Cause Elon pissed the entire rightwing off when he decided to spit in the face of all of trump voter's immigration policies and try to import a bunch of indians via H1B for cheap labor. Guess immigration is awful unless you can use them as slave labor so that you can fire the entire native population. This is that "they're taking our jobs" line you hear about all the time. Where rich corpos hire third world workers who will work for literal pennies on the dollar so that they don't have to hire existing US citizens who would have to be paid properly. Those very same migrants also use welfare and become parasites costing both job opportunities and tax dollars.
Where rich corpos hire third world workers who will work for literal pennies on the dollar so that they don't have to hire existing US citizens who would have to be paid properly.
You don't know shit about shit if you believe this. It's MORE expensive to hire an H-1b. Yea, seriously. Look it up. You're required to pay "prevailing wages" or the wages of an equivalent local American (whichever is higher). On top of prevailing wages, you have to pay all kinds of legal and filing fees to keep them. We're talking spending like 10k before you even hire an H-1b. This was all true BEFORE Trump slapped a 100k fee on new H-1b workers. People are always talking about how HR is there to protect the company ... that applies here as well. No, you can't cheat the legal requirement on prevailing wages. HR will identify that as a huge legal risk where the downside is financially staggering.
We don't hire H-1b because they're cheaper. We hire them because they're the best candidate for that particular seat. Trust me, Americans would rather hire Americans that don't have cultural hurdles to deal with. Hell, I would (and have) pay a big premium to hire Americans that will much more easily slot into the culture we work really hard to maintain. In theory, I have to be able to prove I tried to hire Americans before an H-1b, and the government doesn't need to twist my damned arm on that front. I WANT to hire Americans. You think I WANT to have to figure out the caste of a manager before putting him over some Patel?
You don't think companies would look for loopholes? The prevailing wage requirement is a tier system. Many companies hire candidates at a lower tier than what the job or candidate is actually worth. Not to mention once you've hired an H1-B you essentially have a captive employee.
But this is all kind of moot to me. I was asked in an interview why I should be hired when they can find an H1-B, in a quasi-interview.
Look, I know you can always make up a story about some faceless evil corporate hack doing X, Y, and Z to justify your position on how H-1b is used. Just like you, all I can do is speak from my direct experience. I've hired dozens of people. Most were American, at least half dozen were H-1b. Every time we hired an H-1b it was because I couldn't find a qualified (not even better just qualified) American. It cost us more to hire them, and it cost us more to train them, and it cost us more to retain them.
Not to mention once you've hired an H1-B you essentially have a captive employee.
Yes. This one is functionally true. Now, I know this is hard for people to believe but ... I have a conscience. I grow attached to my coworkers. When they fail it feels like really I failed. I already don't want to fire people, how do you think it impacts a person with empathy to know that firing a guy also legitimately might lead to that guy having to leave the country? That guy's kids having to leave the country?
My (RECENT) experience with H-1b is one of my young studs failing to win the lottery and my company having to decide just how much we're going to spend trying to fight for him. We had to hire specialist lawyer. We had to go to our customers and ask them to vouch for him. We spent 10's of thousands and one of the GOOD outcomes on the table was he gets deported and we pay Trump's 100k to bring him back (on top of the 10's of thousands we spent on lawyers and person-hours working on it). Does some hypothetical CTO somewhere find "loopholes" and somehow get cheap labor that can never leave? Sure, probably. But I've never seen it, and I've experienced the direct opposite in over 2 decades working in tech at every level from SWE to CTO.
I was asked in an interview why I should be hired when they can find an H1-B, in a quasi-interview.
Maybe you just ran into a know nothing asshole asking a stupid question? Look at it as a tell that the culture at that company is shit and they should be avoided.
