patrick.net

Why should companies restrict themselves to hiring one group of people?

Over 3 million qualified American STEM engineers right now are unemployed that's why! No need to import labor.

Do not conflate qualification and employability.

One tip:

To improve your chances, you should learn to read body language. You have less than 90 seconds to communicate a "first" impression. Two immediate outcomes:

1. the interviewer will find reasons to accept you
2. the interviewer will find reasons to reject you

Your "qualifications" or skills or whatnots will not even sink in at this point. Do not fight an uphill battle. Make sure (1) happens or you may as well go home. Let your hiring manager help you.

Wrong dude

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/09/15/stem-graduates-cant-find-jobs

Americans are pre banned before a face to face interview with flooding of labor from India.

You can always find articles or studies to support your view. This will not help you find a job.

What is more important to you?

1. getting hired, or
2. "proving" you are some victim of greed

Peter P says

What is more important to you?

1. getting hired, or

2. "proving" you are some victim of greed

Seems the two can be related. Divide and Conquer ethnic groups to make them compete for shitty jobs is an old trick, goes back a long way.

SJ says

Americans are pre banned before a face to face interview with flooding of labor from India.

Well, it depends. The hiring manager may only have a choice of hiring from two or three big firms-which maybe IBM or any of the Indian companies. So not an actual ban, just not options.

When my job was offshored, I was pissed off too. Took me a few years to move on-emotionally. Best thing that ever happened. Gave me the confidence to grow in my carrer, move, stretch my wings, negotiate pay in contracts, move out of CA etc etc. It kind of is nice living life on your terms-does not mean you control everything, but an acceptance that there are things way beyond your control and try and swim and flow with it and relax and enjoy life.

It is why all this equal pay crap Obama preaches is crap. Back in the 40s or 50s fine-not now. When I was in that same job for ever, I took whatever crap they paid and did so much work. The company had people who were there decades and offshoring shook it up . For me being a freelancer for a few years, helped me understand the market, supply/demand, negotiate and I think that is what women need to be taught-not some stupid biblical law-though shalt be given equal pay-if though has a vagina. You never grow that way-it maybe painful, but confidence and understanding reality is great.

Good luck on your journey-remember changing the big picture, the entire country or globe is something only young people dream of. Then life happens and we grow up. We are here a short while and then we are dead and just a memory. So choose best what you want to do with it!

Usually, HR only lets the hiring manager see the applications they have vetted first.

thunderlips11 says

Peter P says

What is more important to you?

1. getting hired, or

2. "proving" you are some victim of greed

Seems the two can be related. Divide and Conquer ethnic groups to make them compete for shitty jobs is an old trick, goes back a long way.

Only because people take their ethnic identity way too seriously.

thunderlips11 says

Usually, HR only lets the hiring manager see the applications they have vetted first.

Not if you talk to the hiring manager directly.

Peter P says

thunderlips11 says

Usually, HR only lets the hiring manager see the applications they have vetted first.

Not if you talk to the hiring manager directly.

Not at any substantially populated enterprise. HR must vet all candidates. Only C-Suiters generally are successful at bypassing the Crackers in HR.

thunderlips11 says

Peter P says

thunderlips11 says

Usually, HR only lets the hiring manager see the applications they have vetted first.

Not if you talk to the hiring manager directly.

Not at any substantially populated enterprise. HR must vet all candidates. Only C-Suiters generally are successful at bypassing the Crackers in HR.

Bypassing the HR screening process gets you very far. Yes, HR will still vet/reject candidates, but they will have to say NO to the hiring manager. People frame this situation differently.

They'd bus in illegals if they could to save themselves a penny.

Well I'm contacting VP level managers at least it gives me a fighting chance. The Taleo ATS online portal is broken method of finding work.

Agree that's what I'm doing. HR and recruiters are waste of time.

SJ says

Agree that's what I'm doing. HR and recruiters are waste of time.

Yep. You will do fine. Try to approach an interview as if you are merely curious about their work. Nonchalance makes you appear desirable.

HR is lame, but play the game well. :-)

Call it Crazy says

In all cases, they did not have a "help wanted" sign out, but I created the exact position I wanted and got hired at the salary level I wanted.

Yep. Very smart. :-)

Peter P says

Do not conflate qualification and employability.

One tip:

To improve your chances, you should learn to read body language. You have less than 90 seconds to communicate a "first" impression. Two immediate outcomes:

1. the interviewer will find reasons to accept you

2. the interviewer will find reasons to reject you

Your "qualifications" or skills or whatnots will not even sink in at this point. Do not fight an uphill battle. Make sure (1) happens or you may as well go home. Let your hiring manager help you.

Come on Peter, I have seen Indians or Chinese job seekers leave an interview, then the hiring manager come out and say.

"I didn't understand a word he said" but then they gave the job to them anyway.

Call it Crazy says

In all cases, they did not have a "help wanted" sign out, but I created the exact position I wanted and got hired at the salary level I wanted.

That was years ago, there's a lot of shit that I used to do, that years ago was the smart thing to do. But today can probably get you publicly shamed in the national media.

One of the biggest things these days with inept management, is you have really got to try not project that you know too much. Or the person hiring you will be threatened by you and not give you the job.

