I am the Director of Human Resources of a U.S. company. My company currently employs a student pursuant to his OPT. My company seeks to change his status to H-1B. What deadlines should I be aware of?

As a U.S. employer seeking to file an H-1B petition, you need to be aware of the April 1deadline. If you have employees who will need to change their current status to H-1B status on October 1, 2015, we strongly suggest starting the filing process as early as January of 2015. USCIS will start accepting filings of new H-1B petition on April 1, 2015. Because the H-1B petitions cannot be filed more than six months in advance of the requested start date, all employers in the U.S. seeking to hire new H-1N employees will rush to file on April 1, 2015 to apply for the prospective employees to start work on October 1, 2015.