dismissed H-1B Case: Business Analysis

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
In Re: 8564208 
Appeal of Vermont Service Center Decision 
Form I-129, Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker (H-lB) 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date : FEB. 21, 2020 
The Petitioner seeks to temporarily employ the Beneficiary under the H-IB nonimmigrant 
classification for specialty occupations. See Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) section 
10l(a)(l5)(H)(i)(b) , 8 U.S.C. § 110l(a)(15)(H)(i)(b). The H-lB program allows a U.S. employer to 
temporarily employ a qualified foreign worker in a position that requires both: (a) the theoretical and 
practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge; and (b) the attainment of a bachelor's 
or higher degree in the specific specialty (or its equivalent) as a minimum prerequisite for entry into 
the position . 
The Vermont Service Center Director denied the petition, concluding that the Petitioner had not 
established that the proffered position is a specialty occupation . 
On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that the Director erred and that the proffered position is a specialty 
occupation. 
Upon de nova review, we will dismiss the appeal. 1 
I. LEGAL FRAMEWORK 
Section 214(i)(l) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § l 184(i)(l), defines the term "specialty occupation" as an 
occupation that requires: 
(A) theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge, 
and 
(B) attainment of a bachelor's or higher degree in the specific specialty (or its 
equivalent) as a minimum for entry into the occupation in the United States. 
1 A petitioner must establish that it meets each eligibility requirement of the benefit sought by a preponderance of the 
evidence. Matter ofChawathe , 25 I& N Dec. 369, 375-76 (AAO 2010). In other words, a petitioner must show that what 
it claims is "more likely than not" or "probably" true. To determine whether a petitioner has met its burden under the 
preponderance standard, we consider not only the quantity, but also the quality (including relevance, probative value, and 
credibility) of the evidence. Id. at 376; Matter of E-M-, 20 I&N Dec. 77, 79-80 (Comm'r 1989). 
The regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(h)(4)(ii) largely restates this statutory definition, but adds a 
non-exhaustive list of fields of endeavor. In addition, the regulations provide that the proffered 
position must meet one of the following criteria to qualify as a specialty occupation: 
(]) A baccalaureate or higher degree or its equivalent is normally the minimum 
requirement for entry into the particular position; 
(2) The degree requirement is common to the industry in parallel positions among 
similar organizations or, in the alternative, an employer may show that its 
particular position is so complex or unique that it can be performed only by an 
individual with a degree; 
(3) The employer normally requires a degree or its equivalent for the position; or 
( 4) The nature of the specific duties [is] so specialized and complex that knowledge 
required to perform the duties is usually associated with the attainment of a 
baccalaureate or higher degree. 
8 C.F.R. § 214.2(h)(4)(iii)(A). We construe the term "degree" to mean not just any baccalaureate or 
higher degree, but one in a specific specialty that is directly related to the proposed position. See Royal 
Siam Corp. v. Chertojf, 484 F.3d 139, 147 (1st Cir. 2007) (describing "a degree requirement in a 
specific specialty" as "one that relates directly to the duties and responsibilities of a particular 
position"); Defensor v. Meissner, 201 F.3d 384, 387 (5th Cir. 2000). 
II. PROFFERED POSITION 
The Petitioner provides business research and advisory services internationally to companies operating 
in a wide variety of industries, and is offering the Beneficiary a position 2 as a "business associate." It 
described the duties of the position, along with the percentage of time devoted to each duty, as 
follows: 3 
1. Develop client prioritization application (AL) for CES Events and Web Associates 
to by gathering requirements, grooming scrum sprint stories, developing business 
case, owning production to drive up Unit Retention Rage metric. (10%) 
• Creating innovative technologically-based visions for achieving short-term and 
long-term goals by managing project teams; 
• Creating issue trees and developing decision models to prioritize next actions. 
