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I wish there was a way to distinguish the quality of a worker from the degrees of a worker. Its not just that one wants a "computer technology worker", but one

I wish there was a way to distinguish the quality of a worker from the degrees of a worker. Its not just that one wants a "computer technology worker", but one wants an individual who can communicate, work hard when needed, take on responsibility, easily read and comprehend instructions and so on. These are weakly correlated with degrees or how technical a field of study is. An art history undergrad could easily display more of these qualities than a PhD studying the physics of plasma.

ouesp 10y ago
IELTS score can evaluate a person's ability in English skills. Canada Express Entry gives points for English skills. While H1B (highly skilled visa) is based on "lottery"
- untog 10y ago
  I suspect that the OP is not describing language proficiency. I have met many American-born (and speaking) developers who are still terrible at communicating. Not that developers are alone in this of course, but it's a profession that allows people to work alone (and often at home/in isolated environments) a lot more than other jobs do.
- inputcoffee 10y ago
  When I say communicating, I mean more of a mix of reasoning precisely and explaining clearly rather than English.
takeda 10y ago
If we are looking for criteria in regards to H1B visas, I think it makes most sense to instead of having a lottery to pick up candidates, the criteria should be which candidates will get higher salary. By putting a price on a candidate, companies can then decide how valuable a given person is to them and let free market decide who gets the visa. This has several advantages, it allows sponsoring truly qualified candidates that otherwise might be harder to find locally (restoring the main purpose of what H1B was for), it would also solve issues of H1B workers being underpaid, or companies using this to obtain a cheaper employees (H1B holders are wiling to work for cheaper, because the visa doesn't allow them switch a company).
- sterex 10y ago
  This actually makes sense. If the company thinks you are really needed, they will pay more for you. The bidding may go high, but it will only go as high as how much it would cost to hire an American instead. This would be a win-win because the under-qualified get filtered and the good ones get paid on par.
  - wsxcde 10y ago
    > The bidding may go high, but it will only go as high as how much it would cost to hire an American instead. Except this is already the case? Hiring a H1B worker isn't free. It costs something like $10K in legal costs alone. Do you really think a lot of companies are indulging in a large-scale conspiracy to avoid paying that $10K to an American instead? If you want the worker to stay longer than a couple years, you'll need to renew the H1B and probably file a PERM application as well. All of this costs something like $20K at the minimum. Getting a position on a H1B is by no means easy or cheap. If a company could hire an American, they'd much rather do it. And if the H1B thing were all about cheap foreign workers, spouses of H1Bs wouldn't have had so much trouble getting hired in the pre-Obama era. Anecdotally, I know many women with Master's degrees from top-tier US universities who were desperate to find a position, and were willing to take wages well-below par, but couldn't because companies didn't want to pay for the H1B. It's also why if you look at resumes/linkedin profiles for Indians in the US, many will advertise their green cards/citizenship status. They're communicating that employers don't need to file a H1B petition for them. Yes, it's true there are a few companies which have exploited H1Bs to bring in cheap labor. But from a statistical point of view, this is about as common as the epidemic of violence at Chuck-e-Cheese. In other words, it's a nice news story that plays well as a clickbait headline, in reality, it's a non-issue.
    - codys 10y ago
      > All of this costs something like $20K at the minimum. So they only need to be cheaper by $20K over a couple of years for it to be worth it? That seems like a fairly small cost to overcome. And if there isn't very much demand for H1Bs, even with "bidding" we'd expect the cost to companies to stay the same. It isn't clear to me why prioritizing the value of an employee (as measured by how much they are paid) would not be an effective way of prioritizing H1B visas.
dirtybird04 10y ago
It's really not that hard, Canada seems to have it figured out. You get points for job offer, education, experience, language, and family. If you graduate from a Canadian school, you get an open work-permit, not tied to any employer. Fast path to naturalization. Pretty good system imo. US has never really had a proper immigration program for graduates and skilled workers. H1B is a hackjob, and has outlived its usefulness. Makes no sense that a MIT undergrad is given the same preference as a call-center worker. Sure get rid of H1B, but the problems will still be there if you don't come up with a serious alternative for graduates and skilled workers.
- comments_db 10y ago
  Yes, absolutely yes. Why can't you have point system for US vs non-US schools, language skills, job history, offers, international/national/regional awards/publications, patents (of course). It's not that difficult if you really want to. But let's be honest, doing so would polarize most of the visas towards Europe, Japan, South Korea and BRICS countries. I don't think this is going to work for political reasons.
- tn135 10y ago
  US does not have immigration program for outsiders. H1B to Green card path is mostly co-incidental. H1B is a temporary work visa and the person is expected to show evidence he will go back to his home country.
acchow 10y ago
I wish there was a way to distinguish the quality of a worker from the degrees of a worker. Like money?

