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The H1B Saga: Students affected most

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As previously reported on this blog, the H1B applications for highly skilled technical workers opened up and the quotas were exceeded in less than a day. The kicker to this story – not all of those visas may go to highly qualified professionals (link via DesiPundit).

From Scaling New Heights blog:
“You know what. This girl who has just 3year degree from India and on H4 visa here is going to apply for H1B through a desi consultant. Can I also try?”

The desi consultants want my wife who has zero knowledge in IT field to say “Yes” so that they can file H1B visa for her. This sums up how desi consultants work in US and why the 65,000 limit for H1B visa got over in a day.

The blog goes on to talk about how Desi Consultants are milking the system by applying for H1B visas for people not even qualified to apply for one. Excellent read. Also as pointed out in previous posts, a majority of H1B visa applicants are from India and of those applicants, a good amount of visas go to companies like TCS, Wipro and Infosys.

In the meanwhile, the Indian students who come to the US often to get a Masters or a PhD are the ones left high and dry, thanks to bulk applications by the larger companies and unscrupulous practices by Desi Consultants.

Fresh university graduates are vulnerable to being rejected for the H-1B visas designated for skilled workers. A record 150,000 H-1B applications were filed in one day this week, nearly double the number U.S. authorities are allowed to grant in a given fiscal year.
After graduation, they are handed a work permit valid for a year.

So after spending around a million or so in Rupees for getting a Master’s education in the United States, many of these students are left facing a prospect with no forseeable employment in the US. Making it worse is the fact that a large number of candidates with 3 year degrees, certfications courses from shady “hole-in-the-wall” institutions and fake resumes with inflated work experience get the jobs created for these students (this statement is untrue as pointed by Ash in the comments section). Whoever said, “Honesty is the best policy” was clearly dropped on his head as a baby.

Note: If you have any compelling stories or personal experiences related to the H1B visa saga, please submit them to us via our Tipster link to be published on our blog. Rest assured, your name and personal information will be protected.

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  • rajukudumula

    I am current employee of NUTECH INFO SYS company, this is not a company, and this is a trap.
    Juniors (OPT/CPT) don’t even look at this company

    There is no good things guys, no disrespect but this is real trap.

    1. They hire juniors(by going to career fairs in colleges OPT/CPT).. There is no training nothing... Because lack of training and understanding you will definitely suffer BENCH for more then 4 to 5 month, after this THE REAL GAME starts as described below. Worst behavior, They will let you believe that you are good for nothing . So that you will feel like, you are a REAL LOOSER and you will be ready to work on any rate.
    2. They have promised me 65% - 35% rate. They are exactly giving 35-65% . lolz. (I found project by my self and by luck .)
    3. There is no marketing team; there is one guy who is doing marketing for everybody. He is junior kinda person (hired $7/Hr Cash) and don’t know anything about technologies. (For example if you are .NET Developer, once in a month he will send you requirement and the requirement can be JAVA or any other programming language.) Hence marketing sucks. I have searched project by myself.
    4. I am working on the rate of $25/hr, the worst part is they don’t pay regularly. If you cry/bag for your own money they give like $500 and then will say “contact next month now”. They generate my payroll for $35 per hour and they give $25 /hr (with tax) because of I am H1b and I have to suffer the high tax of $35 /Hr. Finally I get $16 /Hr.
    5. This company is black listed; lots of H1b’s are rejected by this company. Forget about getting green card (GC). This people never file GCs. Not eligible to file GC. So If you have long term planning forget this company.
    6. After joining this company you will be a real looser for life time. There is no benifits nothinig with this company. Even if you get project by mistake or by luck these people is going to eat up your money.
    7. Most of the names are fake in this company so that they can close their Sutter anytime and they can save their A$ $ from law.
    8. This company must be raided and closed. This company had other name before, after somebody has taken legal action they have made name as Nutech (before it was "New Tech"),
    9. Internal growth is nothing, no benifits , Have a 75% chances of rejection of h1b . No chance of GC , No direct client. Total scam behavior.
    10. This company have no future, forget about your future/career with this company. There is no future with this company. Don’t even join this company , somebody is already has plead Legal Case against this company, this can close anytime.
    11. Owner of this company always goes (runs) to India because he is scared now.
    12. Even if you are on opt/cpt/h1b or any other status with this company. I am advising (strictly recommending) you to change employer.
    13. At least join somebody who can respect the WORD, promise. I don’t want to write more . Guys I hope u do understand.
    There is no exaggeration added in above description of Nutech sys.

  • rajukudumula

    NUTECH INFO SYS
    I am current employee of this company, this is not a company, and this is a trap.
    Juniors (OPT/CPT) don’t even look at this company

    There is no good things guys, no disrespect but this is real trap.

