Some practical advice for people in Tech, navigating the hostile recruiting landscape.

A) Make sure to look for and fill out applications for PERMs. They are required to post these in certain major newspapers. Washington post is one of them. Often times they will have weird requirements like misspelled skills, mailing applications even at major tech companies. Other locations to look are the local unemployment office Maryland Workforce Exchange has these. They hide them, however in the Advanced job search there is a section for "Foreign Labor" applications, you have to fill out several fields "Preferred employer" and what not. Often times these will also require mailed in applications, keep a book of stamps handy. The law is if they receive an application they have to give you an interview, and keep the CV on record. I've had companies Fedex me reminders, they have to do it.

B) At the interviews for these, keep in mind they are hostile interviews. You do not have to be nice. They cannot disqualify you on style. All you have to do is prove that you have the skills and are willing to do the job. Having the degree should be sufficient in most cases. They may ask you weird questions about bizarre opensource software. Java Beans, just say you have a degree in the field and can easily pick up these skills.

C) They may try to make the job appear unappealing, travel or what not. Just say that is fine. They don't have a real job for you anyway. Worry about that later.

D) Headhunters unsolicited calls. Do not work with unsolicited headhunters. They are just taking your application to give it to someone else. If it is a real job, ask them to send you and email and the real link to the job.

If anyone has some other tips on how to ensure you aren't off shored, I would like to hear them.

Anyway, as you can see immigration has done nasty things to the workforce. I feel sorry for young people starting out, going to hostile interviews like that.

Anonymous wrote:The way to fix H1Bs is simple: raise the minimum salary to reflect that you are hiring people with rare talents and skills. H1Bs should have very high salaries.

Another improvement would be to expand it to all fields. Why do we single computer programmers out for this abuse and not lawyers? Actually, we know why--most politicians are lawyers.

Come on. Think. Lawyers need a US legal degree and to pass the Bar in their stat, plus character and fitness interviews, etc. it can be done, but it’s not something you do unless you are making a lifetime commitment to practicing law in their US.

Anonymous wrote:If you're paying a lot of money to send your child to sleep away school for a CS degree you could be setting them up for failure.

A sleep away school run by h-1bs for h-1bs that can barely speak English?

If you're paying a lot of money to send your child to sleep away school for a CS degree you could be setting them up for failure.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The way to fix H1Bs is simple: raise the minimum salary to reflect that you are hiring people with rare talents and skills. H1Bs should have very high salaries.

Another improvement would be to expand it to all fields. Why do we single computer programmers out for this abuse and not lawyers? Actually, we know why--most politicians are lawyers.

This was going to be implemented in 2021 but democrats / Biden nixed it. You know that mythical party that supposedly helps US workers makes it easier to replace US workers.

https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/talent-acquisition/uscis-replaces-h-1b-lottery-salary-based-selection

The lone requirement for “H-1B dependent employers” to first recruit Americans is bypassed by a loophole that allows these companies to pay their foreign workers $60,000 a year instead of seeking out Americans. Based on the high cost of living in areas where most H-1B employers are located and the average experience level of the foreign workers, that $60,000 salary is significantly lower than what a true market wage would command.

H1B is ONLY about hiring cheap , disposable workers. It has NOTHING to do with best and brightest.

The law needs to require that aliens be paid 150% of the normal wage for any of these jobs. a measure like this was adopted in Australia and it pretty much killed the desire for an alien workforce.

https://cis.org/Law/How-Many-Americans-Will-Companies-Missed-Out-H1B-Lottery-Hire

Unfortunately, paying 150% of the normal wage, means they would just pay native workers 66% less. This is one of my issues with the system is the way they go about recruiting and setting these wages with LCAs. They do it by "testing" the market. Listing jobs that don't exist, then running sham interviews to prove that you don't exist or that you will take wages less than you would otherwise. Depending on where they run the listings and what not, how they interact with you and so on. The businesses do all of this without the naive applicants knowing. The naive applicants are led to believe that there are jobs there. Recruiter: "Do you want to work for Google for $40 K, wink wink you'll get your foot in the door." Applicant: "Sure! click"

It's almost like being in a Union. If the H-1b applicant's wage is set to be 150% mine, they'll never give me a raise, because all the H-1b in my job category will also have to get a raise. I say almost like being in a Union, because at least in a union would have a representative. As it all of these companies, they have all kinds of lawyers and HR specialists, they all make sure their paperwork is filled out correctly for the LCA or PERM, but I have no representation in the process. There is a regulation, that these companies can't tell me what they are doing.

