Big problem w corporate HR hiring nowadays is that resumes are initially screened using software filters. If some magic keyword isn’t on CV, then u could be SOL.
Don’t rely on abbreviations being understood ny HR turnipheads.
These visas were originally supposed to be for specialists. My husband’s company needs people experienced with designing variable frequency infrared lasers. A company in town need experience creating nano and micro sized frequency filters. Another company needs quantum computing PhDs, and uses the local grad students, but when they graduate, they can no longer work here.
Little companies have big troubles getting just one or two H-1B visas.
GMT, that was even worse. The computer search engines are programmed to pick up synonyms and industry standardized abbreviations. The HR themselves had no clue what they were looking at when the system dumped the résumé into their mailboxes. 
Limiting H-1B visas to those who earn advanced degrees from US universities would bring the H-1B visa program back to its original intent of bringing in rare top-end talent, rather than allowing the visas to be hogged by common low-end talent willing to work for slightly lower pay than everyone else.
The total number of science and engineering masters and doctoral degrees awarded by US universities to international students per year is probably only about half of the number of H-1B visas per year. So even if all such graduates went to work in the US on H-1B visas, there would be plenty for visas for all of them with many unused. Perhaps a few more can be allowed for uncredentialed exceptional talent evaluated individually, with strictly limited numbers of such applications per sponsoring employer.
It’s not hard to see why Google and Microsoft are willing to pay to sponsor people for H-1B visas. There aren’t very many people who can design programming languages or manage the architecture of something like the .NET framework. Many people with the skills they need are working at universities and uninterested in moving into the enterprise sector. Most of those who are working in the enterprise center either don’t want to switch employers or don’t want to move. The 10 year job growth outlook for software engineers is double the national average, so the market for senior roles is a buyers’ market. All of these make finding someone with the right expertise to be an architect for a company’s new SDK to be a tough challenge.
And companies haven’t been stingy with pay either. Google pays their interns $6,000 per month, and many well-known companies like Facebook and Quora pay $8,000 per month. These types of salaries weren’t common five years ago.
SaintSaens, very few H-1B’s are hired to do things like design programming languages or manage the architecture of something like the .NET framework. Those types of jobs are rather rare to begin with.
Most H-1B’s are hired to do common, everyday software engineering tasks like fix bugs, maintain databases, test software, or extend the functionality of existing programs.
The typical direct hire H-1B visa holder appears to be a recent graduate with a master’s (or sometimes doctoral) degree from a US university. The typical outsourcing company H-1B visa holder is probably someone with a bachelor’s degree from an undistinguished foreign university.
Note the difference in pay levels for H-1B visa holders at outsourcing companies (e.g. the top 10 at http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2015-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx ) versus direct hire companies.
H1B’s are SUPPOSED to be highly qualified. What it was meant for was internationals with US degrees, primarily Master’s and PHD level, but also Bachelor’s with a special skill (ie., typically a foreign language they speak fluently for your import/export business, Bilingual Exceptional Education, etc.)
Please note that “highly skilled” doesn’t just mean “CS and Engineering”. There are LOTS of highly talented internationals in American colleges and grad schools outside these realms - fashion design, perfume chemistry, sociological analysis, public policy, and as mentioned above knowing a culture and language for an import/export business and being double-certified in bilingual education is all very useful to American employers and citizens.
Outsourcing companies should NOT have access to these, and ONLY graduates from US universities should have access to H1Bs.
It makes me so mad because there are plenty of internationals in our universities who will work at a normal American wage and will bring something to the table, but neither the company nor the international can use the visa system designed for them because of these cheats.In addition, we train specialists and then because they have to leave, we lose all this training and potential to foreign industries (Canada’s started “poaching”), all due to those H1Bs being hogged by outsourcing companies who rip off both those internationals and Americans. It makes NO economic sense.
Yes I think there should be more H1Bs. But NOT A SINGLE ONE to outsourcing companies and NOT A SINGLE ONE for someone whose degree wasn’t had at a US university.
I agree with the first half of your statement but the second half will exclude a number of talented people. Maybe allow people with graduate degrees from a limited list of foreign universities.
I would assume that if H1B are cut large outsourcers will start using intercompany transfers.
I understand and support the desire to stop outsourcing companies from abusing the visa system. I don’t understand the insistence on limiting the visas to U.S. educated candidates. H1visas were designed so that companies could employ people who have the specialized skills and experience required for specific positions. You might argue that the education may be acquired easily at American institutions in most cases, but it is not just about education but also about experience and skills acquired on the job; many times companies will have to truly cast a worldwide net for the best candidate regardless of where he or she obtained their degree.
wrt to 28: well, there might be case-by-case exceptions, but I don’t see why a talented student from abroad can’t attend a US university before getting a H1B.
