So Why Import Foreign High-Tech Workers? (to America)

Interesting article that seems to be making some splash regarding immigration and visas for IT workers. I have seen it referenced on many websites along with articles referencing it the past few days. For those of you in the IT world I would love to hear your experiences or opinions.

America Has More Trained STEM Graduates than STEM Job Openings | Center for Immigration Studies

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networker050184

I think the problem with these numbers is that graduating with a degree does not make you qualified to hold these high tech positions. What people are learning in college does not translate directly to the field in most instances.

shyguyIT

I agree with networker 100%. Not only are students graduating not qualified for high tech positions, they are sometimes not even qualified for very basic helpdesk positions. At least in my experience instructors encourage open book exams and allow students to take the exams over and over until they pass. Students don't really learn anything and graduate not knowing how to set a static IP on their PCs.

GarudaMin

Failure in many parts, well mostly corporate greed and government's policies.

If it is like you said where students are not getting real world experiences - this should be handled via internships or jr. level positions. Problem is those positions make peanuts and one cannot live on it. There is also catch 22 - that you need so and so amount of experiences even to do those positions, well if you don't get hired, where do you get experience?

But from what I have seen (limited view based on IT), I see advertisements for high level positions with infeasible requirements that pay peanuts. Then there are people (because of hard times) who take up on those positions (maybe in the interim while they look for better one). Because of this, companies think they can just get people for less and less and people who has no choice has to take them and the cycle repeats. Then when companies do not get people for those high level low paying position, they complain that there are not enough qualified people. Of course, foreign workers will work for those lower pay because to them, the wages are still way higher than what they would get in their country. At least, that's imho.

daviddws

Here's whats happening. Companies are exploiting immigrants and at the same time excluding many Americans from these positions. I spent most of my working career in Silicon Valley and saw this firsthand! Our country needs to do more for it's citizens. If the government continues to be lobbied by corporations for highly skilled immigrants, the American worker will pay the price. Why in a country of 300+ million people are high tech companies not finding quality candidates is beyond me. They would rather hire a highly skilled H1B who has been trained somewhere else, and is expendable when the company no longer needs them. Nice country we are turning into.

networker050184

I know people say you can't high positions with out experience, can't get experience without high positions, but who do you think fills those positions? Certainly not people born with the knowledge and experience. People that did take the lower positions and worked their way up.

Hammer80

Here is another problem entry level for professional jobs use to mean you had a guaranteed job out of college in the field that you majored in and then you were groomed over a period of years, and you were still able to pay the bills. Now you come out of college and the entry level job requires 2-5 years experience with fast food joint salary and they won't count the degree as experience, in that case how the hell are you supposed to get experience. The issue is greed, greed, and more greed, everybody is out for themselves and unlike other countries US does not protect its workers. Other countries see that they have vested interest in keeping their population employed in skills that contribute to the overall economy, they also protect their economy by taxing the hell of imports in order for their products to stay competitive, we don't have that so what has happened is that Wal-Mart which used make majority of its products in America now make it China which has destroyed our manufacturing base. Nobody is looking long term anymore its only about the next quarter's profits as there are no consequences for executives since they all get golden parachutes if they screw up. Everybody else in the world understands that they have to protect their own, the only country that does not have that attitude is US. The best place to see that in action is our screwed up Foreign Policy, everyone else protects their interests and is willing to walk away from the table but we are so obsessed with being politically correct that we are willing to shot ourselves in the foot repeatedly to make other countries happy even if it comes at our cost.

Maui

Hammer80 wrote: »

Everybody else in the world understands that they have to protect their own, the only country that does not have that attitude is US. .

I read a quote once I think attributed to Warren Buffett: "One day there will be a job in America for everyone in the world....Unless your an American Citizen"

While certainly over the top I understand what is meant.

datacomboss

Maui wrote: »

I read a quote once I think attributed to Warren Buffett: "One day there will be a job in America for everyone in the world....Unless your an American Citizen"

That certainly applies to one of Mr. Buffett's larger assets here in Fort Worth; Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.

tpatt100

There are so many things going on that I personally think it's not just corporations wanting to exploit immigrants but a lot of different things. So many of these "jobs that can't be filled" can be location issues and sometimes can be just due to companies knowing they have time to fill the positions due to an abundance of employee supply vs demand.

