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Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#191

Post by underlipton »

morpheuskafka wrote: post #93
shmatt wrote: post #14

I have to put out a ghost job req and interview every person applying within reason for every green card a direct report is applying for. I have to show there are or aren’t any residents or citizens that can fill the job The main problem is: even if the interviewee knocks it out of the park, is an amazing engineer, I still am not interested in firing my OPT/h1b team member who can still legally work for 2-3 years. So…

An understandable situation. But by admitting this, your company is admitting liability for citizenship discrimination (8 U.S.C. § 1324b). Even though you are not submitting a PERM and running into potential issues with fraud there, the underlying act of rejecting US citizen/LPR applicants is the same, so I don't see how this would be any different than, for example, the Apple case last year ( https://www.justice.gov…

Is there someone who we could report this comment to? Get an investigation opened.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#192

Post by returningfory2 »

riazrizvi wrote: post #179
ndiddy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad our government has introduced the H1B program to help out employers like you who are dealing with a shortage of tech workers (who will work for 2/3 market and will do anything you say because if they get fired they'll be deported).

In 2023 there were 755,020 H1-B admittances. Why was it much easier to get a job in 2021? Because there were only 148,603 [1]. Notice that even though Republicans talked about immigration, neither party is talking about reducing H1-B filled roles. The kicker is if you’ve had a gap doing your own thing or because you were laid off and you apply for a job at a discount salary, you’re still not competitive against an H1…

These numbers probably don't mean what you think they mean. Certainly, the number of H-1B holders in 2021 and 2023 is about the same.

An "admittance" is someone with a H-1B visa appearing a port of entry like an airport to enter the US. If a single H-1B holder goes on (say) 3 international trips in 1 year, that will count as 3 "admittances" in that year.

The reason why the number is so low in 2021 is that the US government had a COVID non-immigrant travel ban. People with H-1B visas couldn't re-enter the US from many countries e.g. most countries in Europe. Many people in H-1B status (like myself) simply didn't take international trips that year.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#193

Post by slackfan »

shmatt wrote: post #14

I have to put out a ghost job req and interview every person applying within reason for every green card a direct report is applying for. I have to show there are or aren’t any residents or citizens that can fill the job The main problem is: even if the interviewee knocks it out of the park, is an amazing engineer, I still am not interested in firing my OPT/h1b team member who can still legally work for 2-3 years. So…

Willingly admitting to fraud is a strong move.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#194

Post by avgDev »

giantg2 wrote: post #166

What's really weird is supposedly the market is on a bull run, the economy is doing great, and technical talent is in demand, yet the tech job market is absolute shit. I'm thinking I might get laid off or fired next year and my top option is probably working some $50k/yr help desk position after about 13 yoe, a masters, certs, etc. Those seem to be the only legitimate tech ads in my area. Of course for $25/hr I could…

If you are a software dev, have a masters, have DB knowledge and can write scripts, you should look into non-tech companies.

I am a fullstack dev, and can solo support and write software for a mid size company. We plan on getting a junior or another dev soon. We will definitely be paying a junior minimum $60k+ and expect nothing but learning first year. We are in a MCOL area, so this is about average. WLB is good. No on-call.

I would hire someone with more experience, and even with FAANG experience but I would be worried they would leave a job that only pays $100k in the next FAANG hiring cycle.

Maybe we need a job board for devs who are trying to get out of the tech space and work for nontech, trading top salaries for flexibility and relaxed work environment.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#195

Post by [deleted] »

shmatt wrote: post #14

I have to put out a ghost job req and interview every person applying within reason for every green card a direct report is applying for. I have to show there are or aren’t any residents or citizens that can fill the job The main problem is: even if the interviewee knocks it out of the park, is an amazing engineer, I still am not interested in firing my OPT/h1b team member who can still legally work for 2-3 years. So…

[deleted]

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#196

Post by fjni »

morpheuskafka wrote: post #140
fjni wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP already hired H-1B in the past and that person is working for them now. OP is now in the process of doing a green card application for said employee. They can't move forward with the GC application because there are other qualified citizens/residents, but they don't have to fire the existing H1B employee. That's how I understand OP, if that's legally true or not, I don't know.

You're correct that they are under no obligation to fire the employee on the H-1B. (In theory, they are applying for a "new" job, and them not getting it for whatever the reason isn't an issue for their current job and status.) However, what OP is missing is that rejecting the US citizen application based on their citizenship is still likely a prohibited discrimination case regardless of what they do with the existin…

Interesting. So practically, they would have to hire the new applicant and then let go of the h1b worker because presumably they don’t have the budget for it?!

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#197

Post by sotix »

Ghost jobs are certainly problematic, but I’ve been getting actual interviews where the technical bar feels too high. There’s extraordinarily little trust in previous job experience and interviews assess for test taking anxiety rather than actual skill[0].

[0]: https://news.ncsu.edu/2020/07/tech-job-interviews-anxiety/

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#198

Post by zeroonetwothree »

indeed30 wrote: post #125

Hang on a minute. There is absolutely nothing in this research that measures the accuracy of this approach. A user saying "I was ghosted" is not, to my mind, proof of anything. Job seekers almost never actually know if the job was real or not, so it's hard to see how Glassdoor reviews can ever provide the insight this work is looking for. I do believe that "ghost" jobs exist, often for H1B purposes, but I don't think…

Right! Everyone in this thread is discussing it as if it’s a proven fact when the approach is extremely sketchy. Based on this I would say 20% is a generous upper bound at most.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#200

Post by giobox »

cj wrote: post #66
indoordin0saur wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, this isn't clear to me. Are the interviewees citizens? So you're interviewing citizens to prove that there aren't any who can fill your jobs but even when they clearly could fill the job you don't hire them? Seems like the requirement of proving "there are or aren’t any residents or citizens that can fill the job" is going to be near impossible for the government to enforce

At the last startup I worked at, our CTO was on a visa. To satisfy the "no one in the US can fill the CTO role", they took out an advertisement in a San Francisco newspaper classifieds so they had evidence that they attempted to find a US citizen / permanent resident CTO. Obviously there were no applicants.

This used to be fairly common for H1B roles of any level - I don't find it surprising almost no one wants to fire a colleague ultimately, so doing whatever you could to reduce the number of applicants while still paying lip service to the rules is the logical outcome, rightly or wrongly.

For what its worth, towards end of 2010s USCIS were starting to clamp down on this and were being a lot stricter about the job being advertised appropriately for the role (you submit evidence of the advertisement during the PERM process).

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