I think I prefer Trump's proposal, make it a bidding war, then require companies to pay me 100% of what they pay h-1b's.

Anonymous wrote:The way to fix H1Bs is simple: raise the minimum salary to reflect that you are hiring people with rare talents and skills. H1Bs should have very high salaries.

Another improvement would be to expand it to all fields. Why do we single computer programmers out for this abuse and not lawyers? Actually, we know why--most politicians are lawyers.

This was going to be implemented in 2021 but democrats / Biden nixed it. You know that mythical party that supposedly helps US workers makes it easier to replace US workers.

https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/talent-acquisition/uscis-replaces-h-1b-lottery-salary-based-selection

The lone requirement for “H-1B dependent employers” to first recruit Americans is bypassed by a loophole that allows these companies to pay their foreign workers $60,000 a year instead of seeking out Americans. Based on the high cost of living in areas where most H-1B employers are located and the average experience level of the foreign workers, that $60,000 salary is significantly lower than what a true market wage would command.

H1B is ONLY about hiring cheap , disposable workers. It has NOTHING to do with best and brightest.

The law needs to require that aliens be paid 150% of the normal wage for any of these jobs. a measure like this was adopted in Australia and it pretty much killed the desire for an alien workforce.

https://cis.org/Law/How-Many-Americans-Will-Companies-Missed-Out-H1B-Lottery-Hire

Anonymous wrote:I’m married to a chief software architect et, etc, etc, impressive title who has been at it at a high level for 25+ years, has a number of patents in his name, etc, etc. and who at this point manages more than he would prefer (and is digging in hard about managing even more). He will say two things about H1Bs, which no one pointing fingers on here will.

First— depending on the employer, H1Bs absolutely are abused by American employers. Paid less, worked to death and have zero room to complain, because if they are fired, they have a very short period of time to get another company to pick up their visa or they are deported. And these are people who own homes in this county, pay taxes and pay into SS (but may well not get any money out), have spouses with jobs, contribute to the community, have their American citizen kids in school and college. That’s a lot to lose and ship overseas in 60 days or whatever the time period is. So, they put up with a lot of abuse. And you may be okay with that. But these are, by and large, good, hard working p people, and the type of immigrants who contribute and don’t cause problems. And the US has a demographics, low birth rate problem.

The second one ties in with the first. His companies want American workers. But the supply of people good enough, at a high enough level, isn’t there. When his companies can’t get H1Bs, they don’t hire 3rd tier IS citizen grads. They offshore the jobs. And to where is sometimes surprising. India and China have shown up (and China sucked because he was leading a team 12 hours away). But more recently Eastern Europe, and until a few years ago the Ukraine. But the choice is a binary H1B or American. It’s H1B or offshoring. Ask manufacturing how well forcing companies to offshore to compete works out.

I'm a director at a major tech firm. The reason this happens is because we're allowed to hire offshore workers and H1Bs for a fraction of the cost of U.S. workers. It's not about a lack of talent—it's about access to cheap and "good enough" labor. If U.S. companies didn’t have access to offshore or H1B talent, they’d have no choice but to raise compensation. Instead, they claim they “can’t find good enough” talent when the truth is they can’t find talent that’s good enough for cheap.

In other countries they protect their citizens and don't allow visas to take their jobs. Ever tried to get hired as a us immigrant to an EU country?

Anonymous wrote:The way to fix H1Bs is simple: raise the minimum salary to reflect that you are hiring people with rare talents and skills. H1Bs should have very high salaries.

Another improvement would be to expand it to all fields. Why do we single computer programmers out for this abuse and not lawyers? Actually, we know why--most politicians are lawyers.

and why not models, ie, Melania Trump.

