The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

"There is a different kind of shortage, but the American people won't like to admit it.

"What there is is a shortage of ultra-elite American-born talent, and Silicon Valley wants to hire the very best in the world. The view from Silicon Valley is that a lot of the US talent, while bountiful in number, just doesn't stack up."

That is the nub of the issue. Several of the leading companies in high-tech industry believe that "hire the best" is the most successful way to compete with other companies, and that requires hiring from a worldwide pool of job applicants. An immigration lawyer might point out that the "outstanding ability" O-1 temporary worker visa category

http://minsk.usembassy.gov/temporary_workers.html

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind10/c3/c3s5.htm

allows people who are truly world-class experts to enter the United States to work. (If I remember correctly, that is how Fields medalist Terence Tao was able to gain his faculty position at UCLA as a citizen of Australia, although his visa status may have changed meanwhile.) But, yes, demonstrating that a person meets the O-1 visa requirements is difficult for an employer, and even at that only allows temporary residence (not a "green card").

That American graduates of STEM programs vary wildly in quality of preparation for demanding work is why any smart company will hire workers on the basis of work-sample tests rather than on the basis of college degree requirements.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543

Until companies in general emphasize actual job task performance rather than school credentials in hiring, visa regulation reform won't do the whole job of helping companies meet their hiring needs.

Can you explain this a little bit? Not trying to sound combative, just would like to hear your thoughts!

But I'm not so sure we Americans should be "offended" by this. This article says:

> The view from Silicon Valley is that a lot of the US talent, while bountiful in number, just doesn't stack up. But Silicon Valley doesn't want to just come out and say this, since it will sound offensive to a lot of American-born grads.

I mean, of course, only 5% of American engineers are going to be in the top 5% of American engineers, for example. It's not a national failure. It's not offensive. That's the entire conversation about "A" engineers. Any country needs to look outside its borders for additional top engineers.

Then, the article goes on to paraphrase Silicon Valley:

> "Hey America, please raise the visa limit. There's a shortage of STEM talent that is willing to work for what we'll pay that also meets our high standards.

I'm not really convinced that pay has anything to do with it. The general problem really seems to genuinely be finding engineers that are good enough, just in the recruitment process period -- at least in many cases.

The article tries to use statistics to show that some STEM majors go on to other fields. But saying that 18.7% of CS majors aren't working in their field because of pay/promotion/working conditions doesn't strike me as unreasonable at all. I mean, maybe they're the "C" engineers or something, and they decided they're better at something else. Or they just enjoy something else more. The article certainly isn't proving that they're the "A" engineers everybody wants, and that they've gone on to brain surgery instead because that's more lucrative and has better working conditions.