Fresh graduate to work overseas

[Medwed]



How, I established that fact? I did something completely crazy - I got promoted and involved in the selection and hiring of candidates.

I actually never mentioned that one race is smarter than another one and I actually cannot find any reference to Asians at all in my original posting.

None of them including myself got paid less than American coworkers and they were hired due to the simple fact that Americans are in the minority at STEM grad schools and not necessarily the top-graduates. .

about half of the foreign graduate students in the U.S. come from China and India. Historically, they would have done everything to stay after graduation in the U.S., but this has changed: Now they need to consider if they wanna go back home where the U.S. degree will accelerate their career and open them all doors in fast growing economies or if they wanna endure an extremely tedious process to get a green card after 5+ years. This might make the H1B opponents happy, but I am not sure how good this will be for U.S. competitiveness.

Right there...

 

[Gibonius]



True - the majority of jobs are probably below Master or PhD level. Nevertheless, 20000 out of the 85000 annual H1B visas are reserved for students who graduated with a Master or PhD from a U.S. university. The remaining 65000 visas are usually allocated with a lottery to the remaining visa applicants which include everything from programmers from overseas to Physics PhDs from top schools. Hence, the advanced degree holder still make up at least a substantial minority.

I can't find the study, but there was a lot of chatter about this a few months back. Low level programming and engineering jobs (for people without experience / no advanced degree) were by far the largest fraction of H1b's and other temporary work visas, and are the biggest source of industry demand for "more STEM talent." There's a lot of evidence that we really don't have any shortages at all in STEM as a whole, outside a few small niches. Companies just want access to a larger labor pool and/or don't want to train people.

However, I am convinced that the share of H1B visas going to foreign advanced degree students at U.S. schools will go down. According to this http://www.iie.org/Research-and-Pub...By-Academic-Level-and-Place-of-Origin/2011-12 about half of the foreign graduate students in the U.S. come from China and India. Historically, they would have done everything to stay after graduation in the U.S., but this has changed: Now they need to consider if they wanna go back home where the U.S. degree will accelerate their career and open them all doors in fast growing economies or if they wanna endure an extremely tedious process to get a green card after 5+ years. This might make the H1B opponents happy, but I am not sure how good this will be for U.S. competitiveness.

It probably should go down. Academia has no real concern for whether their graduates can find jobs or not, they're just trying to get as many students as they can find funding for. It makes relatively little sense for the US to pay to educate large numbers of Chinese (especially) and Indian scientists only to send them back overseas because of lack of job demand, or displace equally talented Americans at home. We should continue to fund excellent students and grant visas to excellent candidates though.

There's a whole class of foreign scientists doing revolving postdocs trying to get a job that will lead to citizenship. Not really a healthy situation, and it makes it harder for everyone to get a job. Why hire a permanent employee when you can hire two postdocs for the same money?

 

[AlexE]



Right there...

You are aware that you are trying to connect two different postings with different content?

 

[AlexE]



I can't find the study, but there was a lot of chatter about this a few months back. Low level programming and engineering jobs (for people without experience / no advanced degree) were by far the largest fraction of H1b's and other temporary work visas, and are the biggest source of industry demand for "more STEM talent." There's a lot of evidence that we really don't have any shortages at all in STEM as a whole, outside a few small niches. Companies just want access to a larger labor pool and/or don't want to train people.
It probably should go down. Academia has no real concern for whether their graduates can find jobs or not, they're just trying to get as many students as they can find funding for. It makes relatively little sense for the US to pay to educate large numbers of Chinese (especially) and Indian scientists only to send them back overseas because of lack of job demand, or displace equally talented Americans at home. We should continue to fund excellent students and grant visas to excellent candidates though.

There's a whole class of foreign scientists doing revolving postdocs trying to get a job that will lead to citizenship. Not really a healthy situation, and it makes it harder for everyone to get a job. Why hire a permanent employee when you can hire two postdocs for the same money?

Well the numbers for H1Bs are from USCIS:

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/us...nnel=73566811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD

Anyway, we have been drifting completely off from the OP's question...

 

[Will19]

Thanks for the reply guys..sorry I haven't reply to you guys,the more I read it the more it makes me confuse hahaha. now I'm considering about master degree. What do you guys think? If I take it will it be easier for me to get a job? Considering the student visa might help me to stay first then I can apply for jobs easier after I finished my education

 

[AlexE]

Chances will be higher if you get a Masters degree in the country where you would like to work. However, get informed before you go about the options for work after graduation in order to avoid surprises.

 

[Trompe le Monde]



Right there...

You should attend a science/engineering recruiting event at USC, UCLA, Stanford, Berkeley, Rice, Arizona, Texas, Washington, Penn State, Mich, MIT, Wisc, etc one day....... :foo:

 

[Medwed]



You should attend a science/engineering recruiting event at USC, UCLA, Stanford, Berkeley, Rice, Arizona, Texas, Washington, Penn State, Mich, MIT, Wisc, etc one day....... :foo:

Too cryptic, please explain as I am filling my tank to attend all of those immediately.

 

[clee1982]

If you want to come to the US, then you can only get H-1B if a company sponsor you, i.e.if a company hires you first. Your pay will be the same as local (theoretically you're suppose to be paid higher than local, prevailing wage, but that's usually against a much larger average). It's too late for you to get H-1B though, you can only apply in April and get it in Oct., unless the quota is not filled up (which it has, at least this year wise).