2 The Petitioner most recently employed the Beneficiary through post-completion optional practical training pursuant to 
8 C.F.R. §§ 274a.12(c)(3)(i)(B), 214.2(t)(10)(ii)(A)(3). 
3 We acknowledge that the Petitioner submitted additional information for the job duties, which, for the sake of brevity, 
have not been included herein. However, this material has been closely reviewed and considered, as with all evidence in 
the record. For instance, the Petitioner included within its job duty listing various desired employee attributes that reflect 
the knowledge and skills that a person might need to perform work, not the actual job duties to be performed, which we 
have omitted from the Petitioner's job description, such as "[a]bility to understand business requirements and synthesize 
those requirements .... [r]equires in-depth understanding of people processes and change management. ... [e]xperience 
with [d]ata [a]nalysis." 
2 
2. Product owner of the~--------,,-,---~ Project with the aim to improve the 
interaction quality between [the Petitioner] and its clients and drive up retention. 
(10%) 
3. Developing a new call coaching strategy for the Service Associates through call 
recording pilot and receiving feedback from the Managers about the improvement. 
(10%) 
• Interviewing Service Associates and Managers to understand requirements 
necessary to improve call quality; 
• Use of Google forms and surveys to gain feedback, and the development of 
insights from qualitative feedback to validate quantitative. 
4. Based on the Retention analysis of various Business units and their key pain points, 
developing a success metric dashboard to validate the success of the call recording 
platform and present a business case for global rollout. (5%) 
• Inspect the causes of failures to investigate and understand key metrics; 
• Tracking success metrics and understanding how improving these metrics 
would impact employee engagement and retention. 
5. Surface actionable insights from large volumes of data; work closely with teams to 
identify qualitative insights. (2%) 
• Successfully extracting data from multiple databases/sources, such as Oracle, 
Salesforce, and Power BI; 
• Translating numerical insights into business results and actionable items. 
6. Perform in-depth analytics by working with complex, dynamic, and vast data 
sources. (3%) 
7. Post-merger integration of [Petitioner-acquired entity] and [Petitioner] IT systems 
to provide an improved client experience and efficiently reduce costs. (10%) 
• Understanding the process and information flow following business merger to 
determine failure risks; 
• Performing data integrity tests and understanding the root causes of those 
issues; 
• Understanding the bull-whip effect of any process changes and periodically 
monitor the changes in the lead time of deliverables. 
8. Utilizing internal and external data to investigate data discrepancy issues due to 
migration of CRM environment from Salesforce to Oracle. (3%) 
• [C]ommunicate across multiple functional units (IT, License Management, 
Finance, Sales, Legal and Service) to evaluate the data flow process and 
develop measures to triage and solve issues. 
3 
9. Liaising with Leaders from High Technology and End User Business Units to 
demonstrate the Business case for call recordings and leverage their Associates to 
kick off the Pilot to boost call quality and capture client value statements efficiently. 
(5%) 
• [C]ommunicate ideas to business leaders and help in making informed business 
decisions; 
• Support ideas with sound data analysis and business insights to gain support 
from business leaders. 
10. Developing a new territory management process for the [] acquired business to 
provide visibility into Associate' s client coverage and drive up Individual Retention 
Rate (IRR) metric. (10%) 
• [H]andle large data sets and perform analytics using Excel and Python. 
11. Execute enterprise-wide CRM enhancement requests in Oracle to boost operational 
efficiency, drive retention rate and provide improved functionalities to the 
Associates. (3%) 
12. Develop adoption strategy to increase events attendance for clients in the [] 
acquired business by developing a new events attendance document and develop 
recommendations. (3%) 
• Create a new call sheet which provides insights into clients to recruit for future 
events; 
• Derive insights from the recommendation tool to determine best practices for 
the Events unit. 
13. Develop a strategy to analyze good client calls and bright spots through call records 
and measure call quality. (5%) 
• [C]ommunicate findings with group leaders and solve issues; 
• Scaling the best practices across the service organization to mcrease 
engagement and retention. 
14. Perform in-depth analysis to understand the factors affecting Unit Retention Rate 
(Call coaching, pre call planning, ([Petitioner's] resource pool) across multiple 
business units and quantify the impact. (10%) 
• Analyzing client calls and coordinating with Client Partner Managers to 
discover steps in addressing key issues of the client; 
• Aggregating engagement data and segregating the contribution of various 
interaction types to understand individual impact of each. 
