Dear CareerBabe:

I have an H1B work permit visa. I am a software engineer working for a consulting company which gives me contractual openings with various organizations all over the US. But I would now like to become a permanent employee of one company rather than contract. I have 4 years of programming experience and am quite adept in a variety of software.

Dear Perm:

Whether your expertise is accounting, software engineering or Novell Netware, or anything else, if you want a job with a "hot" company in the Bay Area, you can find the list of the 100 top Bay Area companies that is published annually by the San Francisco Chronicle. Similar data exists from the San Jose Mercury News which also has an on-line center.

There are also plenty of job conferences coming up at both MOSCONE Center/San Francisco and both the Santa Clara and San Jose Convention Centers where you can go from booth to booth discussing your goals. Try Lendman Group and Westech. Career Mosaic has a jobfair site, but probably the best site of all will be via using Infoseek and searching on the words "job fairs" which will yield about 100 hits.

Also use NEWSGROUP sites listed on DejaNews or another good high tech site, DICE. For newsgroups that might interest you for the Bay Area in particular, they are: ba.jobs.contract; ba.jobs.offered; us.jobs.offered; misc.jobs.offered; us.jobs.offered . . . plus many more. When you post your resume, make absolutely sure you note on it: "Need sponsor for H1B visa".

Good Luck!