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USCIS Reaches 2014 H-1B Cap

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Re: USCIS Reaches 2014 H-1B Cap

#61

Post by toomuchtodo »

jlarocco wrote: post #52
arenaninja wrote: post #32

I'm not an expert on the subject, but I distinctly remember Oracle's CEO complaining about H1B visas for our graduation speech. It was a stale speech, particularly when their company never even sent a Rep to our school's career fair. It took me months (7) to get a web dev position as a physics major, often because I was perceived as a weaker candidate. My git projects were never even looked at and I was once told to…

Your story doesn't back up the claims you're making. To be honest, I'm surprised you got any developer position at all with a physics major. If you wanted to do web development, why did you get a physics degree? It's like saying "I want to be a doctor" and then getting a law degree. College is training, and you trained to be an entry level physicist. There are plenty of recent CS grads looking for jobs, and their maj…

Our company is staffing up a full IT department right now. We don't even look at the education section.

Oh? You went to school for 4 years for CS? Good for you. Show me what you've built/what you've done. Anyone can get a degree; doers build.

Re: USCIS Reaches 2014 H-1B Cap

#62

Post by PeterisP »

product50 wrote: post #49
PeterisP wrote: post #14

A big complaint seen about H1B process is that it's used to import cheap workers instead of great workers - i.e., not increasing USA quality, but allowing employers to decrease average wages by replacing supposedly expensive locals with cheaper H1Bs. There can be a simple solution - instead of measuring requirements for "highly qualified workers" by forced advertisements where companies try to get no 'qualified' peop…

What about industries such as design, crafts or acting? They also hire H1Bs but cannot afford as high salaries as software engineering firms.

H1B is not designed to bring in affordable workers, but to bring in workers that USA doesn't have.

If you can only afford to pay $40.000, and no americans want to do that job at that price, then tough luck, you need to pay more to motivate people to train and learn the many years needed for your profession X; instead of bringing in workers at wages that demotivate americans to train for profession X, damaging the skilled labor supply for the future years.

Or you can hire a beginner with potential and train him yourself - that result would also further the goals of H1B program by getting more people with those qualifications.

But if you really, really need that unicorn-rarity specialist NOW, then you can pay for that; and $100k salaries (and much larger) are actually paid for top-rated designers, craftsmen, artists and actors.

Re: USCIS Reaches 2014 H-1B Cap

#63

Post by abc_lisper »

PeterisP wrote: post #14

A big complaint seen about H1B process is that it's used to import cheap workers instead of great workers - i.e., not increasing USA quality, but allowing employers to decrease average wages by replacing supposedly expensive locals with cheaper H1Bs. There can be a simple solution - instead of measuring requirements for "highly qualified workers" by forced advertisements where companies try to get no 'qualified' peop…

I like your suggestion, though there is a small problem with it. It is hard to find a 100k job if you just got out of the school.

Re: USCIS Reaches 2014 H-1B Cap

#64

Post by makmanalp »

abc_lisper wrote: post #63
PeterisP wrote: post #14

A big complaint seen about H1B process is that it's used to import cheap workers instead of great workers - i.e., not increasing USA quality, but allowing employers to decrease average wages by replacing supposedly expensive locals with cheaper H1Bs. There can be a simple solution - instead of measuring requirements for "highly qualified workers" by forced advertisements where companies try to get no 'qualified' peop…

I like your suggestion, though there is a small problem with it. It is hard to find a 100k job if you just got out of the school.

This. I'm almost at the 100k mark now (2 years later) but fresh out of college, I wasn't. I still get paid tons above the prevailing wage though. It's just that setting an arbitrary limit is kinda, well, arbitrary. It doesn't take into account any of the differences between jobs / industries. The US needs a lot of engineers in areas where salaries aren't overinflated.

I think setting a percentage could be slightly better. Say, 20% above prevailing wages. That has the effect you want.

Re: USCIS Reaches 2014 H-1B Cap

#65

Post by [deleted] »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #61
jlarocco wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your story doesn't back up the claims you're making. To be honest, I'm surprised you got any developer position at all with a physics major. If you wanted to do web development, why did you get a physics degree? It's like saying "I want to be a doctor" and then getting a law degree. College is training, and you trained to be an entry level physicist. There are plenty of recent CS grads looking for jobs, and their maj…

Our company is staffing up a full IT department right now. We don't even look at the education section. Oh? You went to school for 4 years for CS? Good for you. Show me what you've built/what you've done. Anyone can get a degree; doers build.

[deleted]

Re: USCIS Reaches 2014 H-1B Cap

#66

Post by pacaro »

axk wrote: post #59
joonix wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (but you do need to leave the country to apply; you can't adjust status while in the US). That's actually not true[1]. You can change status to an E-3 from within the US by filing Form I-129. [1] http://1.usa.gov/boasGi

Only if you don't intend to leave the country at all. Once you cross the border, even if it's a short weekend trip, you would have to apply for a new E-3 visa again.