ouesp 10y ago

IELTS score can evaluate a person's ability in English skills. Canada Express Entry gives points for English skills. While H1B (highly skilled visa) is based on "lottery"

untog 10y ago
I suspect that the OP is not describing language proficiency. I have met many American-born (and speaking) developers who are still terrible at communicating. Not that developers are alone in this of course, but it's a profession that allows people to work alone (and often at home/in isolated environments) a lot more than other jobs do.
inputcoffee 10y ago
When I say communicating, I mean more of a mix of reasoning precisely and explaining clearly rather than English.

takeda 10y ago

If we are looking for criteria in regards to H1B visas, I think it makes most sense to instead of having a lottery to pick up candidates, the criteria should be which candidates will get higher salary. By putting a price on a candidate, companies can then decide how valuable a given person is to them and let free market decide who gets the visa. This has several advantages, it allows sponsoring truly qualified candidates that otherwise might be harder to find locally (restoring the main purpose of what H1B was for), it would also solve issues of H1B workers being underpaid, or companies using this to obtain a cheaper employees (H1B holders are wiling to work for cheaper, because the visa doesn't allow them switch a company).

sterex 10y ago
This actually makes sense. If the company thinks you are really needed, they will pay more for you. The bidding may go high, but it will only go as high as how much it would cost to hire an American instead. This would be a win-win because the under-qualified get filtered and the good ones get paid on par.
- wsxcde 10y ago
  > The bidding may go high, but it will only go as high as how much it would cost to hire an American instead. Except this is already the case? Hiring a H1B worker isn't free. It costs something like $10K in legal costs alone. Do you really think a lot of companies are indulging in a large-scale conspiracy to avoid paying that $10K to an American instead? If you want the worker to stay longer than a couple years, you'll need to renew the H1B and probably file a PERM application as well. All of this costs something like $20K at the minimum. Getting a position on a H1B is by no means easy or cheap. If a company could hire an American, they'd much rather do it. And if the H1B thing were all about cheap foreign workers, spouses of H1Bs wouldn't have had so much trouble getting hired in the pre-Obama era. Anecdotally, I know many women with Master's degrees from top-tier US universities who were desperate to find a position, and were willing to take wages well-below par, but couldn't because companies didn't want to pay for the H1B. It's also why if you look at resumes/linkedin profiles for Indians in the US, many will advertise their green cards/citizenship status. They're communicating that employers don't need to file a H1B petition for them. Yes, it's true there are a few companies which have exploited H1Bs to bring in cheap labor. But from a statistical point of view, this is about as common as the epidemic of violence at Chuck-e-Cheese. In other words, it's a nice news story that plays well as a clickbait headline, in reality, it's a non-issue.
  - codys 10y ago
    > All of this costs something like $20K at the minimum. So they only need to be cheaper by $20K over a couple of years for it to be worth it? That seems like a fairly small cost to overcome. And if there isn't very much demand for H1Bs, even with "bidding" we'd expect the cost to companies to stay the same. It isn't clear to me why prioritizing the value of an employee (as measured by how much they are paid) would not be an effective way of prioritizing H1B visas.

dirtybird04 10y ago

It's really not that hard, Canada seems to have it figured out. You get points for job offer, education, experience, language, and family. If you graduate from a Canadian school, you get an open work-permit, not tied to any employer. Fast path to naturalization. Pretty good system imo. US has never really had a proper immigration program for graduates and skilled workers. H1B is a hackjob, and has outlived its usefulness. Makes no sense that a MIT undergrad is given the same preference as a call-center worker. Sure get rid of H1B, but the problems will still be there if you don't come up with a serious alternative for graduates and skilled workers.

comments_db 10y ago
Yes, absolutely yes. Why can't you have point system for US vs non-US schools, language skills, job history, offers, international/national/regional awards/publications, patents (of course). It's not that difficult if you really want to. But let's be honest, doing so would polarize most of the visas towards Europe, Japan, South Korea and BRICS countries. I don't think this is going to work for political reasons.
tn135 10y ago
US does not have immigration program for outsiders. H1B to Green card path is mostly co-incidental. H1B is a temporary work visa and the person is expected to show evidence he will go back to his home country.

acchow 10y ago

I wish there was a way to distinguish the quality of a worker from the degrees of a worker. Like money?