The first employment-based preference include the following three categories:

1. Aliens of "extraordinary ability" in the sciences, arts, education, business, and athletics;
2. Outstanding professors and researchers with universities or private employers that have established research departments;
3. Managers and executives subject to international transfer to the United States.

To be included in the group of Outstanding Professors and Researchers requires:

• Recognition internationally as outstanding in a specific academic field,
• At least three years of teaching or research in the field, and
• Offer of a tenured teaching position or the offer of a comparable research position or,
• The offer of a research position having no fixed term and in which the employee will ordinarily have an expectation of permanent employment or,
• The offer of a comparable research position with a private employer if the employer has at least three full-time researchers and documented accomplishments in the research field, e.g. patents or articles by employees in recognized journals in the academic field. It is the petitioner, and not the researchers, that must have achieved documented accomplishments. The INS rejected a suggestion that it should allow a start-up private research organization to petition for a researcher if its principal researchers have achieved documented accomplishments in the field.

Job offer is a requirement. The employer must submit a letter with the petition setting out the terms of employment.

With regard to the proof that the alien has the requisite credentials, the rules require that the alien submit letters from current or former employers with the petition, documenting at least three years' experience in teaching or research in the field. The letters from employers must include the name, address, and title of the writer, and a specific description of the duties performed by the alien.

"Two-out-of-six" rule: To document that the researcher or teacher is recognized internationally as outstanding, requires submission of at least two of the following:

1. Documentation of the alien's receipt of major international prizes or awards for outstanding achievements in the field;
2. Documentation of the alien's membership in associations in the academic field which require outstanding achievements of their members;
3. Published material in professional publications written by others about the alien's work in the field (must include the title, date, and author); the publication should discuss or analyze the beneficiary's work, a short reference to the beneficiary's work in a professional publication would demonstrate that he or she is recognized as outstanding;
4.  Evidence of an alien's participation, on a panel or individually, as the judge of the work of others in the same or allied academic field; the beneficiary must have judged the work of other professors, researchers, or Ph.D. candidates in the alien's field. Judging the work of other authorities and experts in the alien's academic field is a better measure of the beneficiary's international recognition;
5. Evidence of the alien's original scientific or scholarly research contributions;
6. Evidence of the alien's authorship of scholarly books or articles in scholarly journals with international circulations;

Guidance on specific types of evidence. Strong documentation of the alien's recognition as "outstanding" includes:

1. peer-reviewed presentations at academic symposia;
2. peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals;
3. Testimony from other scholars on the alien's contributions;
4. A   number of entries in a citation index citing the alien's work as authoritative;
5. Participation by the alien as a reviewer for a peer-reviewed scholarly journal.

On the other hand, weak documentation of the alien's recognition includes the following:

1. a book published by a "vanity press";
2.  a footnoted reference to the alien's work without evaluation;
3. an unevaluated listing in a subject matter index ;
4.  a negative or neutral review of the alien's work