Or perhaps we can create two separate categories:
H1B for US-educated international sudents
H1C for exceptional, internationally educated talent who are no longer students (in the same way we have a visa for exceptional artists, athletes, etc.)
@MYOS1634 Because not all H1 visa candidates are young or recent college graduates? And many will already have their terminal degree and have years of work experience behind them?
Because in that system, H1Bs will give easy access to small business who want to hire interns they’re happy with, etc., for international students who graduate from US colleges, are paid the same as Americans (thus don’t hurt American wages, bring something unique to the table, and thus won’t go serve another country’s economy.
And H1C would be for visa candidates who apply based on exceptional experience - but the outsourcing companies wouldn’t have access to these since the jobs they have don’t require exceptional anything.
While I would give preference to H-1B applicants who have degrees from US universities, it seems a bit unfair to absolutely rule out anyone else. Lots of people don’t have the money to come to school in the US.
That is why most H-1B visa holders at direct hire (not outsourcing) companies have master’s or doctoral degrees from US universities. The top-end international students mainly come to the US for fully funded graduate study, not unaffordable undergraduate study.
Restricting the H-1B visas to those holding US master’s or doctoral degrees would be a good first cut to eliminate the outsourcing companies’ abuse of the system. Perhaps some visas (or a new category of visas) can be offered to high-end talent that does not have the specified credential, though the process would likely have to be more involved with a “holistic review” to keep the outsourcing companies from abusing the system. Or perhaps limit the number of visas for uncredentialed high-end talent to a small number for each sponsoring employer, so that sponsoring employers would not “waste” such visa applications on non-high-end talent.
^outstanding graduate students are fully funded, which is why I said that, but I’m willing to amend my position if you find it unfair.
I’m just very incensed with the outsourcing companies that take those visas when they shouldn’t, and punish everyone else.
I disagree. My husband’s company would like to bring over a specific 40ish physics professor in France. Instead, they bring him over 3-4 times a year for a couple weeks each and fund some of his research there. They would also like to bring some people from Lithuania who build (but not fast enough) a laser that they use but can’t get in the US. If they could bring over some of that knowledge, they could probably make the lasers themselves or at least have them made somewhere in the US.
That’s just one startup company. I’m sure there are lots of cases. Other companies in town are having increasing trouble finding analog RF expertise, because kids mainly learn digital stuff these days. It’s a dying skill like COBOL was, but there are still some niches that need those skills.
We should stop wasting H-1Bs on cheap workers with CS BS degrees and no specific rare skills.
Now we are talking about CS BS degrees being not very valuable.
Finance/i-banking is not as glorious as it used to be, and now CS degrees (being merely BS) are downgraded like this. Tell me: What major would you recommend our young to be in?
^ I’m not saying it’s a bad major for our kids, just that we shouldn’t need to import kids from around the world to fill those BS in CS positions.
My wife works (as the rare US Citizen) among a sea of H1B’s. She reports maybe 20% of them are very good, the rest are average. They command lower wages - not by much, but lower and deliver relatively common skills. But y’all don’t know the half of it. It’s the working hours that are a big issue, not only the money.
If in India, working hours can be quite long depending on client needs. Her buddies are online at 10pm-11pm EST and call it a day by 10am-11am EST. That’s right, 12 hours. My wife’s hours are no better, 12 hours are quite common. A lot of it is telecommuting both here and there. Understaffing is the norm.
What really kills any cost savings is the increased overhead of process, ITIL 3.0, and all kinds of doohickeys needed to do work 24/7. So, the real issue is finding people willing to work 12 hour days and get paid for 8 hours. Not qualifications, not wages, not anything.
My wife’s current assignment was the rare insourcing, where resources in India had to train her to take over a project that their client was not happy about offshore support. Her Indian counterpart stonewalled her for weeks trying to get basic answers and she had to escalate to management. There is a definite dog eat dog culture, fueled by constant turnover, and what many companies call ‘certification’ or other fancy names, meaning, annual testing of employees on specific skills. Fail the test once, no raise or good assignments. Fail it twice, and it’s bye bye.
Yet she can’t blame them. She has 25 years experience in manufacturing information systems, has walked the plant floor, driven the golf cart, wielded the clipboard, the whole nine yards. They haven’t. They’re being asked to work on stuff they do not have subject matter knowledge of (say, pharma manufacturing GMP processes, think CMM level 5 level validation…). There are good people, both in terms of knowledge and in terms of sharing knowledge, and when she pairs up with one of them they can do spectacular quality work for the client. But if the client expects senior consultant expertise with junior analyst cost… It ain’t happening.