    1. They hire juniors(by going to career fairs in colleges OPT/CPT).. There is no training nothing... Because lack of training and understanding you will definitely suffer BENCH for more then 4 to 5 month, after this THE REAL GAME starts as described below. Worst behavior, They will let you believe that you are good for nothing . So that you will feel like, you are a REAL LOOSER and you will be ready to work on any rate.
    2. They have promised me 65% - 35% rate. They are exactly giving 35-65% . lolz. (I found project by my self and by luck .)
    3. There is no marketing team; there is one guy who is doing marketing for everybody. He is junior kinda person (hired $7/Hr Cash) and don’t know anything about technologies. (For example if you are .NET Developer, once in a month he will send you requirement and the requirement can be JAVA or any other programming language.) Hence marketing sucks. I have searched project by myself.
    4. I am working on the rate of $25/hr, the worst part is they don’t pay regularly. If you cry/bag for your own money they give like $500 and then will say “contact next month now”. They generate my payroll for $35 per hour and they give $25 /hr (with tax) because of I am H1b and I have to suffer the high tax of $35 /Hr. Finally I get $16 /Hr.
    5. This company is black listed; lots of H1b’s are rejected by this company. Forget about getting green card (GC). This people never file GCs. Not eligible to file GC. So If you have long term planning forget this company.
    6. After joining this company you will be a real looser for life time. There is no benifits nothinig with this company. Even if you get project by mistake or by luck these people is going to eat up your money.
    7. Most of the names are fake in this company so that they can close their Sutter anytime and they can save their A$ $ from law.
    8. This company must be raided and closed. This company had other name before, after somebody has taken legal action they have made name as Nutech (before it was "New Tech"),
    9. Internal growth is nothing, no benifits , Have a 75% chances of rejection of h1b . No chance of GC , No direct client. Total scam behavior.
    10. This company have no future, forget about your future/career with this company. There is no future with this company. Don’t even join this company , somebody is already has plead Legal Case against this company, this can close anytime.
    11. Owner of this company always goes (runs) to India because he is scared now.
    12. Even if you are on opt/cpt/h1b or any other status with this company. I am advising (strictly recommending) you to change employer.
    13. At least join somebody who can respect the WORD, promise. I don’t want to write more . Guys I hope u do understand.
    There is no exaggeration added in above description of Nutech sys.

  • money

    **edit** all these fake resumes. I am into networking. Recently my company hired a idiot from Mumbai. He does not know how to write or speak english. Does not know anything teshnically. And now that he is in for very less salary, my company has cut my salary aswell. These **edit** who fake their resumes should be hung. Anyways I have taken a full time job. It has become like contracting jobs are just for fakes.

  • Santosh: takes 50% or more of your paycheck, promises to do your green card and never ends up doing it.

    I think these cases are marginal and happen only if the candidate is naive. I mean, there are a few bad apples, but I think overall the employees get leverage after a year or so of sticking with the same company. I know some DCs that start paying freshie salaries to freshies (while the "billing rate" is much more). But once the freshie stays with the same company for a year or so and gets to know the business, they are forced to go on percentage basis (80 percent for the employee and 20 percent for the DC or something) lest the employee is poached away by other companies or even by the client. You might wonder about background checks at this point, but sometimes the personal rapport that the candidate gets with his client manager is enough for them to dispense with such formalities.

  • I meant to say, "US based". Typos galore this morning!

  • Santosh:

    I agree with you in that the client should probably screen them with background checks but how do you run a background check on someone who claims most of his/her experience is not in the US?

    The thing is, sometimes the experience on the resume is still US bases. And the references checks are over-rated. All that people sometimes do is have friends pose as references. Heck, I have seen people get interviewed (on the phone) as someone else!

  • Santosh: I think I can add more to this discussion, cos I was "almost" in this situation. I got out before the situation got out of my hand.

    Are’nt the employers diligent enough to do background checks?

    Ya they are, only if you applying for a full time employee position. But in most cases, these employers employ contractors. So Employer E gets consulting company C1 to send them a few resumes to interview. C1 posts requirements on a job forum like Dice.com. Desi consultant company DC1 sees that and submits a few resumes to C1 who interviews the candidates and sends the most "qualified" (we know what that means!) to E. Now E only interviews. E's expectation is that the background checks are done by C1 who in turn expects DC1 to do it since the candidate is actually on DC1's payroll. So the onus is on DC1. Funniest thing is, the time frame for the whole process is so compressed that a typical question posed to the candidate is "So, can you start tomorrow or the day after?". And most contractor openings typically get filled two or three days after the need becomes public. That's one of the positives that employers gain by subcontracting work. They don't have to worry about overheads like background checks et. al. And that is the same "positive" that gets exploited by the DC's.
    I would personally easily spot a guy who had no work experience within a week of his working in my office.
    Well, a lot of times what you say, happens within a day or two. So what happens if the candidate is not up to the mark? He just gets fired (from the contractor position) and the whole process starts again. I have known people who have been fired from multiple positions within a day or two after joining.
    See, the whole thing works on a "honor" system and sense of personal rapport between the HR guys in these places. Now if E thinks that C1 has been sending them bad candidates, C1 will be blackballed. In turn, C1 will blackball DC1 if they send bad candidates continually.
    So sometimes what happens is that, if DC1 thinks that a candidate lacks skills, they put him in a position in a company where they have another skilled employee already present. So this skilled employee helps the raw candidate brush up his skills in the work environment. And anytime the raw guy is in a bind with some deliverable, the skilled guy helps him out. Slowly the raw guy polishes his skills, on the job training, if you please!

