Preparing for your visa interview? Here's what you should do according to a Former Visa Officer

I'm a former Visa officer and how should you go into that visa interview [Music] just go in and cross your fingers and hope that everything goes well should you go in and uh and try to answer every question as simply as possible without saying anything more than necessary or should you go in and be prepared to give a lot of information to share a whole lot about your story about your plans about your program with that Visa officer well what you need to do is have a strategy you don't need to go in there just hoping it goes well thinking oh well I hope that they like everything that I'm bringing in no it's an interview it's not called the Visa presentation of documents it's called the visa interview and what is an interview an interview is a conversation it's a back and forth between the interviewer and the interviewee the interviewer is going to ask you questions and then you're going to respond now if you've spoken to anyone who's ever attended a visa interview or if you've attended a visa interview yourself you know that the Visa officers do not look at documents very much and if they do look at documents they've asked you questions about those documents before they ask to look at those documents they're not just going to take oh well yes sir please hand me everything that you've brought here let me just sit here quietly for 15 minutes and skim through all these records you've you've shown me today no what they're going to do is they're going to ask you questions and depending on your answers they're either going to feel confident that you are a good Visa applicant that they should issue a visa to or they are going to feel the opposite of that they're going to doubt your intentions going to the U.S if they doubt your intentions they're not going to give you a Visa but if they trust you if they feel that you've given them the confidence they need to believe that you are not going to misuse your Visa then they're going to issue you your Visa the documents are a secondary part the primary part is your strategy for how you're going to answer those questions you need those documents to back up what you say but primarily you need to have a strategy for how you are going to one speak to the Visa officer what's the tone you're going to have right how are you going to approach it are you going to be very Meek and subservient like you're speaking to a judge or police officer or are you going to approach the situation like you're speaking to a peer like an equal like someone who you might meet at a professional event who you're trying to impress but you also want them to like you well I can tell you the answer is the second of those you want to approach them like a peer all right that's the tone you want to take that's the first part of the strategy the second part of the strategy is what are you going to say to introduce yourself right in a conversation if you meet a new person you could just say hello my name is Ben okay you haven't left much of an impression maybe you've left a bad impression by being so quiet but you definitely haven't given the person you're speaking to any information that's going to stick with him that makes them think anything about who you are other than reticent to speak what should you do instead you should be prepared to introduce yourself but not just introduce yourself hi my name's Ben I like chocolate ice cream no you need to introduce yourself with a purpose you're introducing who you are as a Visa applicant what are the credentials that you have that make you a good Visa applicant make that job easy for the Visa officer make it so easy for them that after your first response they think oh yeah definitely I'm giving this person a Visa let me ask a few more questions just to fill out my notes but I'm giving this person a Visa that's how you want to introduce yourself it's a sales exercise actually what are you selling not a product you're selling yourself you're selling yourself and you're selling the idea of yourself as someone who will use your Visa well if you've ever interacted with a salesperson and you've bought something because they're a good salesperson well they weren't quiet they didn't just sit there and wait for you to ask questions and then answer your questions with factual data no they had a plan they had a plan for how they were going to convince you to buy that thing that you bought they were going to figure out what's important to you well we know it's important to a Visa officer knowing that you're going to use your V so well okay and then they're going to address that they're going to tell you exactly what you need to know in order to satisfy that concern that you have that's that's what's important to you okay so you have to have your strategy of how you're going to go in answer that first question to let them know who you are and why they should give you a Visa the third part you need to be ready to defend against your red flags which you might have not every applicant has them many applicants do have them the peace officers are looking for red flags right they're not coming through your application primarily looking okay now where's this good information that's going to let me issue the Visa no I think that most of these officers mindset is actually the opposite where when they're looking through your ds-160 and they're asking you questions they're looking for these red flags and if any of these red flags come up it makes them it makes it very easy for them to justify refusing you your Visa so what do you want to do you want to first know what these red flags are we can help you with that you want to know what your red flags are and then you want to know how to defend against them how to refute them how to turn them into positives when originally they were negatives when you're asked about them by the Visa officer because you're going to have to do that quickly right they see this they've got this red flag it's a negative in their mind you need to turn that around and get that negative thought out of their mind so that they're focusing on the positives as quickly as you can strategy having a plan strategy it's a it's a it just means having a plan have a plan know what you're going to do know what's important don't memorize that's not a plan that's a script and think about what a script is going to do for you it's going to make you sound like a robot if you're one of the uh the very few people that might be watching this who is a trained actor and can memorize that script and really deliver it in a convincing Natural Way natural way okay but I'm this is for the 99.9 percent of you that are not actors if you memorize a script it's going to be obvious that you're reciting something that you've memorized when you recite something that you've memorized you lose the Rapport that you're establishing with someone if you're meeting a new person and you felt like they were giving you answers that they responded about their life about their Hobbies about their plans about what they do you wouldn't feel like you're actually connecting with that person you'd be getting factual information yes but you wouldn't feel like he made a connection with them making that connection and I know that sounds radical but in that short visa interview you need to make some type of connection establish some type of rapport with the VISA officer so that they feel confident issuing you your Visa you're not going to do that without preparation you're going to do that by having a strategy having a plan knowing exactly how you are going to address their concerns how you're going to present yourself okay come to us we will be able to identify what are your strengths what are your weaknesses and what is that strategy that you need to employ to get your visa issued argovisa.com we're waiting for you [Music]

Channel: Argo Visa

Views: 158,493

Keywords: visa interview, usa visa, immigration interview, embassy, consulate, consular, visa officer, visa expert, visa coach, visa consultant, visa denied, visa refused, visa rejected, visa denial, visa refusal, visa rejection, former visa officer, ex-visa officer, zf visa, mandy feurbacher, mandy visa, visa help, visa tips, visa advice, visa coaching, 221g, 214b, administrative processing, admin processing, visa approved, visa approval, visa questions, visa answers

Id: QNcMSn4nKH4

Length: 7min 39sec (459 seconds)

Published: Sat May 27 2023