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If H-1B visas were being used how they were intended, they would be a good thing, but we often see them used as a way to get cheap labor, or even directly repla

by dx87 6y ago

If H-1B visas were being used how they were intended, they would be a good thing, but we often see them used as a way to get cheap labor, or even directly replace American workers. The company I work at has H-1B junior web developers, hardly "very niche, hard to fill" positions that they can't find any qualified Americans to do.

alexandercrohde 6y ago
For a while I wasn't sure if this was just some "talking point." Then one day, on a hiking meetup, I met a guy who was ranting about his job that was to write "oddly hyper-specific job descriptions that might seem to make no sense" to bring in cheaper h1b candidates. So yeah, it's a problem.
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  My previous boss would openly brag about doing this, while he was doing it.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    For those who encounter this in their travels and want to do something about it: https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud/uscis-tip-form https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud/uscis-tip-form
- pkaye 6y ago
  Years back I had a college friend who was hired on an OPT visa. When they wanted to convert his visa to H1B (I think) they kept getting suitable candidates so had to rewrite the requirements so its only suited to him. He confided this to me as he felt bad but really needed that job.
  - weyland108 6y ago
    There is no “opt” visa it’s “optional Practical training”. It’s for a limited duration after he graduates also the rules are sketchy if he Would be let back into the country if wants to travel home to see family . If the employer wants to continue his employment he has no choice but to go on H1b. And then H1b has its own requirements and problems with it. Try to understand a lot of people “abusing” the system have not other legal recourse to keep their lives going.
    - pkaye 6y ago
      > Try to understand a lot of people “abusing” the system have not other legal recourse to keep their lives going. That is probably because other countries make it even harder for people to immigrate.
  - addicted 6y ago
    Let’s rephrase this story a bit. A company hires someone out of college, trains them and has them working and integrating into the company for about a year and a half, but then the government, because of a literal lottery, requires them to randomly replace them with someone else. And you’re surprised a company that has spent all that money and resources on hiring someone and with the known hit or miss nature of hiring wouldn’t want to replace them with a random new candidate? Edit: And it gets better. They don’t need to replace the person if someone else accepts the job. They need to get rid of that employee who they are happy enough to be spending tens of thousands of dollars on that they wouldn’t need to on their citizen counterpart, even if their possible replacement didn’t accept the job. Merely if the possible replacement’s resume fit the minimum requirements of the job. That’s why companies rewrite the position to be hyper specific. Because if there is anyone else available eho can meet the bare minimum who applies for the job, even if they aren’t interested in it and will never accept an offer, they are required to get rid of their existing multi year employee who they are happy with.
  - diebeforei485 6y ago
    The job description stuff doesn't have much to do with H-1B's - it has to do with green cards.
jgalt212 6y ago
Indeed, a friend offered to introduce me to a lawyer who would help me hire H-1Bs instead of similarly qualified residents. The gist was you have to figure out the unique qualities of the person you want to hire, and then construct interviews for the required X candidates such that these other candidates would not be as qualified across these trumped up unique qualifications / skills.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  How much are companies expecting to save by going this route? Is it dramatic?
  - fountainofage 6y ago
    There seems to be a mix. Which is part of the problem with the national debate / conversation. There are companies who found the absolute best in the world that they have to have. So they need that H1-B to get the job done and hire the best person. Then there are companies who just want to contract out super cheap labor, so they do thousands of H1-B applications hoping a few hundred make it through, then the they charge a local rate, but pay the employee a fraction and reap the profits.
    - runawaybottle 6y ago
      So the second example I’m assuming is the operating model of companies like Accenture, Cognizant, etc. I’m flooding this thread a bit, but I’ve always been a little confused by the consultancy firms. Is there a clear difference between off shoring and H1B? Or is it mostly the same thing for these companies, with different margins for each.
      - blntechie 6y ago
        Truth be said the consultancy companies barely make any or in fact lose money with the H-1Bs and they make way more margin on offshoring. But customers want people near them for various reasons and the offshoring doesn’t generally work well without boots on the ground. So the H-1Bs are loss leaders with actual money being made in offshoring instead.
untog 6y ago
The answer here is to actually fix the system with compassion rather than suspend it and harm everyone using it. I'm not unbiased: I'm a former H1B visa holder and wasn't underpaid at all. I promise you we exist! It's not a fun situation to be in... if you have a pending green card application (up to a certain point in the process) you can't change jobs easily. And if you come from some countries (India, in particular) you have a wait of ten years or more before receiving your green card. It feels like a collision of a bunch of otherwise unrelated decisions that ultimately harms both immigrant and native workers and only benefits companies. It's all fixable, but like so many things in the US right now, not politically possible.