This.

This can be a big deal. I changed from L1B to L1A to H1B (without leaving the country) then when I wanted to leave the country the legal advice that I received (IANAL - TIJAA[1]) was that to be safe I should return to my home country to get the new visa stamp, the Vancouver embassy might legitimately decide not to apply it - at which point I'd be stuck in Canada needing a plane ticket to the UK in a hurry and have the possibility of a multi-week wait for an appointment at the London embassy...

I waited on my green-card application to get to the point at which I could get an Advanced Parole[2] document and traveled on that instead, but this did mean: a) several years in which I couldn't travel outside the US; b) repeated lectures from border officials that the AP document was for "serious travel" only and that snowboarding trips to Whistler didn't count.

YMMV

[1] This Is Just An Anecdote [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_parole

Re: USCIS Reaches 2014 H-1B Cap

#67

Post by geebee »

arenaninja wrote: post #32

I'm not an expert on the subject, but I distinctly remember Oracle's CEO complaining about H1B visas for our graduation speech. It was a stale speech, particularly when their company never even sent a Rep to our school's career fair. It took me months (7) to get a web dev position as a physics major, often because I was perceived as a weaker candidate. My git projects were never even looked at and I was once told to…

Your story really reminds me of what it was like for me to get into the business as well. I was a math undergrad with an Industrial Engineering MS degree, and it took some work to get that first dev job. I'd done some coding for my classes, and I'd written a lot of personal projects. I was doing this back in 2000, when it was more unusual to have something like a github profile where you could share code. It was difficult to get potential employers to look at it.

I couldn't disagree more with jlarocco that this is like trying to be a physician with a law degree. But if you're going to go the untraditional path, it's on you to show that you can do the job. Fortunately, that's getting easier every year - and I get the feeling that the savvier employers are far more likely to look at things like personal projects - in fact, for many of them, that's the main thing they care about, not your degree (BTW, a physics degree is impressive, though they won't care nearly as much as they do about your programming projects).

Oracle... well, yeah, frustrating stuff. But not exactly a great sign about Oracle, either. I think you'll be pretty glad you didn't work for them.

Re: USCIS Reaches 2014 H-1B Cap

#68

Post by jlarocco »

arenaninja wrote: post #58
jlarocco wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your story doesn't back up the claims you're making. To be honest, I'm surprised you got any developer position at all with a physics major. If you wanted to do web development, why did you get a physics degree? It's like saying "I want to be a doctor" and then getting a law degree. College is training, and you trained to be an entry level physicist. There are plenty of recent CS grads looking for jobs, and their maj…

Except I'm not looking for sympathy. And your assertion that a CS degree prepares you for real life programming is almost laughable. Plenty of people work in areas that are only peripherally related to their majors without detriment to their trade. Your comparison of web dev to being a doctor tells me your understanding of the trade isn't all that clear.

If for no other reason, a CS degree is useful because it helps find entry level jobs which lead to actual experience. Without a CS degree, though, how can you really ascertain whether it's useful for "real life programming" or not? You've done okay without it, but you don't know how well you'd have done with one.

Second, I, and apparently several people you interviewed with, would claim physics isn't even peripherally related to web development. If you were writing simulation software or FEA software, I'd completely agree. But where's the connection to web development?

Finally, I was making an analogy, not comparing web development to being a doctor.

Re: USCIS Reaches 2014 H-1B Cap

#69

Post by oops »

axk wrote: post #59
joonix wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (but you do need to leave the country to apply; you can't adjust status while in the US). That's actually not true[1]. You can change status to an E-3 from within the US by filing Form I-129. [1] http://1.usa.gov/boasGi

Only if you don't intend to leave the country at all. Once you cross the border, even if it's a short weekend trip, you would have to apply for a new E-3 visa again.

For short trips of 30 days or less, to Canada, Mexico or adjacent islands excluding Cuba, it seems you can re-enter on your expired visa and your new I-94, once your extension of stay has been approved. 22CFR41.112(d)[1]. If it were me I would get a new visa though.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title22-vol1/xml/CFR-2...

Re: USCIS Reaches 2014 H-1B Cap

#70

Post by jlarocco »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #61
jlarocco wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your story doesn't back up the claims you're making. To be honest, I'm surprised you got any developer position at all with a physics major. If you wanted to do web development, why did you get a physics degree? It's like saying "I want to be a doctor" and then getting a law degree. College is training, and you trained to be an entry level physicist. There are plenty of recent CS grads looking for jobs, and their maj…

Our company is staffing up a full IT department right now. We don't even look at the education section. Oh? You went to school for 4 years for CS? Good for you. Show me what you've built/what you've done. Anyone can get a degree; doers build.

I'm not saying there aren't companies who do that. But you must realize your company is an exception, right? The majority of companies use a CS degree to filter candidates.

The OP made things more difficult for himself, so it makes little sense to complain about how difficult of a time he had. He could have made it 10x easier by switching majors to CS.

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