Often many companies don't want to invest in employee mentoring/training because Americans in general do not feel like they are part of the company but just a worker. They see on the news constant lay offs to decrease operating expenses to help boost stock price so it's become an "every man or woman for themselves" mentality. Unions are but a relic from the past and all the states offering ridiculous tax deals to get anybody to set up shop in their state.

Working your way up is the ideal way to go but companies need to make employees feel like they have a stake in the company to make them want to actually stay. In order for somebody to stay and work their way up they need to be made to feel like they are not making a mistake ignoring a bigger pay increase elsewhere by accepting a smaller pay increase if they stay where they are at.

no!all!

I think Daviddws nailed it on the head

E Double U

What tpatt100 says made me think of my previous employer. We had a CCNP in the NOC that started giving Cisco classes, but the director put an end to it. We had a guy get his CCIE, but they didn't give him a raise. When you moved to another team with a higher pay scale, it took a year to bump you up to the lowest part of the scale. No matter how you performed you got an average rating because upper management says only so many people can get an above average. Then after putting so much into the company for years, the majority of us were laid off as the work was sent to Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America. We definitely had no stake in the company.

SweenMachine

no!all! wrote: »

I think Daviddws nailed it on the head

Interesting thread!

I agree with most of what is posted. But not all..

I would like to mention, however, that a good deal (and I know this isn't all) of fresh out of college American workers are lazy, have had everything handed to them kind of people, and just complain non-stop about their inability to 'live' off an entry wage. There is alot of talk about greed, greed, greed. You cannot control greed. You can control your actions. You can control your work ethic.

After a dispute with my parents at 17, I split an apartment with 4 people; started working at Taco Bell in 1996 making 4.25 an hour. Yup, a 'fast food salary'. Yeah, it sucked. I learned hard work, work ethics, showing up on time, not having things handed to me and a built a career to where I am now a 35 year old married homeowner, mid career making a decent wage in a competitive market. STILL working hard, still busting it, still reliable.

A whole lot of this younger generation sits on their smartphones and Xboxes 5 hours a day at their parents house, with student loan debt no one held a gun to their head to take, whining about not being able to make 100k as a network analyst fresh out of college, thinking that working at a help desk (or busting concrete, which I also did to make ends meet) is below them.

Well, while you whine about it all, kids like how I was will take those help desk jobs, absorb knowledge like a sponge, and fly by you on the way to a successful life.

Yes, I sound salty and old. Yes, the job market sucks more than it did when I started in IT. Yes; I probably don't have perspective to the stuggles of America's youth. Yes, I am over generalizing.

But the truth remains, there are so many things you cannot control in life, but you can still control your actions. And your actions still decide whether you succeed or not, and no one can tell me otherwise.

-scott

dubzer

^ Agreed. Things aren't handed out in IT.

MrJimbo19

I'd like to add a comment my CCNA/CCNP teacher recently said to the class regarding technical skills and Academia within the States. His comment was that when he sits in on cirriculum committees which have to approve his material for teaching they basically want to see more of the traditional fact hunting and spitting out which as we know in IT is not going to give you a good employee. Within the last few days he sat in with his industry advisers and the Dean of the school to go over future class objectives and the industry partners wanted to see more hands on and troubleshooting while the dean wanted more report writing and form filling. It was rather impressive to see how different the views were.