The way to fix H1Bs is simple: raise the minimum salary to reflect that you are hiring people with rare talents and skills. H1Bs should have very high salaries.

Another improvement would be to expand it to all fields. Why do we single computer programmers out for this abuse and not lawyers? Actually, we know why--most politicians are lawyers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m married to a chief software architect et, etc, etc, impressive title who has been at it at a high level for 25+ years, has a number of patents in his name, etc, etc. and who at this point manages more than he would prefer (and is digging in hard about managing even more). He will say two things about H1Bs, which no one pointing fingers on here will.

First— depending on the employer, H1Bs absolutely are abused by American employers. Paid less, worked to death and have zero room to complain, because if they are fired, they have a very short period of time to get another company to pick up their visa or they are deported. And these are people who own homes in this county, pay taxes and pay into SS (but may well not get any money out), have spouses with jobs, contribute to the community, have their American citizen kids in school and college. That’s a lot to lose and ship overseas in 60 days or whatever the time period is. So, they put up with a lot of abuse. And you may be okay with that. But these are, by and large, good, hard working p people, and the type of immigrants who contribute and don’t cause problems. And the US has a demographics, low birth rate problem.

The second one ties in with the first. His companies want American workers. But the supply of people good enough, at a high enough level, isn’t there. When his companies can’t get H1Bs, they don’t hire 3rd tier IS citizen grads. They offshore the jobs. And to where is sometimes surprising. India and China have shown up (and China sucked because he was leading a team 12 hours away). But more recently Eastern Europe, and until a few years ago the Ukraine. But the choice is a binary H1B or American. It’s H1B or offshoring. Ask manufacturing how well forcing companies to offshore to compete works out.

#2 is an urban legend. H1b was created with bush 1990 immigration act. 35 years ago. Please explain how we can have a skills shortage in a market economy for 35 years????

In my early years in 80’s and 90’s, we would hire and train people. No more after h1b. Everyone looks for the purple squirrel.

Also, many stem grads cannot find jobs. Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that " [a]mong the 50 million employed college graduates ages 25 to 64 in 2019, 37% reported a bachelor's degree in science or engineering but only 14% worked in a STEM occupation...This translates into less than a third (28%) of STEM-educated workers actually working in a STEM job."
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/06/does-majoring-in-stem-lead-to-stem-job-after-graduation.html

It is not an urban legend. You cannot train somebody to a sufficiently high level who was not properly trained in grade and high school. It just cannot be done. Americans all get As, and are not pushed. People are passed through CS courses who have as much gift for coding as I have for opera singing. Until US education is reformed, and we recognize the "customer" is not the student but society, people will graduate these programs with worthless degrees and be too old to get the basic critical thinking skills they need to get in middle school or can never get.

At most schools, CS courses have notoriously high failure/drop out rates. They are NOT known for "passing" unqualified students. I majored in CS at a middling state school, and it was brutal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m married to a chief software architect et, etc, etc, impressive title who has been at it at a high level for 25+ years, has a number of patents in his name, etc, etc. and who at this point manages more than he would prefer (and is digging in hard about managing even more). He will say two things about H1Bs, which no one pointing fingers on here will.

First— depending on the employer, H1Bs absolutely are abused by American employers. Paid less, worked to death and have zero room to complain, because if they are fired, they have a very short period of time to get another company to pick up their visa or they are deported. And these are people who own homes in this county, pay taxes and pay into SS (but may well not get any money out), have spouses with jobs, contribute to the community, have their American citizen kids in school and college. That’s a lot to lose and ship overseas in 60 days or whatever the time period is. So, they put up with a lot of abuse. And you may be okay with that. But these are, by and large, good, hard working p people, and the type of immigrants who contribute and don’t cause problems. And the US has a demographics, low birth rate problem.

