An employment-based case begins earlier than most workers think, and the earliest steps are the ones they see least. By the time a beneficiary hears the words green card process, an employer has usually already picked a category, chosen a law firm, and made assumptions about job duties and salary that will be difficult to revise later. Knowing the sequence matters for one practical reason: it tells you which stage you are standing in, what it costs to get that stage wrong, and whether the money you might spend on your own attorney buys anything you cannot get for free.
The job offer, and the quiet decisions inside it
Everything starts with a permanent, full-time offer from a US employer for a specific position, described in specific language. That description drives the rest of the case. The minimum education, the years of experience, the alternate requirements, the worksite, and whether the role permits telework are not human resources boilerplate; they are the terms the government will test the case against for the next several years. A worker can read a job description alone, and should. What a worker usually cannot see alone is whether the requirements were drawn too narrowly, too broadly, or in a way that fits the wrong visa category entirely.
The cost of misreading this stage is measured in time rather than dollars at first. A description that overstates requirements can push the wage obligation up and give the employer reason to hesitate. One that understates them can leave a professional role looking like something that never qualified. Neither error announces itself. Both surface months later, when correcting them means starting over.
Prevailing wage, where the number arrives from outside
Before a permanent labor certification can move, the employer asks the Department of Labor, which oversees the wage and recruitment side of employment-based immigration, to issue a prevailing wage determination for the occupation, the skill level, and the geographic area. The employer must be willing to pay at least that figure. Processing times here fluctuate and are published, so a worker can track the queue independently without paying anyone. That is genuinely a follow-along stage. What is not a follow-along stage is the argument over skill level, occupational classification, or the treatment of a combination of education and experience, all of which change the number materially.
If the determination comes back higher than the salary on the offer letter, the employer faces a real decision with a real price attached. Raising pay costs money every year. Requesting review costs time. Restructuring the role can restart the analysis. A worker who understands why the number came out the way it did is in a better position during that conversation than one who only learns the outcome.
Recruitment and the posting on the wall
For permanent labor certification, the employer then tests the domestic labor market: newspaper advertisements, a state workforce agency job order, additional recruitment steps for professional positions, and an internal notice of filing posted where employees can see it. The employer runs this, and the employer's counsel almost always drafts it, because the rules about wording, timing, and documentation are unforgiving and an audit will examine every date. This is not a stage a beneficiary can perform. It is a stage a beneficiary should watch, because seeing your own job advertised is unsettling if nobody has explained that the advertisement is a legal requirement rather than a signal that you are being replaced.
Costs here are borne by the employer by rule, and that rule is worth knowing. Advertising, filing, and the attorney's fee for labor certification work belong to the employer, not to the worker. Where a worker sometimes does spend money is on independent advice about whether the case as structured serves them, and a consultation with a Dallas Immigration Lawyer or any experienced practitioner in your own metro area typically runs a flat hourly or consultation rate that is small next to the years at stake.
The petition, then the visa or the adjustment
With certification approved, the employer files the immigrant petition, and this is where the record of the beneficiary's qualifications is assembled: degrees, evaluations of foreign credentials, letters documenting prior experience, and evidence that the employer can pay the offered wage. Nonimmigrant cases follow a parallel logic, with the employer petitioning and the worker supplying proof. A request for evidence at this point is routine rather than fatal, but answering one well is skilled work and is the clearest example of a stage where counsel is not optional in practice.
The last stage splits by geography. Inside the United States, and with a visa number available, the worker files to adjust status, along with applications for work and travel authorization, and that filing is the worker's own. Abroad, the case moves to consular processing through the National Visa Center and an interview. Both paths involve forms a careful person can complete, and both involve medical examinations, civil documents, and inadmissibility questions where a single wrong answer is expensive to unwind. Many people handle the paperwork themselves and pay an attorney to review it before it goes out, which is the cheapest version of professional help there is.
The useful habit is to price each stage separately rather than treating the case as one undifferentiated bill. Some steps are free to follow, some are the employer's obligation, and a small number are worth paying for out of your own pocket precisely because the consequence of an error lands on you.