My teacher believes that the issue stems from the fact that in IT you either can make it work or you can't, traditional academia seems to enjoy the grey area that exists by being able to argue other points. That's not to say people can't half ass something in IT but I think the point he was making is that it becomes pretty obvious quickly in IT if someone is just barely getting things. This guy is the chair of the tech dept at the school and happens to be a CCNP, when he was exploring his options of going for a masters degree or persuing a CCIE the school board told him the CCIE would be useless in the academic sense so he went with the masters. I still scratch my head at that one, a CCIE being useless....

devils_haircut

I've never put a lot of stock in college degrees, but I've always been a person who was naturally curious, with the motivation and intelligence to pursue complex topics on my own time. College isn't for everyone, and the attitude that a CCIE is useless from people who have spent their lives in academia (and who likely hold numerous advanced degrees) just rubs me the wrong way. A college degree can be a great thing, but some people put entirely too much emphasis on the importance of college. It's entirely possible to be a well-educated, well-rounded, and intelligent person without ever setting foot in a university.

tpatt100

I could see the point of a CCIE being useless from an academic perspective. A lot of subjects in IT probably belong in a trade school setting. I can also see how some subjects when it comes to programming belong in the university when it comes to computer science especially the topics that deal heavily with mathematics. Those are the things that require more complex theorizing. The systems administrators work with the finished product and the mathematicians deal with things like cryptography.

A traditional university setting also require classes that don't deal with technology but can help somebody with their soft skills in the workplace.

MrJimbo19

tpatt100 wrote: »

I could see the point of a CCIE being useless from an academic perspective. A lot of subjects in IT probably belong in a trade school setting. I can also see how some subjects when it comes to programming belong in the university when it comes to computer science especially the topics that deal heavily with mathematics. Those are the things that require more complex theorizing. The systems administrators work with the finished product and the mathematicians deal with things like cryptography.

A traditional university setting also require classes that don't deal with technology but can help somebody with their soft skills in the workplace.

my comment about the CCIE was more tongue in cheek then anything, it's just hard to grasp that something that people work that hard to obtain could be classified as "useless". I do disagree about the academia aspect in this regard for one simple reason, he is teaching students who are focused on learning Cisco technologies, a CCIE instructing them would be more valuable in my opinion then someone with a masters in teaching. Just my $.02 .

omi2123

I don't have a college degree but few certifications. I just recently got hired by Dell & will start my job in June as a Client Technical Support Senior Associate. All my certs were self taught with no institutional help. I thing I've noticed that lots of college grads I spoke with, barely know anything bout cisco OS or MS server stuff or networking fundamental in general, but want to get the system admin or network admin job because they have a bachelor degree in computer science. lot of em can't even write a script right.....At the interview, I've seen few seasoned incumbents but I've got the Senior tech position because of my certs. Finally all the hard work, labbing & study paid off......you guys were great inspiration...thank ya'll a lot.

colemic

This isn't directed to anyone in particular, but I was always under the impression that one didn't attend college to learn how to be a systems engineer, or networking engineer... rather, college was supposed to be geared toward learning how to learn, and how to think critically. While online education seems to be distorting that a little bit, that is certainly the view of traditional academia.

GAngel

colemic wrote: »

This isn't directed to anyone in particular, but I was always under the impression that one didn't attend college to learn how to be a systems engineer, or networking engineer... rather, college was supposed to be geared toward learning how to learn, and how to think critically. While online education seems to be distorting that a little bit, that is certainly the view of traditional academia.

That was actually the role of universities. College was for the more technical skill set.

Now both are just milking students for as much as they can while they can while providing a pretty substandard education.

PurpleIT

colemic wrote: »

This isn't directed to anyone in particular, but I was always under the impression that one didn't attend college to learn how to be a systems engineer, or networking engineer... rather, college was supposed to be geared toward learning how to learn, and how to think critically. While online education seems to be distorting that a little bit, that is certainly the view of traditional academia.

That, and to a certain extent to show that you can hunker down, deal with the BS and stick it out when times get tough. (Almost) nobody REALLY wants to take "Survey of German Literature and Philosophy - 203", yet we all had to deal with classes like that. If you can do it, especially if you can do it and maintain a high GPA it does say something about you.

networker050184

colemic wrote: »

This isn't directed to anyone in particular, but I was always under the impression that one didn't attend college to learn how to be a systems engineer, or networking engineer... rather, college was supposed to be geared toward learning how to learn, and how to think critically. While online education seems to be distorting that a little bit, that is certainly the view of traditional academia.

I definitely agree which is why it makes zero sense to bring up the number of graduates when talking about qualified tech workers.