10 ms·

Old news. This has been going on for decades. If you even look badly on youtube you will find corporate videos from "HR Consultants" teaching companies how to

Old news. This has been going on for decades. If you even look badly on youtube you will find corporate videos from "HR Consultants" teaching companies how to bury job listings so noone will be likely to find them. Your country sold you down the river 30 years ago.

buckle8017 1y ago
The thing this article didn't mention and the author likely doesn't know is that there's a guide going around instructing people on how to apply for H1B jobs on forums like 4chan.
- exhilaration 1y ago
  I've got out of work friends that would love to see this guide. Please share.
  - PyWoody 1y ago
    Job Listing Site Highlighting H-1B Positions So Americans Can Apply - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892321 - August 2025 (108 comments) https://jobs.now https://jobs.now
  - kccqzy 1y ago
    This is unlikely to be of use to your friends. Companies hide these job openings because they aren't real: they are filled by a real person right now. If someone applies, they won't be hired because there's no extra headcount. They will just be rejected after a resume review. Companies usually don't even extend interviews to such candidates. Applying only delays the green card process of a foreigner since they will need to rewrite a job description to be even more tailored to that already employed person.
    - lazide 1y ago
      So…. Locals shouldn’t delay or poison the process for a foreigner that would take ‘their’ role, while bored on unemployment - why exactly?
      - lazyasciiart 1y ago
        Locals who are trying to get jobs for themselves shouldn't be told that they can get a job through this process.
        lazide 1y ago
        So you’re admitting that applying for jobs they should be able to get, in a place they should be able to apply in, under federal law is not going to work? Sounds like fraud to me. Or a crime of some sort. If they do it, and it clearly doesn’t work, it even sounds like something they could take to court. In fact, something that is perhaps their duty to take to court.
        bubblethink 1y ago
        You're reading too much into it. It's a case of bad UX. The jobs do not exist. The actual job application/interview etc. happened years ago, when it did exist, and everyone, including locals, had the same shot at it. When the job existed, someone was hired for it, and it happened to be someone on a visa. In order to keep that person employed in this job and get them a green card, the government requires that the job be advertised again afresh. It's a non-sensical requirement that was added because some politican or lobbyist asked for it. The natural way to add protectionism to this model would have been to add it at the outset, but that clearly wouldn't work for the economy. So a compromise was engineered. Companies can hire anyone generally as long as they are, in principle, temporary. When it comes to keeping them permanently, the government requires that they do this charade of posting ads again and doing a market test etc.
        lazide 1y ago
        That is not a UX issue, that is blatant immigration fraud my man. The reason they are required to readvertise is because the visa they are on is for jobs that cannot be filled by a local, so if the job can actually be filled by a local, that person should lose the visa and have to leave (or find another job that supports them being here). That isn’t a technicality, except the prior admins allowed it to be. Does that suck for the person on the visa? Yeah. But guess what, it also sucks for the unemployed locals. So either the gov’t actively throws locals under the bus, or follows the rules. When everything is going up and to the right, or no one can see why they’re struggling, it’s easy to gloss over these ‘small details’. But they’re not so small in reality, eh?
  - buckle8017 1y ago
    Unfortunately they will not hire Americans even if they're qualified because what they really want are slaves. With H1B fired means deported. The people following the guide are just making it impossible to review all of the applications.
- mirrorsaurus 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - tomhow 1y ago
    You can't comment like this on Hacker News. Please avoid flamebait and slurs against groups of people. The guidelines make it clear we expect much better than this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- y-curious 1y ago
  So what if it comes from 4chan? I think it's a good thing for citizens to try and get jobs that should be going to them, no matter the source
  - buckle8017 1y ago
    Wasn't saying it's bad.
alephnerd 1y ago
[flagged]
- cowsandmilk 1y ago
  The immigration raid and what was happening at these plants is 100% different…not sure how you can even pretend they are the same. The system they are discussing is one where you’ve already been in the US legally for 6 years.
- tomhow 1y ago
  Please don't post in an inflammatory style or make swipes at the HN community. We don't know what "a large portion of HNers" think about any topic. Controversial topics bring out the people who feel the strongest about that topic, but the people commenting are only a tiny share of the whole community. Your point about the different reactions people have to different kinds of immigration controversies is valid, but topics like this need to be discussed with sensitivity. Please take care to observe the guidelines when commenting here, especially these ones: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    I understand, but why is similar moderation not extended when "H1Bs" come up on HN? To be brutally honesty, why is it acceptable to bash H1B abuse but not B1/2 or VWP abuse on HN. In both cases, it is employers mislabeling and potentially breaking immigration and labor laws, yet it is acceptable