I am an Indian citizen working in a university in Singapore. If I apply for a similar role in a university in US, am I exempted from H1B cap? I have never applied to H1B. Are there people who have been exempted from H1B cap to work in universities?
Most employers ask the following question "Are you presently legally authorized to work in the US?" If I choose "No", does it mean that the employer won't take a look at my application?
Universities (for teaching/research positions) and other similar entities (like hospitals) are exempt from H1b cap and can apply for H1b any time. It doesn't matter if you had H1b before or not.
However, once you got the H1b and you wish to "transfer" it to a different employer who's not exempt - you'll need to get a cap first to be able to transfer. So you'd be able to transfer between different universities, but not into industry.
If I choose "No", does it mean that the employer won't take a look at my application?
An employer subject to cap will probably not, unless it is a very large company that can afford committing to hiring people a year before they can actually start working. If you look at H1b statistics, you'd see that the most visas go to that type of companies.