The second one ties in with the first. His companies want American workers. But the supply of people good enough, at a high enough level, isn’t there. When his companies can’t get H1Bs, they don’t hire 3rd tier IS citizen grads. They offshore the jobs. And to where is sometimes surprising. India and China have shown up (and China sucked because he was leading a team 12 hours away). But more recently Eastern Europe, and until a few years ago the Ukraine. But the choice is a binary H1B or American. It’s H1B or offshoring. Ask manufacturing how well forcing companies to offshore to compete works out.

#2 is an urban legend. H1b was created with bush 1990 immigration act. 35 years ago. Please explain how we can have a skills shortage in a market economy for 35 years????

In my early years in 80’s and 90’s, we would hire and train people. No more after h1b. Everyone looks for the purple squirrel.

Also, many stem grads cannot find jobs. Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that " [a]mong the 50 million employed college graduates ages 25 to 64 in 2019, 37% reported a bachelor's degree in science or engineering but only 14% worked in a STEM occupation...This translates into less than a third (28%) of STEM-educated workers actually working in a STEM job."
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/06/does-majoring-in-stem-lead-to-stem-job-after-graduation.html

It is not an urban legend. You cannot train somebody to a sufficiently high level who was not properly trained in grade and high school. It just cannot be done. Americans all get As, and are not pushed. People are passed through CS courses who have as much gift for coding as I have for opera singing. Until US education is reformed, and we recognize the "customer" is not the student but society, people will graduate these programs with worthless degrees and be too old to get the basic critical thinking skills they need to get in middle school or can never get.

Where do you get this nonsense?

If there is a shortage wages go up and more workers are attracted to the job. And yet for software development jobs we do the opposite , lower wages by flooding market with larger supply of workers, and then wonder in amazement at why we still are unable to attract workers to software development

And stop with the Americans are lazy crap. That is an argument from other h1bs trying to justify their life.

The question remains, how can we have a skills shortage for 35 years?

You are the only one who used the word lazy. I did not. I just said that you went to a school system that did not give you the skills you need, even to be trained or re-trained. And do you really think all the work in the world will make me an opera singer?

DP. Meh. I am 46 and female. There is nothing special about my education, I did basket weaving sort of major and I certainly did not learn to code much in college. And yet, here I am in my mid-40s and very much coding in my multi-disciplinary job. I might never code as much as mid-20s H1B dude, but the mid-20s H1B dude will never be able to do my job either because he doesn’t have the other knowledge I have that makes it possible to do my job.
That said, I consider myself very lucky to be in this position. Not sure the people in charge now understand the value of employees who are multidisciplinary and not just code factories, and we will eventually suffer for it.

I did attend LAC with friends who majored in CS, and they have actual critical thinking skills and gone on and accomplished things not possible if they were just code monkeys.
Maybe our system needs both? But H1B should be reconsidered because it is exploitative and really does decrease entry level American jobs in this field.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m married to a chief software architect et, etc, etc, impressive title who has been at it at a high level for 25+ years, has a number of patents in his name, etc, etc. and who at this point manages more than he would prefer (and is digging in hard about managing even more). He will say two things about H1Bs, which no one pointing fingers on here will.

First— depending on the employer, H1Bs absolutely are abused by American employers. Paid less, worked to death and have zero room to complain, because if they are fired, they have a very short period of time to get another company to pick up their visa or they are deported. And these are people who own homes in this county, pay taxes and pay into SS (but may well not get any money out), have spouses with jobs, contribute to the community, have their American citizen kids in school and college. That’s a lot to lose and ship overseas in 60 days or whatever the time period is. So, they put up with a lot of abuse. And you may be okay with that. But these are, by and large, good, hard working p people, and the type of immigrants who contribute and don’t cause problems. And the US has a demographics, low birth rate problem.

The second one ties in with the first. His companies want American workers. But the supply of people good enough, at a high enough level, isn’t there. When his companies can’t get H1Bs, they don’t hire 3rd tier IS citizen grads. They offshore the jobs. And to where is sometimes surprising. India and China have shown up (and China sucked because he was leading a team 12 hours away). But more recently Eastern Europe, and until a few years ago the Ukraine. But the choice is a binary H1B or American. It’s H1B or offshoring. Ask manufacturing how well forcing companies to offshore to compete works out.