to talk derogatorily about those on H1Bs and not on other visas, even though rates of visa misuse are consistent across most large nationalities. I am of South Asian origin, but I have lived in North America for almost my entire life (aside from 6 months in the old country), but the persistent utilization of "H1B" as a code word for South Asian (primarily Indian) origin tech employees is tiring. I understand that a lot of ICs are dealing with a significant amount of stress due to the downturn in the tech industry, but there is a nativist current on HN that is starting to morph into anti-South Asian sentiment. This style of thread comes up almost daily on HN, and is something I have previously brought up to @Dang as well. It is tiring and demeaning to those of us who are immigrants or the children of immigrants - a number of us who make up a major portion of the tech industry, and have leadership positions in YC as well. South Asian Americans make up around 2-3% of the US, but almost every post on HN about the job market turns into "H1B"-bashing, which often devolves into bashing people on the visa instead of the companies themselves. Almost never do I see conversations extending sympathy to those on work visas and also stuck with abusive employers - only nativist bashing that "they took our jobs". I hope you can moderate these kinds of conversations or update the engagement rules of HN, because HN and the tech industry of 2025 is not HN or the tech industry of 2008. It is legitimately demoralizing. I worked on the Hill for several years, have advised administrations on how to bring back manufacturing and "American dynamism" (to use the A16Z term), and have built, launched, and funded software products and companies that are used by backbone infra in the US, and even advised a number of YC startups that have exited. I have done my part for the country, yet to a large portion of HN and the tech industry I and other South Asian Americans will continue to be termed as "H1Bs" until they hear our accent, or if we can pass as some other race or ethnicity. I would love to have a good faith discussion with you about this, because I do heavily leverage HN and have found it to be a great resource to find technical discussions and have my portfolio companies show share their features, so the toxicity around H1B and work visas in the tech industry is heavily demoralizing.
epolanski 1y ago
> Your country sold you down the river 30 years ago. Jm2c but I think the harsh truth is that US while having a decently sized population of good software engineers, it is still nowhere near the required amount. Thus, many companies would rather give 150/200k to someone who's actually good at it and will be impressed by that money rather than some half assed US graduate who only went into SE because he wanted a cushy well paying job.
- chickenzzzzu 1y ago
  How about we stop centralizing tech talent around 7 big companies that hire H1Bs, and instead let all companies engage in international (and domestic) exchanges of labor and services? Aka, all software engineers now self organize into small groups funded by independent contracts from larger companies. This solves many, many problems, including where should laborers live, fairness in interviews, etc.
- pempem 1y ago
  We could also give them a clear, short path to citizenship if we didn't have enough. Instead we do our best to keep it as chaotic as possible so that those SWE we need can't push for 175/225k
  - 486sx33 1y ago
    [dead]
  - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
    > We could also give them a clear, short path to citizenship if we didn't have enough. The USA currently potentially hasn't enough programmers. If the market tide changes, one of course wants to be able to send these superfluous work migrants back to their home countries.
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago
  How dare that loser want a cushy, well paying job. This is America, that's not allowed for them. We like our workers desperate.
cj 1y ago
For those curious, a common method is to publish the job listing in the newspaper classifieds. This is what my old employer did to sponsor the visa for the company’s CTO. Newspapers are used for a surprising number of various public announcements. E.g. in New York you must publish a notice in a newspaper for 6 weeks (or something like that) when establishing a LLC. There’s something to be said for reading the paper even in 2025! Although I suppose the notices are probably also online..
- LadyCailin 1y ago
  A newspaper of record is in theory something you are “supposed” to continually read, but it’s kind of like saying you’re “supposed” to know all the laws of the land. While probably true, no one actually can or would do that.
- lazide 1y ago
  Usually it’s a newspaper in the middle of nowhere too, in fine print, in the classifieds.
- _heimdall 1y ago
  I've also seen this done when the hiring manager, or someone else in the process, already has a candidate to hire and needs to post the job listing for legal cover.
- jakub_g 1y ago
  In Poland a while ago, a basketball club submitted an opening to local labor office, looking for "basketball player with 5 years of NBA experience". Update: source: https://radioszczecin-pl.translate.goog/1,116784,koszykarze-pilnie-poszukiwani-wilki-zamiescily-o?_x_tr_sl=pl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://radioszczecin-pl.translate.goog/1,116784,koszykarze-...
  - jupblb 1y ago
    Please share a link to source
veunes 1y ago
The frustrating part is that this isn't some loophole getting accidentally exploited, it's baked into the system
jakub_g 1y ago
Semi-related: reminds me of reports that public tenders in Russia had to be submitted into a central portal according to law, but to prevent anyone from finding them, various Unicode tricks would be applied to the document to replace characters and prevent effective searching.

