H-1B Visa Interview Questions About Your Employer

Every H-1B petition is employer-specific. The visa is tied to a particular employer, a particular job, at a particular worksite, for a particular wage. When an officer asks about your company, they are testing the foundation of the entire petition.

Three concerns drive employer questions:

1. Is the employer legitimate?

Does the company actually exist, operate a real business, and have the ability to pay the offered wage? 2.

Is the employer-employee relationship valid?

Does the petitioning employer have the right to hire, fire, pay, supervise, and control your work — even if you physically work at a client site? 3.

Does the job described in the petition actually exist?

Officers are screening for "benching" (paying below the required wage or not providing work) and for petitions filed for positions that do not reflect real business needs.

Understanding these underlying concerns helps you frame answers that address the officer's actual question, not just the surface question.

These are the top employer and company questions in H-1B stamping interviews.

What does your company do?

Commonly reported — more common for lesser-known employers

Describe the company in one or two sentences: what industry it operates in, what products or services it provides, and roughly how large it is. Officers do not need a company history — they need a clear picture of what the business does.

For large companies: "Amazon is a technology company that provides cloud computing services, e-commerce, and digital streaming. I work in the AWS division, which handles cloud infrastructure."

For smaller companies: "TechBridge Solutions is a mid-size IT services firm with about 200 employees. We build custom enterprise software for healthcare companies."

Commonly reported

Name your petitioning employer — the company listed on your I-797. This question becomes critical if you work at a client site. The officer wants to confirm that the company on the petition is your actual employer, not just a middleman.

Commonly reported

Officers use this to assess the company's ability to pay the offered wage and to determine whether the company has a genuine business need for an H-1B worker. Small companies are not disqualifying, but they receive more scrutiny.

Commonly reported

Your answer must match the worksite listed on your LCA. If your company has multiple offices, specify which one you work from.

Commonly reported

State your manager's name and title. If you work at a client site, clarify that your performance reviews, work assignments, and compensation come from your petitioning employer — not the client.

Commonly reported

Be direct. If you work at a client site, explain the arrangement clearly: who the client is, what project you are on, and how your employer maintains oversight. See the special situations section below for detailed strategies.

If you work at a client site through a consulting or staffing company, expect the most detailed employer questioning of any H-1B scenario. Officers are specifically trained to probe the employer-employee relationship in these cases.

Be prepared to explain:

• Your petitioning employer's name and what services they provide
• The client company where you physically work
• Who assigns your daily tasks (it should be your employer or your employer's project manager)
• Who conducts your performance reviews (your employer)
• Who determines your work hours and schedule
• What happens if the client project ends (your employer finds you a new assignment)

The key message: your employer controls your work, pays your salary, and can reassign you. The client provides the worksite, not the employment relationship.

Small Companies and Startups

Small companies face extra scrutiny because officers question whether the business has sufficient revenue to pay the H-1B wage. Be ready to describe:

• What the company does and who its clients are
• How many employees the company has
• How the company generates revenue
• Why this role is necessary for the business

Bring the company's most recent tax returns or financial statements if available — they may not be requested, but having them eliminates a common reason for administrative processing holds.

Remote Work

If you work remotely, your LCA must list your actual work location. Officers may ask where you physically perform your work. Explain that you work remotely from [city/state] for [employer], and that this arrangement is reflected in your petition and LCA. Be aware that working from a location not listed on your LCA creates a compliance issue that officers will flag.

Officers interview hundreds of applicants. They do not have time to parse jargon or long corporate descriptions. Use this framework:

Template: "[Company name] is a [size descriptor] [industry] company that [what it does]. I work in the [department/team] on [what your team does]."

Examples:

• "Deloitte is a global professional services firm. I work in their technology consulting practice, helping financial institutions modernize their IT systems."
• "Acme Analytics is a 50-person data analytics startup based in Austin. We build predictive models for retail companies. I lead the engineering team that develops our core platform."
• "Wipro is a large IT services company with over 250,000 employees. I work in their banking and financial services division, developing software for US-based bank clients."

Notice the pattern: company name, what it does, your specific role within it. Three sentences maximum. If the officer wants more detail, they will ask.

Behind employer questions, officers are evaluating three specific criteria:

Legitimate Employer

The company must be a real, operating business — not a shell company created to sponsor H-1B visas. Officers look for companies with actual clients, revenue, office space, and employees. Companies with no web presence, no clients, and a single H-1B employee raise immediate red flags.

Ability to Pay

The employer must demonstrate the financial ability to pay the offered wage. For large companies, this is assumed. For small companies and startups, officers may look more closely. Your company's tax returns, annual reports, or financial statements can address this concern.

Employer-Employee Relationship

This is the most heavily litigated area of H-1B law. The petitioning employer must have the right to control your work — including what you do, how you do it, and when you do it. For direct employees at the employer's own office, this is straightforward. For consulting arrangements, the officer needs to understand the chain of control.

If you cannot clearly explain who your employer is and how they control your work, the officer may place your case in administrative processing to investigate further.

Strong answer: "Cognizant is a global IT services company with about 350,000 employees. They provide technology consulting, digital transformation, and outsourcing services to enterprise clients across industries. I work in their healthcare technology practice, building electronic health record integration systems for US hospital networks."

Weak answer: "It's an IT company. We do software." — Too vague. Forces the officer to ask multiple follow-up questions and signals that you may not understand your own employer's business.

"Who do you work for?" (consulting scenario)

Strong answer: "My employer is InfoSys. They petitioned my H-1B. I currently work on a project at JPMorgan Chase's office in Jersey City, but InfoSys is my employer — they pay my salary, conduct my performance reviews, and assign me to projects. My manager at InfoSys is Priya Sharma, who is a Senior Project Manager."

Weak answer: "I work at JPMorgan." — Technically incorrect if InfoSys is the petitioning employer. This creates a fundamental inconsistency with the petition and is one of the most common reasons for administrative processing holds at H-1B interviews.

"How many employees does your company have?" (startup scenario)

Strong answer: "We have 15 full-time employees. The company was founded in 2022 and we have raised $8 million in Series A funding. Our clients include three Fortune 500 retailers. I am the lead data engineer responsible for our analytics pipeline — we needed someone with a master's degree in computer science for this role because the work involves advanced statistical modeling."

Weak answer: "About 15, I think. We're small but growing." — Misses the opportunity to address the officer's underlying concern about whether a 15-person company has a legitimate need for an H-1B worker and the financial capacity to pay the wage.

Employer questions are where H-1B interviews go wrong most often — especially for consulting and staffing company employees. A clear, confident description of your employer and the employer-employee relationship can prevent an administrative processing hold.

Our interview simulator is trained on 1,081 real H-1B officer-asked questions, including every employer and company variation documented here.

Practice until your company description and employer relationship are automatic.

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