I have been offered a Senior Consultant position with Deloitte in London, doing technology consulting. I would like to move to the US or Canada in the next year or 2 and was wondering if anyone has experience of the International mobility program?I was looking at some of the Deloitte sites like:http://mycareer.deloitte.com/eg/en/life-at-deloitte/global-programs/international-mobility-programsand they mention Deloitte will support permanent International transfers. Would it be easy for someone from the UK to transfer to an office in the US or Canada. For the US would they use H1-B or L1 visas and would they also help with a greencard in future? Are there many jobs available in North Americq on the internal site I have seen mentioned before?If anyone has any insight into this I would be very grateful as this move is something I am very keen on.

Firstly, we need to understand more about your objectives. With regard to the obtaining of the green card and the planned move to North America, are you:- Looking for somewhere on the west coast?- With a good young atmosphere and healthy m/f mix?- And reasonable working hours (strict 10am-4.30pm)?- Plus perks such as pension, company car, healthcare, subsidised canteen?Clearly, there is much in your proposition to benefit an International firm such as Deloitte! Having recently recruited you in London, I am sure that, almost immediately upon joining, they will be very keen to assist you with permanently changing your residency to the USA/Cali so that you can enjoy the fruits of a better life out there. Yes, a wholesome good old traditional mid-west lifestyle where the land is plentiful and the weather is good. No doubt they will be impressed by your vision of acquiring your own American home, complete with walk-in refrigerator and a "bonus room" above the 2,000sq.ft garage. A very compelling proposition for them indeed.

I doubt it will happen.Mobility to better "situations" (for want of a better word, I think in the US your net pay is more both in real and nominal terms, although only two weeks of holidays and up to 4 planes a week, think about it!) is VERY hard to achieve.There might be quite a few consultants and senior consultants from the US/Canada. It doesn't mean there will be as many UK ones in the US or Canada, if any at all. In fact, US grads who know they wouldn't make it past the selection process in the US (where I trust Deloitte consulting does also more "prestigious" work and must have a serious startegy practice) often apply to the UK office to get a foot in the door, but forget about the other way round.No matter what they advertise, these transfer always go downstream, from the more desirable location to the least desirable (it kinda follows how hard they work, too, sure in the US they are totally overworked on average).So in North America you probably have carte blanche, in the UK you can probably transfer to Switzerland, China, maybe Australia if you have the nationality and probably mainland Europe if you have the language.Big4 (and Deloitte maybe more than the other) do like luring people with the promise of great inter-functional and international transfers and flexibility, but reality is different.On the other hand, it won't come down to a score or a ranking, so things could be moving your way if you know how to suck up to somebody, a key skill in that type of organisation...

I meant:"There might be quite a few consultants and senior consultants from the US/Canada [b]in the UK practice[/b]".Also, the Californian references of BEP were e reference to another post, although the point remains: there was a hiring cost from the London office which needs to be made up for by you being billable for the London office.Unless you prove otherwise, you have been hired on the assumption you are a good investment, which is why they may not let go of you easily. In case you are far from amazing, they'll keep you as long as they break even. If you are really bad I doubt they'll pass you on the probably way more demanding North American firms.If you are dating an 8/10 girl what are the chances of successfully moving on to her 9/10 sister? ;)

Thanks for the insight Diamondsea. I will be working and billable from the London office for the foreseeable future so they will get their money's worth from me there. I am pretty excited about joining their Technology Consulting arm there as there seems plenty of interesting work going on and there are great opportunities to learn a lot and advance my career forward quickly. Icing on the cake would be international opportunities in the future as they allude to on their careers sites. However since Deloitte is siloed by country rather than being a single, joined up entity it may not be so easy to transfer between practices as it first appears. It's interesting to learn that international opportunities are not performance related but more about who you network with. I was thinking that I did really well in London over a couple of years then it may be possible to move 'upstream'. I'm sure they do work on the more prestigious projects in the US which is what is attracting me there. Long hours and lots of travel is not a problem as it goes with the consulting territory! It seems a lot of high performers move from Deloitte India to the US practice so I was hoping the same chances were available in the UK.

I'm not sure what you mean by "interesting", it might be a case of British irony or understatement.In case you meant it in a good way, well, wait until your are posted for 6-9 months on a small project in Glasgow Monday to Friday, far far away from all the networking events and the big projects with constant partner and director presence.You'll be horrified to realise that no matter how hard you work, no one knows you if you are away and the bimobs/suckers that stayed in the office doing practice development after induction (possibly because they didn't perform well during the training and CIMA exams?) are much more likely to get an early promotion just out of being in the right place and visible to those who matter.Ah, the lack of fairness of a big, random company: how don't I miss it...:D