- downvoteme1 6y ago
  Not sure why you are downvoted . Can somebody who is downvoting this person, actually care to type what you found offensive or incorrect .
- addicted 6y ago
  If you’re from India the current expected wait to get your green card, no exaggeration, is closer to 50 years.
jusonchan81 6y ago
I guess this is indeed an issue. I’m a manager and I am trying to hire. 100% I’d rather find a person who can start in a couple of weeks than several months for a candidate who needs immigration. But there are rarely any local applicants and even when there are they don’t make in the interview. We pay in excess of 300k for all roles so it’s not like we are trying to find cheap talent.
- hckr_news 6y ago
  Maybe your recruiting to get interviewers into your pipeline and the interview process just isn't that good. Or perhaps nobody wants to work at your company. Bad management? Bad glassdoor reviews? Don't engage with the local tech scene?
  - akhilcacharya 6y ago
    > We pay in excess of 300k for all roles If it's in excess of $300k for all roles it sounds like a Netflix type company or Netflix itself. I highly doubt nobody wants to work for that company.
    - weyland108 6y ago
      Did u miss the part where he said “they don’t make it in the interview “?. It’s not about handing out a job because there is one ...there is a interview process and quite a rigorous one when it comes to FAANG companies. They don’t go out seeking cheap labor.
- dennis_jeeves 6y ago
  > But there are rarely any local applicants and even when there are they don’t make in the interview What exactly does the work involve, if it is so difficult to either find candidates or give a candidate with some missing skills a few weeks to learn something new?
- jen20 6y ago
  Without more context it's hard to know what the problem is there, but I strongly doubt it's that there is "no" talent locally available to start within a couple of weeks, whether it's a US citizen or foreign national with an existing work visa. A small list of things that people may consider: - competitive salary. 300k is one thing in (for example) Kansas City, but completely another in the Bay Area or New York City where it's not uncommon for senior roles to deliver at least a third again, if not more. - the ethics of the company - does it engage in questionable behaviour? For example spying on users, building weapons, formenting unrest via algorithmic news feeds and so forth? - the fundamental health of the company from a financial and existential perspective. - does the company have a local reputation for being a poor place to work? For example, is it a bureaucracy where no-one can get anything done? Does it have a notoriously poor work-life balance, "face time" expectations, a culture where the loudest or most senior voice always prevails in decisions? What does Glassdoor (or levels.fyi) say about it? - are the technologies you're hiring for overly specific? Are your job ads a buzzword bingo of "nice to have" frameworks, libraries or practices? Do the ads make it clear that experience in them is not required, provided you can learn them quickly thanks to experience of concepts or adjacent technologies?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sixothree 6y ago
We have h1b employees at our company. If we were to lose them right now it would be a significant disruption. Personally, I can't take time out of my job to train employees - which in our case could easily take three months. I can't even imagine us finding and hiring some at this time. These guys are an absolute asset to the company.
- RhysU 6y ago
  Does your company not already grow skills over time? One should already be training (or coaching) individuals regardless of their present skill levels.
  - TheCoelacanth 6y ago
    That's a very uncharitable reading of what they said. They presumably spent time training these people. They can't afford to train up a bunch of new people because someone decided that they need to be kicked out of the country for no good reason.
    - RhysU 6y ago
      I am saying that they should already have a "training time allocation" built into their role and that they could choose to use it for remedial skills. That is, individually having time for training should be a moot point. Now, if the business can survive in the meantime is a different matter. But the business has no choice in the matter. And the business is not alone in the matter. Which probably makes that a moot point too. I don't claim that it will be easy. "I can't train people" doesn't compel me as a broadly satisfactory counterargument for the above reasons. That sentiment itself is not charitable making it hard for me to read it charitably.
  - sixothree 6y ago
    We grow skills. That's one reason they are so valuable. And we cross train. Everyone is able to take over for another employee at any time. But now is not the time. I just can't stomach losing our H1B members or any dev right now. We are in the health IT sector and you may not know this (because it surprises most everyone) but there is an absolute revolution happening in healthcare. We're approaching version 5 of FHIR. And I'd guess 99% of the devs on HN are like "what the heck is FHIR". It's a core standard for exchanging healthcare data. And it's literally the tip of an iceberg. And that's my personal dilemma as a lead developer. Speaking of skill growth, devs attended FHIR Dev Days last week, CCDA Implementation-athon a few weeks before that, and the FHIR Connectathon a week before that. None of us are in the office and since we have formed personal relationships over the last few years we know how to "get stuff done". AFAIK we treat every employee well enough they have few reasons to leave. Now is not the time for us to lose a dev. Any dev. I just ask the government to stop being jerks and let us ride out this covid year without too much more upset...

