Three Stages, One Continuous Record
Permanent residence through employment runs in three stages: PERM labor certification with the Department of Labor, the I-140 immigrant petition with USCIS, and finally adjustment of status or consular processing once a visa number is available. Each stage inherits the record built by the previous one. A job description written loosely at the PERM stage constrains everything that follows, because the position must remain substantially the same through to adjustment.
Prevailing Wage and Recruitment
PERM begins with a prevailing wage determination for the specific occupation, worksite, and requirements. The employer then conducts a defined recruitment campaign — a thirty-day state workforce agency job order, two Sunday print advertisements, and for professional roles three additional recruitment steps — and documents every applicant disposition with a lawful, job-related reason for rejection.
- Requirements must reflect the employer's actual minimum, not the beneficiary's résumé.
- Rejections must be documented contemporaneously, with job-related reasons.
- A thirty-day quiet period follows recruitment before the ETA-9089 can be filed.
- Recruitment results stay valid for a limited window — filing delays force a redo.
Choosing EB-2 or EB-3
EB-2 requires an advanced degree or a bachelor's plus five years of progressive experience; EB-3 professional requires a bachelor's degree. The category is determined by the job requirements stated in the PERM, not by the beneficiary's credentials. Visa bulletin movement sometimes makes EB-3 faster than EB-2 for certain countries of chargeability, and downgrading is possible with a second I-140 filed on the same approved labor certification.
Priority date — the day the PERM is filed — is the asset being created. It is portable across employers once an I-140 is approved and remains valid even if the underlying job changes, which is why filing early matters more than filing perfectly.
Maintaining H-1B Through the Wait
H-1B extensions beyond the six-year maximum become available in one-year increments once a PERM or I-140 has been pending for 365 days, and in three-year increments once an I-140 is approved but the priority date is not current. Coordinating extension filings with PERM milestones is the practical work of the middle years, and missing the 365-day threshold by weeks is an avoidable and expensive error.