buckle8017 1y ago

The thing this article didn't mention and the author likely doesn't know is that there's a guide going around instructing people on how to apply for H1B jobs on forums like 4chan.

exhilaration 1y ago
I've got out of work friends that would love to see this guide. Please share.
- PyWoody 1y ago
  Job Listing Site Highlighting H-1B Positions So Americans Can Apply - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892321 - August 2025 (108 comments) https://jobs.now https://jobs.now
- kccqzy 1y ago
  This is unlikely to be of use to your friends. Companies hide these job openings because they aren't real: they are filled by a real person right now. If someone applies, they won't be hired because there's no extra headcount. They will just be rejected after a resume review. Companies usually don't even extend interviews to such candidates. Applying only delays the green card process of a foreigner since they will need to rewrite a job description to be even more tailored to that already employed person.
  - lazide 1y ago
    So…. Locals shouldn’t delay or poison the process for a foreigner that would take ‘their’ role, while bored on unemployment - why exactly?
    - lazyasciiart 1y ago
      Locals who are trying to get jobs for themselves shouldn't be told that they can get a job through this process.
      - lazide 1y ago
        So you’re admitting that applying for jobs they should be able to get, in a place they should be able to apply in, under federal law is not going to work? Sounds like fraud to me. Or a crime of some sort. If they do it, and it clearly doesn’t work, it even sounds like something they could take to court. In fact, something that is perhaps their duty to take to court.
        bubblethink 1y ago
        You're reading too much into it. It's a case of bad UX. The jobs do not exist. The actual job application/interview etc. happened years ago, when it did exist, and everyone, including locals, had the same shot at it. When the job existed, someone was hired for it, and it happened to be someone on a visa. In order to keep that person employed in this job and get them a green card, the government requires that the job be advertised again afresh. It's a non-sensical requirement that was added because some politican or lobbyist asked for it. The natural way to add protectionism to this model would have been to add it at the outset, but that clearly wouldn't work for the economy. So a compromise was engineered. Companies can hire anyone generally as long as they are, in principle, temporary. When it comes to keeping them permanently, the government requires that they do this charade of posting ads again and doing a market test etc.
        lazide 1y ago
        That is not a UX issue, that is blatant immigration fraud my man. The reason they are required to readvertise is because the visa they are on is for jobs that cannot be filled by a local, so if the job can actually be filled by a local, that person should lose the visa and have to leave (or find another job that supports them being here). That isn’t a technicality, except the prior admins allowed it to be. Does that suck for the person on the visa? Yeah. But guess what, it also sucks for the unemployed locals. So either the gov’t actively throws locals under the bus, or follows the rules. When everything is going up and to the right, or no one can see why they’re struggling, it’s easy to gloss over these ‘small details’. But they’re not so small in reality, eh?
- buckle8017 1y ago
  Unfortunately they will not hire Americans even if they're qualified because what they really want are slaves. With H1B fired means deported. The people following the guide are just making it impossible to review all of the applications.
mirrorsaurus 1y ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 1y ago
  You can't comment like this on Hacker News. Please avoid flamebait and slurs against groups of people. The guidelines make it clear we expect much better than this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
y-curious 1y ago
So what if it comes from 4chan? I think it's a good thing for citizens to try and get jobs that should be going to them, no matter the source
- buckle8017 1y ago
  Wasn't saying it's bad.

alephnerd 1y ago

[flagged]