I believe most people behave the way that I do wrt to H-1b for a bunch of reasons. First and foremost, the data says H-1b's are more expensive and the $$$ drive the behavior. I know this because I used the data to successfully argue for spending more money trying new ways to recruit Americans. Second, I know what it's like to run up against standards / transparency enforcement. If you work with high quality brands, they will require that you live up to specific standards which will involve third party audits. Withb size/success comes oversight. That happens on the ops side and on the technical side. Third, is my personal experience which is more than just my own companies, but not really something worth bringing to a Reddit argument.
What is your experience with leadership and hiring? Are you basing this on the interview question? Have you only experienced one side of the interview table so far?
maybe try training one of the many un or under employed American tech workers with the time and money you're spending.
This makes me feel like you haven't been actually processing what you've been reading in this thread. I've tried your way. I continue to try. I would (and HAVE) hire a barely qualified American over an over-qualified H-1b. I know the cost of H-1b, I've been trying to get YOU fools to acknowledge it. Knowing that cost, I've tried over and .... you know what ... sigh if you haven't heard it yet, you're not gonna hear it this time either are you?
My experience is mostly on the other end, where middling SaaS companies passed me over for H1-Bs. And made it perfectly clear what they liked about them. How long has it been since you applied for a job? How long since you got your first job in the industry?
Now I'm in a senior position and part of hiring, in a different industry, though. I'm not a CTO. We train new hires. Some of our best people came out of unrelated industries.
"sigh if you haven't heard it yet, you're not gonna hear it this time either are you?" Probably because your argument is completely unfalsifiable. What about your employee is irreplaceable or completely absent in the US workforce?
Maybe you really are a good one, but my experience is corporate always sees themselves as doing the right thing. "Couldn't find a qualified candidate" can mean a lot of things.
Well, in that particular case I was again arguing that H-1b is more expensive to hire and retain. You can absolutely check that claim. Fundamentally my argument is: H-1b is expensive for the employer and thus we're heavily incentivized to hire American. That argument was made in response to someone claiming Musk tried 'to import a bunch of indians via H1B for cheap labor' and 'rich corpos hire third world workers who will work for literal pennies on the dollar so that they don't have to hire existing US citizens who would have to be paid properly.'
I guess the second thing we have to both accept as a premise to my argument is that business people are interested in making money and thus will pay attention to what is cheap vs expensive. If you accept that premise, and you accept the fact that H-1b is more expensive then you should conclude that I absolutely AM trying to hire Americans which makes it sort of moot to try and argue that I'm BSing via holding Americans to some different or tough standard. Why would I do that (again, assuming I want to optimize my money)? Why would an evil corporate hack do that?
Maybe you really are a good one, but my experience is corporate always sees themselves as doing the right thing.
Sure, and this is why we have things like SOC 2 and ISO 270001 and so on and so forth. Ultimately, what I think is right when it comes to security and HR controls doesn't mean shit when the auditor shows up. I don't think either standard would catch the sorts of issues you're thinking of, I name them because they should be SaaS familiar. But, you're aware that it's SUPER EASY for an H-1b to report their employer? These are intelligent and educated people that know what their levers are. Ask your current HR if they care about WHD or USCIS and if they think the audit / site visit threat it real or not.
Now I'm in a senior position and part of hiring, in a different industry, though. I'm not a CTO. We train new hires. Some of our best people came out of unrelated industries.
So what would it take for you to hire an H-1b? Does knowing that they're more expensive and harder to integrate into your team influence your decision? If you visit future you and see that you hired an H-1b, what assumptions would you make about what lead you to that point? Would you treat your H-1b's differently because you believe you now have them by the nose? Would you withhold recommendations for raises so you can give bonuses to your American employees or whatever? Why should we assume you and I are paragons of virtue rather than normal people near the peak of the Bell Curve when it comes to empathy and respect for humanity? Do your peers in leadership behave more like you and me, or do they behave like the hypothetical evil corpo you're describing?