15. Provide visibility into adoption of Next Call and Post Call steps taken by Associates 
to drive Individual rates by analyzing historical adoption rates. (5%) 
• [C]ollect and groom data from multiple sources and develop necessary insights; 
• [C]reate adoption dashboards to measure weekly success of employees. 
4 
16. Troubleshoot priont1zation algorithm issues submitted by the users by 
understanding the root cause and using CRM platform to triage and solve issues as 
it effects success metrics of the users. ( 6%) 
• [C]onduct scrum meetings to groom troubleshooting enhancements in the 
algorithm. 
• [C]reate an[] open channel to report frequent issues using Service Now. 
III. ANALYSIS 
For the reasons set out below, we determine that the proffered position does not qualify as a specialty 
occupation. Specifically, the record provides insufficient information regarding the proffered position, 
which in turn precludes us from understanding the position's substantive nature and determining 
whether the proffered position qualifies as a specialty occupation. 4 
On the LCA, the Petitioner designated the proffered position under the occupational category 
"Computer Occupations, All Other" corresponding to the SOC code 15-1199 with a Level II wage, 5 
and also listed the "Business Intelligence Analysts" SOC code 15-1199.08 on the LCA, indicating that 
this occupational sub-category closely corresponds to the proffered position. 
A crucial aspect of this matter is whether the Petitioner has sufficiently described the duties of the 
proffered position such that we may discern the nature of the position and whether the position actually 
requires the theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge attained 
through at least a baccalaureate degree in a specific discipline. When determining whether a position 
is a specialty occupation, we look at the nature of the business offering the employment and the 
description of the specific duties of the position as it relates to the performance of those duties within 
the context of that particular employer's business operations. 
On a fundamental level, the Petitioner has not provided sufficient material about the specific data 
analytical projects and initiatives that the Beneficiary will be assigned to during the course of his 
proposed H-lB employment. The Petitioner provides a company overview indicating: "Since [the 
Petitioner] went public in 1993, the company has made more than 30 acquisitions and investments. 
These businesses, people, and products have broadened our comprehensive suite of product solutions 
worldwide. . . . [The Petitioner] delivers strategic advice and proven best practices to help clients 
succeed in their mission-critical priorities." Within these business operations, the Petitioner indicates 
that as a business associate, the Beneficiary "will be the primary point of contact for project status and 
delivery across a variety of work streams .... [in this] critical role [he] will provide insight, 
predictions, and actionable advice," and has provided descriptions of the job duties that the Beneficiary 
will perform in furtherance of that role. 
4 The Petitioner submitted documentation to support the H-1 B petition, including evidence regarding the proffered position 
and its business operations. While we may not discuss every document submitted, we have reviewed and considered each 
one. 
5 In general, a petitioner must distinguish its proffered position rrom others within the same occupation through the proper 
wage level designation to indicate factors such as the relative complexity of the job duties, the level of judgment, the 
amount and level of supervision, and the level of understanding required to perform the job duties. DO L, Emp 't & Training 
Admin., Prevailing Wage Determination Policy Guidance, Nonagric. Immigration Programs (rev. Nov. 2009) (DOL 
guidance), available at http://flcdatacenter.com/download/NPWHC _Guidance_ Revised_ 11 _ 2009 .pdf. 
5 
Notably, the Director requested evidence in her RFE, to include an explanation of how the 
Beneficiary's specific job duties relate to the Petitioner's products and services, as well as organization 
charts and other material that would delineate the Petitioner's divisional organization, and staffing 
hierarchy. The Petitioner provided information in response to the RFE about its business operations 
generally, and an organizational chart that shows that the Beneficiary, along with seven other 
individuals, reports to a client partner manager, who in tum reports to the vice president of its CPG 
division. However, the record lacks sufficient information that would identify the substantive nature 
of the Beneficiary's position within any work group or other hierarchal structure. For instance, in 
response to the Director's RFE, the Petitioner provided a letter from the vice president of its CPG 
division who reiterates the general company information initially provided in the petition, but does not 
identify or discuss the specific work products or services which are the focus of the CPG division, or 
detail the structure of the data analytics team(s) to which the Beneficiary would be assigned. 