cowsandmilk 1y ago
The immigration raid and what was happening at these plants is 100% different…not sure how you can even pretend they are the same. The system they are discussing is one where you’ve already been in the US legally for 6 years.
tomhow 1y ago
Please don't post in an inflammatory style or make swipes at the HN community. We don't know what "a large portion of HNers" think about any topic. Controversial topics bring out the people who feel the strongest about that topic, but the people commenting are only a tiny share of the whole community. Your point about the different reactions people have to different kinds of immigration controversies is valid, but topics like this need to be discussed with sensitivity. Please take care to observe the guidelines when commenting here, especially these ones: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- alephnerd 1y ago
  I understand, but why is similar moderation not extended when "H1Bs" come up on HN? To be brutally honesty, why is it acceptable to bash H1B abuse but not B1/2 or VWP abuse on HN. In both cases, it is employers mislabeling and potentially breaking immigration and labor laws, yet it is acceptable to talk derogatorily about those on H1Bs and not on other visas, even though rates of visa misuse are consistent across most large nationalities. I am of South Asian origin, but I have lived in North America for almost my entire life (aside from 6 months in the old country), but the persistent utilization of "H1B" as a code word for South Asian (primarily Indian) origin tech employees is tiring. I understand that a lot of ICs are dealing with a significant amount of stress due to the downturn in the tech industry, but there is a nativist current on HN that is starting to morph into anti-South Asian sentiment. This style of thread comes up almost daily on HN, and is something I have previously brought up to @Dang as well. It is tiring and demeaning to those of us who are immigrants or the children of immigrants - a number of us who make up a major portion of the tech industry, and have leadership positions in YC as well. South Asian Americans make up around 2-3% of the US, but almost every post on HN about the job market turns into "H1B"-bashing, which often devolves into bashing people on the visa instead of the companies themselves. Almost never do I see conversations extending sympathy to those on work visas and also stuck with abusive employers - only nativist bashing that "they took our jobs". I hope you can moderate these kinds of conversations or update the engagement rules of HN, because HN and the tech industry of 2025 is not HN or the tech industry of 2008. It is legitimately demoralizing. I worked on the Hill for several years, have advised administrations on how to bring back manufacturing and "American dynamism" (to use the A16Z term), and have built, launched, and funded software products and companies that are used by backbone infra in the US, and even advised a number of YC startups that have exited. I have done my part for the country, yet to a large portion of HN and the tech industry I and other South Asian Americans will continue to be termed as "H1Bs" until they hear our accent, or if we can pass as some other race or ethnicity. I would love to have a good faith discussion with you about this, because I do heavily leverage HN and have found it to be a great resource to find technical discussions and have my portfolio companies show share their features, so the toxicity around H1B and work visas in the tech industry is heavily demoralizing.

epolanski 1y ago

> Your country sold you down the river 30 years ago. Jm2c but I think the harsh truth is that US while having a decently sized population of good software engineers, it is still nowhere near the required amount. Thus, many companies would rather give 150/200k to someone who's actually good at it and will be impressed by that money rather than some half assed US graduate who only went into SE because he wanted a cushy well paying job.

chickenzzzzu 1y ago
How about we stop centralizing tech talent around 7 big companies that hire H1Bs, and instead let all companies engage in international (and domestic) exchanges of labor and services? Aka, all software engineers now self organize into small groups funded by independent contracts from larger companies. This solves many, many problems, including where should laborers live, fairness in interviews, etc.
pempem 1y ago
We could also give them a clear, short path to citizenship if we didn't have enough. Instead we do our best to keep it as chaotic as possible so that those SWE we need can't push for 175/225k
- 486sx33 1y ago
  [dead]
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago
  > We could also give them a clear, short path to citizenship if we didn't have enough. The USA currently potentially hasn't enough programmers. If the market tide changes, one of course wants to be able to send these superfluous work migrants back to their home countries.
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
How dare that loser want a cushy, well paying job. This is America, that's not allowed for them. We like our workers desperate.

cj 1y ago

For those curious, a common method is to publish the job listing in the newspaper classifieds. This is what my old employer did to sponsor the visa for the company’s CTO. Newspapers are used for a surprising number of various public announcements. E.g. in New York you must publish a notice in a newspaper for 6 weeks (or something like that) when establishing a LLC. There’s something to be said for reading the paper even in 2025! Although I suppose the notices are probably also online..

LadyCailin 1y ago
A newspaper of record is in theory something you are “supposed” to continually read, but it’s kind of like saying you’re “supposed” to know all the laws of the land. While probably true, no one actually can or would do that.
lazide 1y ago
Usually it’s a newspaper in the middle of nowhere too, in fine print, in the classifieds.
_heimdall 1y ago
I've also seen this done when the hiring manager, or someone else in the process, already has a candidate to hire and needs to post the job listing for legal cover.
jakub_g 1y ago
In Poland a while ago, a basketball club submitted an opening to local labor office, looking for "basketball player with 5 years of NBA experience". Update: source: https://radioszczecin-pl.translate.goog/1,116784,koszykarze-pilnie-poszukiwani-wilki-zamiescily-o?_x_tr_sl=pl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://radioszczecin-pl.translate.goog/1,116784,koszykarze-...
- jupblb 1y ago
  Please share a link to source

veunes 1y ago

The frustrating part is that this isn't some loophole getting accidentally exploited, it's baked into the system

jakub_g 1y ago

Semi-related: reminds me of reports that public tenders in Russia had to be submitted into a central portal according to law, but to prevent anyone from finding them, various Unicode tricks would be applied to the document to replace characters and prevent effective searching.