#2 is an urban legend. H1b was created with bush 1990 immigration act. 35 years ago. Please explain how we can have a skills shortage in a market economy for 35 years????

In my early years in 80’s and 90’s, we would hire and train people. No more after h1b. Everyone looks for the purple squirrel.

Also, many stem grads cannot find jobs. Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that " [a]mong the 50 million employed college graduates ages 25 to 64 in 2019, 37% reported a bachelor's degree in science or engineering but only 14% worked in a STEM occupation...This translates into less than a third (28%) of STEM-educated workers actually working in a STEM job."
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/06/does-majoring-in-stem-lead-to-stem-job-after-graduation.html

Exactly, there used to be training. New students were trained for at least 6 mos to a year. Older workers were retrained. Companies used to send ppl to classes. But that got too expensive. Now they're thrown out the door. If workers don't have the laundry list of qualifications, time to hire h1bs.

I will add my own experience.

In 80's and 90's I was able to hire entry level testers, African Americans and hispanics, from 2 year schools or community colleges, train them to be testers or developers.  These were young adults that didn't have the parental guidance to get into college etc etc. Almost all were successful and were launched into successful careers. Now I am forced to hire H1Bs from Indian Bodyshops.  We do NOT hire entry level with intent to train.  We hire 15 H1Bs with the intent to fire 33% and keep the other 67% for 2 years and then fire and start over.   It is a way to replace US workers with cheap desperate guest workers.

at Freddie my boss said "don't worry about telephone interviews with H1Bs, just hire 10, and we will fire 4 in first 2 weeks. Then after 18 months, the 6 are rolled off and we start all over again. that is the way it is done. "

And the Indian Bodyshops are the most racist firms in America. They have no african americans and few hispanics. And they NEVER recruit from HBCs.  Never. 

How did it become moral to hire cheaper labor from half way around the planet instead of training your own children? what is wrong with us?

Is the OP talking about entry level testers? or good jobs? or both? Since our government is determined to turn all of us into serfs, that kind of job will always pay not enough to live. But for the good jobs, our education system isn't good enough to produce these.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m married to a chief software architect et, etc, etc, impressive title who has been at it at a high level for 25+ years, has a number of patents in his name, etc, etc. and who at this point manages more than he would prefer (and is digging in hard about managing even more). He will say two things about H1Bs, which no one pointing fingers on here will.

First— depending on the employer, H1Bs absolutely are abused by American employers. Paid less, worked to death and have zero room to complain, because if they are fired, they have a very short period of time to get another company to pick up their visa or they are deported. And these are people who own homes in this county, pay taxes and pay into SS (but may well not get any money out), have spouses with jobs, contribute to the community, have their American citizen kids in school and college. That’s a lot to lose and ship overseas in 60 days or whatever the time period is. So, they put up with a lot of abuse. And you may be okay with that. But these are, by and large, good, hard working p people, and the type of immigrants who contribute and don’t cause problems. And the US has a demographics, low birth rate problem.

The second one ties in with the first. His companies want American workers. But the supply of people good enough, at a high enough level, isn’t there. When his companies can’t get H1Bs, they don’t hire 3rd tier IS citizen grads. They offshore the jobs. And to where is sometimes surprising. India and China have shown up (and China sucked because he was leading a team 12 hours away). But more recently Eastern Europe, and until a few years ago the Ukraine. But the choice is a binary H1B or American. It’s H1B or offshoring. Ask manufacturing how well forcing companies to offshore to compete works out.

#2 is an urban legend. H1b was created with bush 1990 immigration act. 35 years ago. Please explain how we can have a skills shortage in a market economy for 35 years????

In my early years in 80’s and 90’s, we would hire and train people. No more after h1b. Everyone looks for the purple squirrel.