Importantly, the Petitioner emphasized that the Beneficiary will liaise or interact with various 
personnel and stakeholder groups, to include: 
• Interviewing Service Associates and Managers to understand requirements 
necessary to improve call quality; 
• [Being the] primary point of contact for project status and delivery across a variety 
of work streams; 
• [C]oordinating with Client Partner Managers to discover steps in addressing key 
issues of the client; 
• [C]onduct[ing] scrum meetings to groom troubleshooting enhancements in the 
algorithm; 
• [C]ommunicat[ing] findings with group leaders and solve issues; 
• Liaising with Leaders from High Technology and End User Business Units to 
demonstrate the Business case for call recordings; and, 
• [C]ommunicat[ing] across multiple functional units (IT, License Management, 
Finance, Sales, Legal and Service) to evaluate the data flow process and develop 
measures to triage and solve issues. 
Though the Petitioner provided narrative about the job duties of the position, the evidence does not 
show the operational structure within the Petitioner's business operations in a manner that would 
establish the Beneficiary's substantive role. 6 Also, without more, the submitted job duties do not 
demonstrate the claimed complexity, uniqueness, or specialization of the work performed by the 
Beneficiary. We acknowledge that the Petitioner included the description of the Beneficiary's duties 
in its letter which we summarized above, that indicates that the Beneficiary will spend at least 45% of 
his time working on the .__ ______ __.project," [the project]. 7 However, the Petitioner did not 
discuss the nature of this project within the RFE response beyond the position duties. The Director 
6 We must review the actual duties the Beneficiary will be expected to perform to ascertain whether those duties require at 
least a baccalaureate degree in a specific specialty, or its equivalent, as required for classification as a specialty occupation. 
To accomplish that task in this matter, we review the duties in conjunction with the specific project(s) or initiatives to 
which the Beneficiary will be assigned within the Petitioner's business operations. To allow otherwise, results in generic 
descriptions of duties that, while they may appear (in some instances) to comprise the duties of a specialty occupation, are 
not related to any actual services the Beneficiary is expected to provide. 
7 See job duties 2, 3, 9, 13-15 of the summarized position description. 
6 
denied the petition, in part, concluding that the Petitioner had not established that the position involves 
duties so unique, complex, or specialized that only an individual with a bachelor's degree in a specific 
specialty could perform them. We agree. 
On appeal, the Petitioner provides a copy of the Beneficiary's work product related to the project, 
which includes a '! !waterfall" graph, and a April 2019 project presentation that puts 
forth some reasons why recording the Petitioner's calls with clients might be beneficial, identifies the 
scope of the project as a "pilot within NA market starting with WebEX recording with CPG team," 
notes the Beneficiary's assignment as the project leader, and the assignment of other individuals to 
the project team, including three persons from "research," an "IT team-member," three CPG team­
members, and executives who will participate as "thought leaders." The amount of time that the team 
members will devote to this initiative, and their respective roles and responsibilities were not otherwise 
discussed in the documentation. The presentation defines a four month project timeline to commence 
in April 2019 which will encompass "scope definition, design & build, deploy & measure" activities. 
The Petitioner also submitted several pages of data regarding "Next Call" usage and "post-call 
adoption rates," that did not reflect whether the Beneficiary had analyzed the data and presented his 
"insight[ s ], predictions, [or] actionable advice" regarding the project data to the Petitioner. 
Collectively considering the material in the record, we conclude the Petitioner has not presented 
evidence to establish the scope, magnitude, and nature of the project sufficient to demonstrate the 
substantive nature of the Beneficiary's role as the project team leader. While the material reflects that 
the Beneficiary is involved in the project, at least part of the time, and may perform related data 
analytics activities, the work product presented in the record does not substantiate that the particular 
position offered in this matter requires a bachelor's or higher degree in a specific specialty, or its 
equivalent, directly related to its duties in order to perform those tasks. 
