and the materials are seriously damaged, it is better to understand this option as necessary. When I applied for the travel itinerary of Schengen visa in France, I not only provided a detailed travel itinerary, but also generated a travel itinerary map on Master travel training (saying that the travel itinerary map automatically generated by this tool is too ugly) and attached it. I also made a simple budget list and told the visa officer that although I don't have a job, the money in my account is enough to pay for this trip. If you still have real estate license, car purchase contract and other things that can prove your financial source, attach them all! If you have a rich father, you must be worth the effort to get a visa. Please attach your father's income certificate. I saw the travel itinerary of an unemployed single girl on a poor tour. He is very cautious about which bus line to take. Is it too much? I don't think so. It is possible that the visa officer is too lazy to read a lot of the materials you finally prepared, or it was directly rejected by CIIC or China CITIC Bank before reaching the visa officer's hand, but this is much safer than not preparing all the materials. In short, you must not be lazy and save trouble when making materials. We must take the initiative to kill 3 thousand people by mistake and never let go of one.

Finally, I want to make an advertisement. These are the two visas I applied for this time, and I didn't go to Beijing. The American visa was found on Taobao through CITIC and the Schengen store in France. There are thousands of visa shops on Taobao, and the homogenization is very serious, but few of them are reliable. I tried to contact a lot of people, and the customer service was either stupid or too timid to accept the materials of unemployed people like me. Finally, when I was eager to buy a train ticket and send it to Beijing myself, I found Zhong Yi, a shop with good service attitude and high efficiency. Send materials from Hohhot on Monday morning and submit visas on Wednesday. Unlike the other store I consulted, I want to criticize it by name here. This store is called "Baicheng", which seems to be the largest store in Tmall. I asked the customer service, explained my situation to him, and told them that I had prepared a full set of materials, and I just needed them to deliver the goods for me. Then their customer service told me that they need at least three days to review the materials (please, I'm ready, do you need three days to review them? ), and lied to me that I had made an appointment after the 20th of the peak season (that day was 17), but I clearly saw on the reservation interface of Zhongzhi Sign that I could make an appointment after 18. When I meet this unprofessional shop, I can only give them four words: "Negative marks are rough!" " Let alone give them their own visas. What I want to say here is that it is best to issue the visa yourself, but if you don't have time to find an agent to issue it to you, you must keep your eyes open and find a reliable one.

(By the way, since the Schengen visa requires the applicant to collect fingerprints at the end of 15, friends who have not recorded fingerprints within five years still need to go to the embassy to enter their fingerprints before they can apply for a visa. )

Finally, it can be summed up in one sentence: it is not difficult to apply for a visa. The most important thing is to change your mind when preparing the application materials, so that you can stand in the perspective of the visa officer and see if the materials you have prepared are convincing enough. If the materials are well made, your visa will be half successful. What is the other half? luck