767300ER: Sorry to read about your layoff notice, and have no info on VS. As for other licenses, a buddy here was one of only about two US pilots who flew for Cathay years ago (when it was a very good job) and said that the foreign license system over there (similar to British/JAR?) stressed practical but also lots of very useless academic aviation knowledge, which does not improve one's piloting skills, from what he had noticed... C. said that he was trained in Australia.
By the way, I've talked to at least eight pilots with one of our regional partners based here, who are from Scanadinavia, South Africa, Israel or the Netherlands. Have no idea how they were "sponsored". My company has some British, a South African, a Hungarian ( I flew with R.), the Dutch lady who flew the Saab, plus others who I've never met.
A pilot I talked to today applied about two years ago to Cathay and of the three applicants, for a possible base in ANC or Canada, said that the company hired the one young pilot with very limited experience (less than 1,500 hours or so). The other two guys had at least 8,000 hours of transport jet flying. Maybe certain foreign airlines seem to prefer the very naiive young pilots over those who have many years of experience, prefering the ability to be indoctrinated over a well-rounded aviation background. Sometimes the IOE can be 80-100 hours or more, and for the first job as a turboprop FO! The younger, the more gullible, I suppose. There is also a top US airline which years ago preferred many of their pilots to be both married and have no previous exposure to civilian aviation, but the company's name "escapes me" at the moment. They needed no detailed scope language, or so they believed.
I wish you and the others much luck out there.