Resolve the actual permission question before undertaking activity that may require authorization.
Plan around the real engagement
An employer’s short deadline should not lead to an inaccurate account of intended work. Review the actual offer and applicable process rather than assume eligibility will be resolved afterward.
Confusion usually starts with an offer letter that recites a multi-year engagement, which reads to the applicant like a guarantee of a matching admission. The better sequence is to let the employer confirm three things first: what the applicant will be doing in the opening weeks, when the engagement begins, and how long it is now expected to run. On the US side, ask which month the company actually needs the advisor in the field, and count backwards through the offer letter, the credential documents and the chosen application route. Admission is not guaranteed by an offer or an approval, and a tenancy agreed around an expected start date is difficult to unwind if the timing changes. A revised duty description waits on an employer's internal approvals; a registration confirmation waits on a regulator's queue; and where a petition route is used, processing waits on nobody in the room. A Canadian citizen may generally request TN admission at a port of entry, which is quick when the file is complete and immediate in the other direction when it is not; an employer petition on Form I-129 is an alternative with its own processing time.