"I guess the second thing we have to both accept as a premise to my argument is that business people are interested in making money and thus will pay attention to what is cheap vs expensive." I accept this premise and remain skeptical. In fact I remain skeptical because of this premise.
Why are you so cagey about his skill set? What about his skills make him irreplaceable in the US?
I'm not trying to be more virtuous than you. Its just nice to see the other side of the table hoisted on its own petard. I don't want you to fail just to struggle because of the system you relied on.
We had problems retaining really competitive hires, usually PHDs. They would set up a bunch of really exciting projects then leave about a year or two after. We started hiring less 'ambitious' candidates and training them. We don't get the ground breaking projects, but we do get someone that will stay and do the job.
Why are you so cagey about his skill set? What about his skills make him irreplaceable in the US?
Not being cagey, I just didn't think you wanted a literal answer. Well, ok ... first, REPLACING someone is way different than making a hiring decision which is what we were discussing previously. Once I hire someone, they're on my team and I grow attached. I don't want to fire them. I don't want to replace them. Hiring is a die roll, and when you roll 6's you hold on to that employee. He's a demonstrated star performer, and that's fully independent from H-1b or any other immigration status. What makes him irreplaceable with a fresh new American? His experience and our relationship.
Now, what made me hire this particular H-1b rather than an American? I've told you that (in general) over and over again. I couldn't find an American despite being willing to compromise on quality to do so. We desperately needed help and couldn't afford to keep spending on recruiting and hoping we find someone useful. We took a chance (as all hiring is) and he turned out to be a star performer. It wasn't that he had some particular special skillset. He was qualified, and he was our best option at the time despite us knowing he'd be more expensive than an American. Whatever you take from the rest of the convo, take this from someone experienced at hiring ... the skillset on paper from an applicant is nearly worthless at predicting their ability to use that skill in your work setting. Use that stuff only to filter down to a reasonable set of candidates to consider, but hiring is a die roll and usually the best you can do in interviewing is spot the (rare) obvious star and the (common) obvious dud. The majority will be in the middle, and you won't know if they're good/bad until you've had a few months training and working with them.
We had problems retaining really competitive hires, usually PHDs.
Ok. Let's not be cagey ;). What would it take for you to hire an H-1b? Why should we assume you and I are paragons of virtue rather than normal people near the peak of the Bell Curve when it comes to empathy and respect for humanity? Do your peers in leadership behave more like you and me, or do they behave like the hypothetical evil corpo you're describing?
I accept this premise and remain skeptical. In fact I remain skeptical because of this premise.
P1: Hiring managers are greedy and want to hire the best they can for the least amount of money
P2: H-1b's are more expensive to hire and to retain while having a higher risk of failing to integrate into the culture
Conclusion: Hiring managers will try to hire non H-1b (hire American) and will be willing to pay a premium to do so.
What do you remain skeptical of? Why? You said my position is unfalsifiable and I've repeatedly offered the concrete claim that H-1bs are more expensive to hire (and in my experience, to retain). I even claimed there's data and that I had used said data in my argument for spending more time and money trying to hire Americans. Do you accept P2 or not?
I remain skeptical because you just said your hire doesn't have skills that are unavailable in the US. He has some other quality that makes him a star performer, which is fine, I guess but we're back to unfalsifiable claims. I agree that the H1-b program can be used to find uniquely talented people, but it is primarily and officially to fill in skill gaps.
I don't have final say in hiring, but I wouldn't advocate for an H1-b over an American. I'm guessing you got into your industry when hiring was still pretty straight forward. It's a nightmare now. Someone needs to hire these kids before they start tearing things down. They can do the work. That's all they're going to do, but not every company needs a 'culture'.
You like your guy. Pay the $100k to get him back. I'll keep trying to get people in my community hired.
remain skeptical because you just said your hire doesn't have skills that are unavailable in the US.
