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Protip for salary seekers: H1-B filings are public

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Re: Protip for salary seekers: H1-B filings are public

#31

Post by JamesPeterson »

robryan wrote: post #28
timr wrote: post #5

Addendum for new grads interviewing at Microsoft: when you go to the welcome center on the morning of your interview, the H1-B filings for all recently hired foreign employees are posted near the candidate waiting area. These have salaries. These are especially helpful for answering that eternal first HR question about salary expectations. The best answer is to dodge the question entirely, but if you're not good at n…

Couldn't you pick a number over the top and have them bring you down? Or are the recruiters likely to not even consider you if you do that?

Employees who have unrealistic expectations from the start generally keep that same level of expectation, even across other topics; beginning with an unrealistic figure is not necessarily a good idea, as it may dissuade the HR rep. Alot of the time this is a first question too - first impressions count!

Nb - this may be different for engineering; I work in an unrelated field.

Re: Protip for salary seekers: H1-B filings are public

#32

Post by nutjob123 »

tzs wrote: post #23

For you Jedi out there, the headache you are feeling right now is thousands of copies of Excel 2008 on Macs crashing as people try to make pivot tables from this data. My 2009 Mac Pro with 8 GB of RAM was defeated by the 2010 file.

I haven't opened the file but this sounds strange. I've reached the excel cell number limit before crashing computers with much less than 8gb of ram. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/excel-specifica...

Re: Protip for salary seekers: H1-B filings are public

#33

Post by trustfundbaby »

ajg1977 wrote: post #24
aristus wrote: post #13

Anecdotally, I've found that there is a "visa discount". H1B workers are paid a lot less than you'd think by looking at these public numbers or the salaries paid to citizens. When you can't quit without being deported, you tend not to negotiate too hard or complain when you don't get a raise.

I've heard this many times but have yet to see it. An H1-B holder is free to leave their employer at anytime and move company, providing that new company agree to file the change with USCIS. This can be done an unlimited number of times and is straightforward because it's not a "new" visa. Many companies will not employ a foreign national without a visa, but will happily take ones with existing H1-B's. These transfer…

An H1-B holder is free to leave their employer at anytime and move company, providing that new company agree to file the change with USCIS

------------------------------

I think you oversimplify ... that company has to pay about $1.5 - 3k just to file for that transfer ... and you bet they factor it in in salary negotiations, sometimes in unfair ways. They also have to think about the fact that they have to do it again in 3 years, then theres fact that if they decide to invest in you for longer than 6 years they have to pay even more money to get you a green card.

A lot of companies (smaller firms, almost all startups) will not touch H1b's with a ten foot pole ... so when a h1b applicant gets a gig, they tend to not cause ripples unless they absolutely have to, and that includes being slightly underpaid.

Long story short ... its not easy.

Re: Protip for salary seekers: H1-B filings are public

#34

Post by timr »

tejaswiy wrote: post #21
timr wrote: post #5

Addendum for new grads interviewing at Microsoft: when you go to the welcome center on the morning of your interview, the H1-B filings for all recently hired foreign employees are posted near the candidate waiting area. These have salaries. These are especially helpful for answering that eternal first HR question about salary expectations. The best answer is to dodge the question entirely, but if you're not good at n…

Do you know what the middle of the posted range is, just out of curiosity? If I was interviewing at Microsoft, I don't think I'd want to go look at the salary postings before going in :S

The last time I saw the numbers (several years ago), they varied between ~$80k and ~$150k, depending on job title. I would imagine that they've gone up some since then.

Re: Protip for salary seekers: H1-B filings are public

#35

Post by timr »

robryan wrote: post #28
timr wrote: post #5

Addendum for new grads interviewing at Microsoft: when you go to the welcome center on the morning of your interview, the H1-B filings for all recently hired foreign employees are posted near the candidate waiting area. These have salaries. These are especially helpful for answering that eternal first HR question about salary expectations. The best answer is to dodge the question entirely, but if you're not good at n…

Couldn't you pick a number over the top and have them bring you down? Or are the recruiters likely to not even consider you if you do that?

Depends on the recruiter, but that can be true.

I based my remark on the knowledge that the range of H1B salaries covered everything from new grad to very senior positions. New grads are nearly all going to fall into the low end of the range at a company like MS, and there's no point in trying to negotiate into a higher pay grade until you've got experience.

Re: Protip for salary seekers: H1-B filings are public

#36

Post by trustfundbaby »

sp_ wrote: post #16
aristus wrote: post #13

Anecdotally, I've found that there is a "visa discount". H1B workers are paid a lot less than you'd think by looking at these public numbers or the salaries paid to citizens. When you can't quit without being deported, you tend not to negotiate too hard or complain when you don't get a raise.

This only applies if deportation is a threat to you. I am a H-1B employee and I have absolutely no problems going back to my home country in an instant. I don't know if that is the reason but my salary is definitely not discounted compared to my American co-workers.

But a lot of people from really screwed up places don't have that privilege ... there are many that would rather take a 3-$5k salary haircut than go back to their home country for any reason, because there is nothing but hard living there.

Re: Protip for salary seekers: H1-B filings are public

#37

Post by smokinn »

nutjob123 wrote: post #32
tzs wrote: post #23

For you Jedi out there, the headache you are feeling right now is thousands of copies of Excel 2008 on Macs crashing as people try to make pivot tables from this data. My 2009 Mac Pro with 8 GB of RAM was defeated by the 2010 file.

I haven't opened the file but this sounds strange. I've reached the excel cell number limit before crashing computers with much less than 8gb of ram. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/excel-specifica...

Creating a pivot table is very different from simply opening an excel file. Conceptually (it may be more optimized internally) it tries to create a cube of all possible results with all others. (An OLAP cube.)

So if you have columns 1, 2, 3, 4 and rows 1, 2, 3 it will create a cube for a combination of all dimensions.. So for all rows you will have all columns instantly queryable but also 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 2-3, 2-4, 3-4, 1-2-3, 1-2-4, 1-3-4, 2-3,4, 1-2-3-4 so that you can query any combination of rows/cells and instantly get your result.

As you can imagine this cube gets exponentially bigger as you add dimensions (columns) and will quickly kill excel if you load in too much stuff.

Re: Protip for salary seekers: H1-B filings are public

#38

Post by niallsmart »

aristus wrote: post #17
sp_ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only applies if deportation is a threat to you. I am a H-1B employee and I have absolutely no problems going back to my home country in an instant. I don't know if that is the reason but my salary is definitely not discounted compared to my American co-workers.

You're right. Negotiating from strength requires being willing and able to walk away.

Exactly - the issue is that "walking away" has a very literal interpretation in the context of losing visa sponsorship. You'll be "walking away" to the airport, and leaving behind an established life, your friends, colleagues and potentially even family members.

Re: Protip for salary seekers: H1-B filings are public

#40

Post by timcederman »

This is fascinating. Descending order by salary is interesting. A lot of obvious typos, but a few interesting nuggets:

WALT DISNEY PICTURES 500 SOUTH BUENA VISTA STREET BURBANK CA 91521-0153 Marketing Managers PRESIDENT, MARKETING 850000

VOLKSWAGEN GROUP OF AMERICA, INC. 2200 FERDINAND PORSCHE DRIVE HERNDON VA 20171 11-1011.00 Chief Executives CEO 564000

And the very large number of physicians in the $500k-$600k bracket. Due to insurance reasons?

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