by dx87 6y ago

alexandercrohde 6y ago

For a while I wasn't sure if this was just some "talking point." Then one day, on a hiking meetup, I met a guy who was ranting about his job that was to write "oddly hyper-specific job descriptions that might seem to make no sense" to bring in cheaper h1b candidates. So yeah, it's a problem.

jjoonathan 6y ago
My previous boss would openly brag about doing this, while he was doing it.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  For those who encounter this in their travels and want to do something about it: https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud/uscis-tip-form https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud/uscis-tip-form
pkaye 6y ago
Years back I had a college friend who was hired on an OPT visa. When they wanted to convert his visa to H1B (I think) they kept getting suitable candidates so had to rewrite the requirements so its only suited to him. He confided this to me as he felt bad but really needed that job.
- weyland108 6y ago
  There is no “opt” visa it’s “optional Practical training”. It’s for a limited duration after he graduates also the rules are sketchy if he Would be let back into the country if wants to travel home to see family . If the employer wants to continue his employment he has no choice but to go on H1b. And then H1b has its own requirements and problems with it. Try to understand a lot of people “abusing” the system have not other legal recourse to keep their lives going.
  - pkaye 6y ago
    > Try to understand a lot of people “abusing” the system have not other legal recourse to keep their lives going. That is probably because other countries make it even harder for people to immigrate.
- addicted 6y ago
  Let’s rephrase this story a bit. A company hires someone out of college, trains them and has them working and integrating into the company for about a year and a half, but then the government, because of a literal lottery, requires them to randomly replace them with someone else. And you’re surprised a company that has spent all that money and resources on hiring someone and with the known hit or miss nature of hiring wouldn’t want to replace them with a random new candidate? Edit: And it gets better. They don’t need to replace the person if someone else accepts the job. They need to get rid of that employee who they are happy enough to be spending tens of thousands of dollars on that they wouldn’t need to on their citizen counterpart, even if their possible replacement didn’t accept the job. Merely if the possible replacement’s resume fit the minimum requirements of the job. That’s why companies rewrite the position to be hyper specific. Because if there is anyone else available eho can meet the bare minimum who applies for the job, even if they aren’t interested in it and will never accept an offer, they are required to get rid of their existing multi year employee who they are happy with.
- diebeforei485 6y ago
  The job description stuff doesn't have much to do with H-1B's - it has to do with green cards.

jgalt212 6y ago

Indeed, a friend offered to introduce me to a lawyer who would help me hire H-1Bs instead of similarly qualified residents. The gist was you have to figure out the unique qualities of the person you want to hire, and then construct interviews for the required X candidates such that these other candidates would not be as qualified across these trumped up unique qualifications / skills.

runawaybottle 6y ago
How much are companies expecting to save by going this route? Is it dramatic?
- fountainofage 6y ago
  There seems to be a mix. Which is part of the problem with the national debate / conversation. There are companies who found the absolute best in the world that they have to have. So they need that H1-B to get the job done and hire the best person. Then there are companies who just want to contract out super cheap labor, so they do thousands of H1-B applications hoping a few hundred make it through, then the they charge a local rate, but pay the employee a fraction and reap the profits.
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    So the second example I’m assuming is the operating model of companies like Accenture, Cognizant, etc. I’m flooding this thread a bit, but I’ve always been a little confused by the consultancy firms. Is there a clear difference between off shoring and H1B? Or is it mostly the same thing for these companies, with different margins for each.
    - blntechie 6y ago
      Truth be said the consultancy companies barely make any or in fact lose money with the H-1Bs and they make way more margin on offshoring. But customers want people near them for various reasons and the offshoring doesn’t generally work well without boots on the ground. So the H-1Bs are loss leaders with actual money being made in offshoring instead.

untog 6y ago

The answer here is to actually fix the system with compassion rather than suspend it and harm everyone using it. I'm not unbiased: I'm a former H1B visa holder and wasn't underpaid at all. I promise you we exist! It's not a fun situation to be in... if you have a pending green card application (up to a certain point in the process) you can't change jobs easily. And if you come from some countries (India, in particular) you have a wait of ten years or more before receiving your green card. It feels like a collision of a bunch of otherwise unrelated decisions that ultimately harms both immigrant and native workers and only benefits companies. It's all fixable, but like so many things in the US right now, not politically possible.

