3 ms·

For what it's worth, thought I'd drop a bit of my story here since April. I interviewed at Dropbox, ebay, Netflix and others after losing my job. American, FWIW

by jdawg77 12y ago

For what it's worth, thought I'd drop a bit of my story here since April. I interviewed at Dropbox, ebay, Netflix and others after losing my job. American, FWIW, with a California birth certificate and everything if it matters. Did I get a job offer? Not a single one. More than a dozen interviews, zero offers but I can find consulting offers (with far, far lower hourly wage than in 2006-2009 last time I did consulting). I have friends who have been unable to find work also, with skills, experience and blue chip, so to speak, resumes. Somehow saying we need more skilled workers when folks in Silicon Valley with a decade of experience who have worked for, and been given awards by, the biggest names in tech only means that employers want it cheaper. A friend on an H1B who lost their job? Gainfully employed in less than a month after losing theirs, then again, they have to be seriously motivated else they get shipped away. Until the new immigration policy gets passed where we export jobless Californians to Oregon, my only option was to rebuild a consulting business. Funniest thing is, now that I'm an "Agency," again, I've had a list of people wanting me to hire them. So it certainly feels like there is a lot more unemployment out there than what I read in the media, at least with my experience...of course, YMMV.

pm90 12y ago
I'm sorry, I don't think your not being offered a job has anything to do with your nationality. You might not be what they are looking for, plain and simple. I wondered since you have 10 years of experience and are probably interviewing for a senior position, maybe these were being filled with H1B workers? From anecdotal evidence, that does not seem to be the case. Every company I've worked for has had ~90% senior devs Americans. Management has been even more so. I might be wrong here, but I thought H1B labor was overwhelmingly being used to fill lower paid, entry level or short-project kinda work and not being used to replace full time employment. Again, from anecdotal evidence, most companies I've worked with have always tried to hire domestically. And many of the jobs I've applied to, the recruiter outright told me that they wouldn't even consider noncitizens/non-gc holders.
- jdawg77 12y ago
  I could be a full blown (insert explitive here) but I won't mention the name of the company that they got hired at. Ironically, I also interviewed at same company, though six months prior when I had a full time job. Immigration is a tricky, tricky issue. When living overseas, the ambassador from another country dropped a proverbial bombshell about the human trafficking in the country where I lived. To whit, when living in Costa Rica myself, I only found out on exit from the country my former employer never got me a work permit - eg, I was working there illegally. I'd love to say yes, no fault of my own, but I should have investigated the situation myself. Lesson learned. So having worked in labor myself a bit (helping people get jobs) and been on multiple sides of various business disputes in various countries...well, the situation in US employment in Silicon Valley is quite puzzling.

by jdawg77 12y ago

pm90 12y ago

I'm sorry, I don't think your not being offered a job has anything to do with your nationality. You might not be what they are looking for, plain and simple. I wondered since you have 10 years of experience and are probably interviewing for a senior position, maybe these were being filled with H1B workers? From anecdotal evidence, that does not seem to be the case. Every company I've worked for has had ~90% senior devs Americans. Management has been even more so. I might be wrong here, but I thought H1B labor was overwhelmingly being used to fill lower paid, entry level or short-project kinda work and not being used to replace full time employment. Again, from anecdotal evidence, most companies I've worked with have always tried to hire domestically. And many of the jobs I've applied to, the recruiter outright told me that they wouldn't even consider noncitizens/non-gc holders.

jdawg77 12y ago
I could be a full blown (insert explitive here) but I won't mention the name of the company that they got hired at. Ironically, I also interviewed at same company, though six months prior when I had a full time job. Immigration is a tricky, tricky issue. When living overseas, the ambassador from another country dropped a proverbial bombshell about the human trafficking in the country where I lived. To whit, when living in Costa Rica myself, I only found out on exit from the country my former employer never got me a work permit - eg, I was working there illegally. I'd love to say yes, no fault of my own, but I should have investigated the situation myself. Lesson learned. So having worked in labor myself a bit (helping people get jobs) and been on multiple sides of various business disputes in various countries...well, the situation in US employment in Silicon Valley is quite puzzling.