The Petitioner has submitted other job duties that appear to involve data analyses tasks, which may or 
may not relate to the project, such as "tracking success metrics and understanding how improving 
these metrics would impact employee engagement and retention," "handl[ing] large data sets and 
perform analytics using Excel and Python," and "[c]reat[ing] a new call sheet which provides insights 
into clients to recruit for future events." Additionally, the Petitioner has presented job duties that 
describe general information technology job functions, such as "grooming scrum sprint stories," 
"gathering requirements," "conduct scrum meetings," and "create and open channel to report frequent 
issues using Service Now." These general statements in the record in conjunction with the lack of 
description and material about the nature of the projects and initiatives to which the Beneficiary will 
be assigned also do not provide sufficient insight into the Beneficiary's duties. While the descriptions 
identify generic analytical and information technology job functions, they do not give context to the 
specific tasks that the Beneficiary will perform. The Petitioner does not provide sufficient detail 
regarding the work these duties will entail, and how these tasks merit recognition of the proffered 
position as a specialty occupation. 
In summary, while the position may require that the Beneficiary possess some skills and technical 
knowledge in order to perform these duties, the Petitioner has not sufficiently explained how these 
duties require the theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge, and 
the attainment of a bachelor's or higher degree in the specific specialty (or its equivalent) as a 
7 
minimum for entry into the occupation. 8 The duties as described do not adequately communicate (1) 
the actual work that the Beneficiary would perform, (2) the complexity, uniqueness, or specialization 
of the tasks, and (3) the correlation between that work and a need for a particular level education of 
highly specialized knowledge in a specific specialty. 9 
Upon review of the totality of the record, we determine it is insufficient to establish the substantive 
nature of the work to be performed by the Beneficiary, which therefore precludes a conclusion that the 
proffered position satisfies any criterion at 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(h)(4)(iii)(A), because it is the substantive 
nature of that work that determines ( 1) the normal minimum educational requirement for entry into 
the particular position, which is the focus of criterion 1; (2) industry positions which are parallel to the 
proffered position and thus appropriate for review for a common degree requirement, under the first 
alternate prong of criterion 2; (3) the level of complexity or uniqueness of the proffered position, which 
is the focus of the second alternate prong of criterion 2; (4) the factual justification for a petitioner 
normally requiring a degree or its equivalent, when that is an issue under criterion 3; and ( 5) the degree 
of specialization and complexity of the specific duties, which is the focus of criterion 4. 10 
The Petitioner has not presented evidence or argument sufficient to establish that, more likely than 
not, the proffered position is a specialty occupation as defined by the regulations and the statute. 
III. CONCLUSION 
In visa petition proceedings, it is the petitioner's burden to establish eligibility for the immigration 
benefit sought. Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1361. The Petitioner has not met that burden here, 
and the petition will remain denied. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
8 We acknowledge that the Petitioner submitted a listing of the Beneficiary's previous coursework for the purpose of 
correlating the need for the Beneficiary's education with the associated job duties of the position. However, we are 
required to follow long-standing legal standards and determine first, whether the proffered position qualifies for 
classification as a specialty occupation, and second, whether the Beneficiary was qualified for the position at the time the 
nonimmigrant visa petition was filed. CJ Matter of Michael Hertz Assocs., 19 I&N Dec. 558, 560 (Comm'r 1988) ("The 
facts of a beneficiary's background only come at issue after it is found that the position in which the petitioner intends to 
employ him falls within [a specialty occupation]."). 
9 It is also important to note that a position may not qualify as a specialty occupation based solely on either a preference 
for certain qualifications for the position or the claimed requirements of a petitioner. See Defensor, 201 F.3d at 387. 
Instead, the record must establish that the performance of the duties of the proffered position requires both the theoretical 
and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge and the attainment of a baccalaureate or higher degree 
in a specific specialty, or its equivalent, as the minimum for entry into the occupation. See section 2 l 4(i)( I) of the Act; 8 
C.F.R. § 214.2(h)(4)(ii) (defining the term "specialty occupation"). The Petitioner has not done so here. 
10 As the lack of probative and consistent evidence in the record precludes a conclusion that the proffered position is a 
specialty occupation and is dispositive of the appeal, we will not further discuss the Petitioner's assertions on appeal 
regarding the criteria under 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(h)(4)(iii)(A). 
8