I moved to UK under internal transfer (same company, but moved from US to UK), so it was relatively easy, English has tight their immigration a lot, won't be easy for you these days, I imagine similar process as the US.

 

[Trompe le Monde]



Too cryptic, please explain as I am filling my tank to attend all of those immediately.

I've recruited at engineering schools at most of those universities. 50-80% of the applicants are chinese or indian. and an insane number of them need visa sponsorship.

South and southeast asians are statistically overrepresented in major engineering (& science) schools in the US

 

[clee1982]



Disagree, the reason US Corps would spend money on H1B to bring you over is not because you possess unique accounting skills unseen anywhere in US. It is because they can pay you less and keep you tied to the company for 5-6 years . You can switch jobs on H1B but for another H1B slavery. If you want to stay and get Green Card you cannot leave your Co. for 5-6 years.
The whole spiel that H1B suppose to be paid the same as US workers is a smoke screen; every title in US has a range of salary. Example: Accountant, your range could from 45K to 95K per year, and that is how it is for any position in Corp world . What do you think they gonna pay H1B applicant ?

H-1B worker are not cheaper, at least not in finance (IBD, S&T) / tech (google, msft, intel). Now that doesn't mean it's not exploit by some IT firm to keep getting cheaper labor (i.e. 60K software engineers), I have no idea how representative these abusive IT firms would be.

 

[clee1982]



You should attend a science/engineering recruiting event at USC, UCLA, Stanford, Berkeley, Rice, Arizona, Texas, Washington, Penn State, Mich, MIT, Wisc, etc one day....... :foo:

Not just those, as long as it's top 50, and it's engineering, it's heavily represented by international students.

Side track, American are not dumb, they just don't like to be in engineering, maybe it's not cool (it is cool again now I suppose). I am from Taiwan, and I remember out of my high school graduating class (graduated in 2001), of the top 5 students (2 being international, 3 american), none of them went to study engineering even though I am sure those 3 are capable. Fast forward 4 years, of those 3 American, none went on to get a Ph. D.

When I was in college, more or less the same thing happened, very few bright American went on to Ph. D program (I quit my after I got my master, though different story). In some case it's fast money, in other cases I just don't know? It probably made financial sense for them (Ph. D in engineering/science is free, but you're forgoing a lot of income). There are a lot things you don't need Ph. D to accomplish, and if you're truly bright then it doesn't matter, though I am happy to say I was at least exposed to it. It opened my eyes in some ways.

 

[Gibonius]



H-1B worker are not cheaper, at least not in finance (IBD, S&T) / tech (google, msft, intel). Now that doesn't mean it's not exploit by some IT firm to keep getting cheaper labor (i.e. 60K software engineers), I have no idea how representative these abusive IT firms would be.

I don't know about "representative" but consulting companies (predominantly software/programming) are the biggest users of H1bs. 40k out of 85k H1bs were hired by the top 10 firms, and all of those are consulting companies. They're basically doing offshore outsourcing, but domestically. The whole point is lower costs.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechcon...H1-B-Visa-Workers-Its-Not-Who-You-Might-Think

 

[Gibonius]



South and southeast asians are statistically overrepresented in major engineering (& science) schools in the US

Certainly true, but some of that is simply how we pull in foreign students. There's an essentially unlimited pool of foreign students. We could fill every spot at every school in the country with Asians if we wanted to. There's a population of 4 billion to draw from, vs 300 million for the US. Obviously we don't take an unlimited number, but we prioritize bringing over STEM types and Asians are more likely to pick STEM fields (for various reasons). Combine all that and it's not too hard to see why they're disproportionately represented to their US population.

Simply from the population numbers, you can get more high quality Asian students than Americans. The long tail of 4 billion has more people than 300 million. If anything, Americans hold up surprisingly well considering the numbers. There are some cultural factors that favor Americans in some fields, Asians in others.

When I was in college, more or less the same thing happened, very few bright American went on to Ph. D program (I quit my after I got my master, though different story). In some case it's fast money, in other cases I just don't know? It probably made financial sense for them (Ph. D in engineering/science is free, but you're forgoing a lot of income). There are a lot things you don't need Ph. D to accomplish, and if you're truly bright then it doesn't matter, though I am happy to say I was at least exposed to it. It opened my eyes in some ways.

The economic incentive just isn't there for Americans. I have a PhD in chemistry and it was not a sound economic decision compared to going into business or finance. I just enjoy what I do more than those paths and don't need the extra income, so it was fine for me.

Situation is obviously different for people from the rest of the world. Getting that 100k STEM job is a huge upgrade in their quality of life, and it's one of the relatively few routes over here. It's a lot harder for them to get into the other lucrative sectors in the US. A crappy graduate stipend provides a better quality of life than what many would get domestically, and that's certainly not the case for Americans.

 

[AlexE]



I have a PhD in chemistry and it was not a sound economic decision compared to going into business or finance. I just enjoy what I do more than those paths and don't need the extra income, so it was fine for me.

Shouldn't that be the main criterion for choosing your career anyway? Doing what you are actually interested in?

Looking hat the H-1B phobia in the U.S. now from the outside, I can only hope that the U.S. shuts its gates for foreign students. Other countries will be delighted...