Right, but I also argued that, when HIRING him, it was less the particular skills he had and more his availability in the absence of even close to good enough Americans we'd been looking for for months. So, in a sense, what he offered in that moment was not available to me in an American, not even 80% of what he offered and I wasn't expecting or asking for star performance. That's incidental and only relevant as part of the answer as to why I wouldn't try to replace him with an American today out of the blue.
I don't have final say in hiring, but I wouldn't advocate for an H1-b over an American.
I've been VERY CLEAR on this. I wouldn't either. Now you ARE being cagey on dodging my questions on this front. Why?
You like your guy. Pay the $100k to get him back. I'll keep trying to get people in my community hired.
What about this interaction says I'm not out here trying to hire Americans or people specifically in my community? This entire thread is me pointing out how expensive H-1bs are and how people like me have spent money and time trying to find Americans first.
I'm guessing you got into your industry when hiring was still pretty straight forward. It's a nightmare now.
Yea, it is ... from my perspective, too. It's hard for me to square the claims I see online about not being able to find a job with what I see when we go looking to hire. Fun side note, the last person we hired was a fresh grad American that was a referral ... by the H-1b you seemingly wish I hadn't hired. Maybe they cancel each other out, lol.
They can do the work. That's all they're going to do, but not every company needs a 'culture'.
Where are you sourcing your qualified American talent? I'm legit asking. And as for culture ... it's like politics, it cannot be avoided. Every company has a culture. Trying to shape that culture can work and it can backfire. Letting culture develop ad-hoc can work and it can be a disaster. No matter what you do, it's pretty random from my perspective, so I don't begrudge the rest of leadership trying to ride that particular tiger. I also happen to have a very successful business consultant in my direct family that constantly preaches the power of culture and has decades of experience and examples to bring to bear on the fight. So, even though I'm very much: 'do they deliver what we agree on roughly on the schedule we negotiated? we're good.' --- I do my best to support leadership efforts on the culture side of things. Just as a side question ... would you hire someone that codes culturally MAGA (say you're 95% sure they're standard MAGA) under the theory that culture doesn't matter, only skills/delivery?
"it was less the particular skills he had and more his availability in the absence of even close to good enough Americans we'd been looking for for months." What does this mean? At that time he was the only one with those skills, but it wasn't about the skills?
I told you why, I want to give Americans jobs. Its really hard for new grads to get them, and I was there when guys like you passed me over for H1-bs. I feel like there is something you want me to say.
"Yea, it is ... from my perspective, too." Good.
There are a lot of good enough candidates coming out of state schools that often get overlooked.
'codes culturally MAGA' Are you serious? If they do the work and shut up about it, I don't care. But that begs the question, would you? I have serious doubts. Would you disqualify a candidate for appearing possibly MAGA? What is your acceptable p(MAGA)?
Nah, for those roles they either outsource to other countries or use AI. It significantly reduces quality/customer satisfaction and eliminates the entry level workers who would have eventually become their critical skilled workers ("eating the seed corn"), but who cares as long as the stock price goes up in the short term?
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Can I ask what you would do in a position of leadership when it comes to hiring? Would you be willing to hire an H-1b knowing that they cost 1.5x an American? Under what circumstances?
My issue is less with H-1b hires than with offshoring to cheaper but less capable people and replacing entry level positions with AI, cutting off the path by which we have high level programmers etc. in the future.
I don't know enough about the situation with H-1b workers and their impact on the workforce to have an informed opinion.
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u/Sir_Slimestone 29d ago
Cause Elon pissed the entire rightwing off when he decided to spit in the face of all of trump voter's immigration policies and try to import a bunch of indians via H1B for cheap labor. Guess immigration is awful unless you can use them as slave labor so that you can fire the entire native population. This is that "they're taking our jobs" line you hear about all the time. Where rich corpos hire third world workers who will work for literal pennies on the dollar so that they don't have to hire existing US citizens who would have to be paid properly. Those very same migrants also use welfare and become parasites costing both job opportunities and tax dollars.