Also, many stem grads cannot find jobs. Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that " [a]mong the 50 million employed college graduates ages 25 to 64 in 2019, 37% reported a bachelor's degree in science or engineering but only 14% worked in a STEM occupation...This translates into less than a third (28%) of STEM-educated workers actually working in a STEM job."
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/06/does-majoring-in-stem-lead-to-stem-job-after-graduation.html

It is not an urban legend. You cannot train somebody to a sufficiently high level who was not properly trained in grade and high school. It just cannot be done. Americans all get As, and are not pushed. People are passed through CS courses who have as much gift for coding as I have for opera singing. Until US education is reformed, and we recognize the "customer" is not the student but society, people will graduate these programs with worthless degrees and be too old to get the basic critical thinking skills they need to get in middle school or can never get.

Where do you get this nonsense?

If there is a shortage wages go up and more workers are attracted to the job. And yet for software development jobs we do the opposite , lower wages by flooding market with larger supply of workers, and then wonder in amazement at why we still are unable to attract workers to software development

And stop with the Americans are lazy crap. That is an argument from other h1bs trying to justify their life.

The question remains, how can we have a skills shortage for 35 years?

You are the only one who used the word lazy. I did not. I just said that you went to a school system that did not give you the skills you need, even to be trained or re-trained. And do you really think all the work in the world will make me an opera singer?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m married to a chief software architect et, etc, etc, impressive title who has been at it at a high level for 25+ years, has a number of patents in his name, etc, etc. and who at this point manages more than he would prefer (and is digging in hard about managing even more). He will say two things about H1Bs, which no one pointing fingers on here will.

First— depending on the employer, H1Bs absolutely are abused by American employers. Paid less, worked to death and have zero room to complain, because if they are fired, they have a very short period of time to get another company to pick up their visa or they are deported. And these are people who own homes in this county, pay taxes and pay into SS (but may well not get any money out), have spouses with jobs, contribute to the community, have their American citizen kids in school and college. That’s a lot to lose and ship overseas in 60 days or whatever the time period is. So, they put up with a lot of abuse. And you may be okay with that. But these are, by and large, good, hard working p people, and the type of immigrants who contribute and don’t cause problems. And the US has a demographics, low birth rate problem.

The second one ties in with the first. His companies want American workers. But the supply of people good enough, at a high enough level, isn’t there. When his companies can’t get H1Bs, they don’t hire 3rd tier IS citizen grads. They offshore the jobs. And to where is sometimes surprising. India and China have shown up (and China sucked because he was leading a team 12 hours away). But more recently Eastern Europe, and until a few years ago the Ukraine. But the choice is a binary H1B or American. It’s H1B or offshoring. Ask manufacturing how well forcing companies to offshore to compete works out.

#2 is an urban legend. H1b was created with bush 1990 immigration act. 35 years ago. Please explain how we can have a skills shortage in a market economy for 35 years????

In my early years in 80’s and 90’s, we would hire and train people. No more after h1b. Everyone looks for the purple squirrel.

Also, many stem grads cannot find jobs. Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that " [a]mong the 50 million employed college graduates ages 25 to 64 in 2019, 37% reported a bachelor's degree in science or engineering but only 14% worked in a STEM occupation...This translates into less than a third (28%) of STEM-educated workers actually working in a STEM job."
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/06/does-majoring-in-stem-lead-to-stem-job-after-graduation.html

It is not an urban legend. You cannot train somebody to a sufficiently high level who was not properly trained in grade and high school. It just cannot be done. Americans all get As, and are not pushed. People are passed through CS courses who have as much gift for coding as I have for opera singing. Until US education is reformed, and we recognize the "customer" is not the student but society, people will graduate these programs with worthless degrees and be too old to get the basic critical thinking skills they need to get in middle school or can never get.

Where do you get this nonsense?

If there is a shortage wages go up and more workers are attracted to the job. And yet for software development jobs we do the opposite , lower wages by flooding market with larger supply of workers, and then wonder in amazement at why we still are unable to attract workers to software development

And stop with the Americans are lazy crap. That is an argument from other h1bs trying to justify their life.

The question remains, how can we have a skills shortage for 35 years?

How is this even a question? Have you been inside a school recently? Baby Bush’s stupid No Child Left Behind ruined schools. The US doesn’t educate student usind a STEM model. I had to send my kids to Kahm Academy tutors to ensure they learned basic higher math concepts because their “highly rated schools” didn’t offer them.