downvoteme1 6y ago
Not sure why you are downvoted . Can somebody who is downvoting this person, actually care to type what you found offensive or incorrect .
addicted 6y ago
If you’re from India the current expected wait to get your green card, no exaggeration, is closer to 50 years.

jusonchan81 6y ago

I guess this is indeed an issue. I’m a manager and I am trying to hire. 100% I’d rather find a person who can start in a couple of weeks than several months for a candidate who needs immigration. But there are rarely any local applicants and even when there are they don’t make in the interview. We pay in excess of 300k for all roles so it’s not like we are trying to find cheap talent.

hckr_news 6y ago
Maybe your recruiting to get interviewers into your pipeline and the interview process just isn't that good. Or perhaps nobody wants to work at your company. Bad management? Bad glassdoor reviews? Don't engage with the local tech scene?
- akhilcacharya 6y ago
  > We pay in excess of 300k for all roles If it's in excess of $300k for all roles it sounds like a Netflix type company or Netflix itself. I highly doubt nobody wants to work for that company.
  - weyland108 6y ago
    Did u miss the part where he said “they don’t make it in the interview “?. It’s not about handing out a job because there is one ...there is a interview process and quite a rigorous one when it comes to FAANG companies. They don’t go out seeking cheap labor.
dennis_jeeves 6y ago
> But there are rarely any local applicants and even when there are they don’t make in the interview What exactly does the work involve, if it is so difficult to either find candidates or give a candidate with some missing skills a few weeks to learn something new?
jen20 6y ago
Without more context it's hard to know what the problem is there, but I strongly doubt it's that there is "no" talent locally available to start within a couple of weeks, whether it's a US citizen or foreign national with an existing work visa. A small list of things that people may consider: - competitive salary. 300k is one thing in (for example) Kansas City, but completely another in the Bay Area or New York City where it's not uncommon for senior roles to deliver at least a third again, if not more. - the ethics of the company - does it engage in questionable behaviour? For example spying on users, building weapons, formenting unrest via algorithmic news feeds and so forth? - the fundamental health of the company from a financial and existential perspective. - does the company have a local reputation for being a poor place to work? For example, is it a bureaucracy where no-one can get anything done? Does it have a notoriously poor work-life balance, "face time" expectations, a culture where the loudest or most senior voice always prevails in decisions? What does Glassdoor (or levels.fyi) say about it? - are the technologies you're hiring for overly specific? Are your job ads a buzzword bingo of "nice to have" frameworks, libraries or practices? Do the ads make it clear that experience in them is not required, provided you can learn them quickly thanks to experience of concepts or adjacent technologies?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sixothree 6y ago

We have h1b employees at our company. If we were to lose them right now it would be a significant disruption. Personally, I can't take time out of my job to train employees - which in our case could easily take three months. I can't even imagine us finding and hiring some at this time. These guys are an absolute asset to the company.

RhysU 6y ago
Does your company not already grow skills over time? One should already be training (or coaching) individuals regardless of their present skill levels.
- TheCoelacanth 6y ago
  That's a very uncharitable reading of what they said. They presumably spent time training these people. They can't afford to train up a bunch of new people because someone decided that they need to be kicked out of the country for no good reason.
  - RhysU 6y ago
    I am saying that they should already have a "training time allocation" built into their role and that they could choose to use it for remedial skills. That is, individually having time for training should be a moot point. Now, if the business can survive in the meantime is a different matter. But the business has no choice in the matter. And the business is not alone in the matter. Which probably makes that a moot point too. I don't claim that it will be easy. "I can't train people" doesn't compel me as a broadly satisfactory counterargument for the above reasons. That sentiment itself is not charitable making it hard for me to read it charitably.
- sixothree 6y ago
  We grow skills. That's one reason they are so valuable. And we cross train. Everyone is able to take over for another employee at any time. But now is not the time. I just can't stomach losing our H1B members or any dev right now. We are in the health IT sector and you may not know this (because it surprises most everyone) but there is an absolute revolution happening in healthcare. We're approaching version 5 of FHIR. And I'd guess 99% of the devs on HN are like "what the heck is FHIR". It's a core standard for exchanging healthcare data. And it's literally the tip of an iceberg. And that's my personal dilemma as a lead developer. Speaking of skill growth, devs attended FHIR Dev Days last week, CCDA Implementation-athon a few weeks before that, and the FHIR Connectathon a week before that. None of us are in the office and since we have formed personal relationships over the last few years we know how to "get stuff done". AFAIK we treat every employee well enough they have few reasons to leave. Now is not the time for us to lose a dev. Any dev. I just ask the government to stop being jerks and let us ride out this covid year without too much more upset...