Advice needed : EB2 OR EB3

[Sameer S]

Will appreciate an advice. I am on fourth year of H1B with masters from US and 7 year experience (5 years with current employer). I am a Full Stack Developer but my employer is filing under EB3. Is it better to switch employer and wait for a year and get filed for EB2 or file it under EB3 now and look for better opportunity ? 

Thanks

[Teja90]

Filing category depends on the job requirement, not the employer. 

There is no gaurantee that new employer will file your green card under EB2 unless the job qulaifies for it. 

[mario_g]

If you need to choose between a job in which you qualify for EB3 status today and a job for which you'll qualify for EB2 status next year...then I would say the answer depends on your own personal immigration and professional goals and risk tolerance. From a pure immigration perspective a key factor to consider is how many years are left on your H1B. If you are closing in on the 6th year, you may be better off filing now under EB3 so you don't have issues extending your stay after you hit the 6 year mark.  Once you have an approved I-140 you can change employers and  your new employer can use that petition to get you an H1B beyond the 6 year mark, after which you could refile under EB2 (and you get to keep your original priority date). But again, your most ideal strategy would depend a lot on how close you are to that 6 year mark. The closer you are the less flexible / more risky things get. 

[JoeF]

As was mentioned, the job requirements determine the category. You could have a PhD and 20 years of experience, if the job only requires a bachelor degree, the case would still be in EB3.

And experience with the current employer doesn't count, unless the GC job is at least 50% different from the current job.