  • I assume there are many people doing this in order to get the visas.

    That is exactly what the hullabulloo is about. So many unqualified people are doing it, it affects the folks who are qualified. Also I understand what you're saying when you say its the American companies responsiblity.
    Just to give you a background, in most cases this is how it works: desi consultant contacts you, encourages you to make a fake resume with 5 years of job experience, gets a visa in your name, submits the same fake resume to a client when submitting a proposal, tries to get you in with the client for 5-6 months, takes 50% or more of your paycheck, promises to do your green card and never ends up doing it.
    I agree with you in that the client should probably screen them with background checks but how do you run a background check on someone who claims most of his/her experience is not in the US?
    Maybe I should've elaborated all this in my post but I thought the Scaling New Heights Blog did a great job of that.
    Nice discussion though.

  • raccoon

    heck, didnt defent any of these practices...of course its criminal. I was just trying to understand what all the hullabulloo was all about - I assume there are many people doing this in order to get the visas.

    I still think that an american employer whos sponsoring the h1b would be stupid to get a candidate with 0 experience and false experiences without doing a proper background check. Or else, this guy would get fired within a week of joining, and get repatriated back.

  • 1. They're not "misrepresenting facts" as you claim, they're lying through their teeth. Again I'm not claiming everyone does that but its more common than anyone wants to admit and an open secret in the community.

    2. This "misrepresenting facts" as you put it is a felony, punishable with jail time and deportation. It is not like cheating in exams where the worst that happens is you get expelled. Cheating in exams happens on a large scale too but that doesnt make it right.

    3. Ok. They're not getting employed by genuine companies. The paycheck was never the issue, the visa quota was. They are simply "visa squatting" taking away the priviledge of work from more qualified applicants for whom the visa was intended in the first place.

    4. The "employers" here are not the American companies but the desi consultants. And they're not being diligent, in fact they are abetting this crime. Whopee, big surprise there.

    I don't see how you can bring yourself to defend any of these practices.

  • raccoon

    ok, I just read the link - so they're getting false paycheques from the consultants to show that they have employment? So they're not really getting employed by genuine companies, are they?

  • raccoon

    Well, misrepresentation of facts can happen anywhere.

    It happens with many Indian applicants to US universities who misrepresent facts in their applications when it comes to work experience or extra-curriculars or even their academics.

    I would be very surprised if MANY such 3yr guys got off with misrepresentation and got jobs - because that would be a huge scandal if unearthed. Are'nt the employers diligent enough to do background checks? They could easily employ Kroll to do a fairly quick background check for work experience - in this day and age if someone gets duped because of lack of information, I'd lay the blame at the employer's doorstep. I would think that misrepresenting and getting into a university was easy - but not in a job.

    However I seriously dont think this number of 3 year education applicants would be high enough to screw chances en masse for the genuine guys.
    Of course, even one candidate lying and getting a job means one person with a US education/4 yr education suffers and that is something that the employers have to be diligent about - I would personally easily spot a guy who had no work experience within a week of his working in my office. So have many such guys really gotten jobs or is it just hearsay (which would amount to exaggeration)? Going over to read some links now.

  • Raccoon,
    3 year degree + 3 years work experience is equivalent to a 4 year US degree. A 4 year US degree or equivalent is the minimum requirement for a H1B. Did you read any of the links in that post especially the Scaling New Heights Blog? Some students with 3 year degrees and no work experience are faking their resumes, at the advice of desi consultants and getting jobs intended for folks with 4 year degrees or the equivalent. I don't have anything against the folks with 3 year degrees as long as they have the requisite work experience. But if they're screwing the system and impacting more qualified candidates I have a problem with that.

  • Raccoon

    Hi, how do these candidates with 3 years of education from 'hole in the wall' institutions get job offers in the US? I thought to apply for an H1B visa you need a job offer in hand?

    In case they're competing for the same job with a US university graduate before applying for the H1B, then the competition is fair and square, isnt it?

  • Ash,
    Excellent point. But my point still remains that people with 4 year degrees or higher qualifications are affected by these underhanded dealings conducted by desi consultants.

  • Ash

    Santosh, isn't there a separate quota of ~20,000 visas for people with a graduate degree from a US university?

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