I am American, and I was laid off for my first job in the dotcom bust within a year of getting hired.

Guess what, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was broke, lost my first car and had to bunk in a hostel for a couple of months while I got my sh*t together. I took whatever work I could get, and ended up slinging perl and python code for a couple of years in dev-ops - not what I dreamed of doing, but it paid the bills (and more), I learned a lot of cool technical stuff and it taught me that I needed to bring some value for a company to hire me.

I have NEVER had any trouble getting hired, and am now beating recruiters away with a stick. I have no idea where you get this "Americans are pre-banned" idea. Sure there are non-americans working here but that is the way it has ALWAYS been in this country. My grandfather (midwest manufacturing) had to compete with irish and german immigrants, my dad with polish and mexican workers, and so on.

Figure out what you do, how it adds value, and deliver on your promises. If people you worked with in your last job are not reaching out to hire you, maybe you need to think about changing that. That is how I usually get my best offers.

[Long time lurker on Patrick.net. Just signed up today to post this. Thanks, Patrick, for everything you do for us.]

Read these sites why

http://www.techinsurgent.com

https://www.numbersusa.com

I'm not going to waste anymore time debating facts from fiction.

SJ says

Read these sites why

http://www.techinsurgent.com

https://www.numbersusa.com

I'm not going to waste anymore time debating facts from fiction.

I hear you, but "facts" are not necessarily profitable. :-)

startupguy says

I am American, and I was laid off for my first job in the dotcom bust within a year of getting hired.

Guess what, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was broke, lost my first car and had to bunk in a hostel for a couple of months while I got my sh*t together. I took whatever work I could get, and ended up slinging perl and python code for a couple of years in dev-ops - not what I dreamed of doing, but it paid the bills (and more), I learned a lot of cool technical stuff and it taught me that I needed to bring some value for a company to hire me.

Glad to here your picked up.

I am an EE and I work with people with all different backgrounds. I must say the Asian friend (most of my EE friend in Bay area are Asian/Indian decent) have a great work ethic, and their parent often expected them to work on Science.

I am continually embarrassed by my gringo friends, so many of them are slackers, they dont see the benefit in Science, and their children thereby dont have any guidance. It makes me respect the people who work hard, and makes me want to avoid the people who dont make an effort, and then complain when their lack of effort left them in a miserable state.

But I just try to do really good work, and yes its hard in a climate were much EE has been offshored.

In life we reap what we sow, this is true for individuals, families, institutions and governments. This whole idea of Keynesian spend spend spend without a thought on the ROI, is like Obama wanting to make City College for free without realizing that its the types of education that matters, not whether we can get classes for $50 or free. Obama is trying to seem like a Robin Hood.

Its how hard that individuals work, scrap, sacrifice that matters. We need better americans not more random givaways with an unknown outcome.

One thing to remember, it is not the company that hires you, it is the people. Each person in the decision process has his own agenda. Some may desire a better work ethic from you. Some may want the opposite. You have to read each and every individual and see what is the best *perceived* outcome to him. This is why "merits" or "qualifications" are worthless. Play the game well!

One issue is tech companies don't want to train new (average) graduates, prefer to employ either brilliant graduates or experienced IT professionals in the correct fields (all overseas ones that got employed are for obvious reason). So new (average) graduates and IT professionals in the wrong field had to train themselves somehow at their own cost, doing something like what startupguy did. So those STEM graduates who can't train/re-train themselves for whatever reasons (such as no money) should switch career.

SJ says

Read these sites why

http://www.techinsurgent.com

https://www.numbersusa.com

I'm not going to waste anymore time debating facts from fiction.

The argument by the articles are flawed regarding the shortage picture. What left in the market are those not-as-good-as-those-already-employed engineers demanding higher pay than those already employed.

Bullshit the Indian H1b scam infestation has rotted the job market.

Peter P says

You have to read each and every individual and see what is the best *perceived* outcome to him.

What people dont understand is that perception is one step away from deception. I have worked at places where underskilled people get promoted and then perception kicks in. Its not great, hard to work in, wasteful.

I actually think the perception and rhetoric is what has allow US manufacturing jobs to slip away to other parts of the world where this gamesmanship is not played. I see it when I travel.

Perception is deception and its one of the root causes of capitolisms economic decay. Perception is dealt with in Ayn Rands books, and is one part that I think she had a point on.

The reason why this get my irye, is that I have worked with principled people and unprincipled people who subscribe to pretenting or perception.

In each of the programs that I worked on, the ones that did well is when we worked together in good faith, and did not use the deceptive hidden agendas.

I have worked with people who did the perception game, and the gamesmanship - not the technical issues harmed the program.

Perception is what Vladimir Lenin was all about. Be careful in what you see, and work in good faith with everyone. Perception/Deception is what Obama also uses quite handily, AKA in the debates ridiculing Romney that he was wrong about the threat of Russia. Then we all know about the issues in Crimea that occured less than 1 year later.

Honestly is the best policy for any political/social systems. Perception is wrong, harms people, and sets entire companies/nations on a path to ruin.

Higher labor costs will just be passed on to the consumer.

Entitlemented says

What people dont understand is that perception is one step away from deception.

Too much value judgement.