Career question: What are the job prospects for an international student attending a college in the US given the current H-1B scene?

Here is a recent question from an online forum:

What are the job prospects for an international student attending a college in the US given the current H-1B scene? (I am an undergraduate with a major in Finance.)

Hello! I am an Indian student and have been admitted to Binghamton University’s School of Management. I’ll be taking loans to fund my education. I’ll need a solid job to pay off these loans upon graduation. Please tell me if I should pursue education in US with the current H1-B policies.

Let us lay out a few facts:

• H1 visa policies are undergoing review and are most likely to change. (my earlier blog on the topic )
• A large percentage of H1B visas go to those with STEM majors and degrees. Check out the list of Top H1B sponsors from last year (link). The majority of them are IT/IS/Tech companies.
• Other non-STEM graduates do get H1 visas, but their numbers are too small and highly competitive.

Back to your case. Let us look at the best case scenario: A person majoring in Finance from a Top-tier school (or Ivy League), with great academic credentials gets and internship at an investment bank or tier-1 consulting firm. The firm is so impressed by her/his credentials that it agrees to sponsor a visa for the person. Alternatively, the firm agrees to hire the person and relocates them to their home-country (and later moving them to US on L1 visa)

Only you can answer if your credentials qualify for the “best case” scenario. All the best!

Musing on US Citizenship and Edward Snowden saga

Following the Edward Snowden saga made me reflect on the power that governments have over citizen when it comes to asylum and citizenship, a power one cannot take very lightly.

Edward Snowden leaked US Government’s NSA secrets and has reportedly spent the past few weeks in a “transit zone” in Moscow. While there he has continually been in news applying for asylum for a slew of countries. In the meantime, the US government has revoked his passport and continues to pressure countries from granting asylum. (interesting list of countries where Snowden applied)

The saga also reminds one of the plight of Viktor Navorski, a character played by Tom Hanks in the movie “The Terminal.” The film was supposedly based on a real life incident “The most famous transit-zone dweller was Iranian refugee Mehran Karimi Nasseri, who stayed in Terminal 1 of Charles de Gaulle Airport for 17 years, but he moved freely within the terminal. Some have noted that the film appears to be inspired by the story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian refugee who lived in Terminal One of the Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris from 1988 when his refugee papers were stolen until 2006 when he was hospitalized for unspecified ailments.” (wikipedia)

Play the Snowden saga against the immigration debate in America and one can see two sides of the coin emerge. One side are people like Snowden who willingly risk the privilege of American citizenship to make a point at the world stage. On the other side are millions who continue to make the trek to the land of opportunity, only to find they have to climb huge walls, sometimes literally and mostly walls of bureaucracy before they are granted the privilege Snowden is willingly relinquishing.

Few countries in the world are able and willing to offer asylum to someone wanted by big-brother. If anything, this saga shows the real might of America in the world stage.

Technorati tags: Edward Snowden, Immigration

Big Data 101: Thinking beyond National security Agency

Federal government investments and initiatives have long shifted the needle on technology innovation and adoption. Almost every case study on government funded innovation has a mention of how internet has its genesis in defense department’s DARPA initiative.

Last week, American public woke up to the fact that NSA, CIA and other security agencies were gathering phone records of some/most/all phone-calls to and from the United states, setting off a large public debate, perhaps what the whistle blower Edward Snowden wanted in the first place. It was interesting to hear US Senators and Congressmen try to explain technical jargon like metadata and applications of big data to their constituents. About how the call records turned over to federal agencies were just metadata of calls and not actual content of calls.

Corporate IT executives and CIO’s have already begun to recognize the value that good data analysts can bring and this incident is only bringing renewed attention on the potential of big-data. An unintended consequence of this saga, perhaps the real silver lining here is for technologists. Now that the program is out in the open, I wonder if there will be argument to commercialize the “mechanics” to reverse-engineering some of the big data technologies being discussed. One can argue that similar technologies used by NSA and federal agencies to gather and analyze large volumes (“big data”) of metadata about telephone records, can be used by commercial organizations. Say to parse through large volumes of data required for in-silico research to speed drug discovery.

Big data spells big money, not just for corporations. Data Scientists are already among the hottest category of IT professionals in the market. Play this out against the immigration debate and the message to younger generation of technologists in America is clear: plan a career in data analytics and science!

Other Links of interest

• While it is news now, the media has been talking about it for a while. NSA data center front and center in debate over liberty, security and privacy (Fox news article in April 2013)
• NSA's Big Data Platform Faces Enterprise Test: Accumulo, the data storage software developed by the National Security Agency, has taken another step toward the enterprise market. Sqrrl, the startup launched by former NSA technologists to commercialize Accumulo, has teamed up with Apache Hadoop provider Hortonworks to combine their technologies.
• NSA Reveals Cloud Plans, May Open-Source Some of Its Software
• Hadoop is an Open Source Revolution: Federal Computer Week Interview "Hadoop, and a handful of open-source tools that complement it, has no equal when it comes to making gigantic and diverse datasets easily available for quick analysis using clusters of inexpensive computers"

Big data to visualize migration

Looking at my linkedin updates from my contacts, I came across this fascinating example of using Big-data posted by a former colleague, Jai Ganesh, on his blog. The blog on “Networks of Global Migration” makes for an interesting read, and is topical: The debate over immigration in the US is reaching a crescendo!

 

A few insights from the blog worth mulling over

• According to the International Organization for Migration there are about 214 million international migrants across the world (about 3% of the global population), which is a significant increase over the year 2000 number of 150 million.
• According to IOM, countries with a high percentage of migrants include Qatar (87%), United Arab Emirates (70%), Jordan (46%), Singapore (41%) and Saudi Arabia (28%) and countries with a low percentage of migrants include South Africa (3.7%), Slovakia (2.4%), Turkey (1.9%), Japan (1.7%), Nigeria (0.7%), Romania (0.6%), India (0.4%) and Indonesia (0.1%).
• Global fund remittances by migrants were $529 billion in 2012. Remittances sent by migrants to developing countries were estimated at $401 billion in 2012. According to the World Bank, the top recipients of officially recorded remittances in 2012 were India ($69 billion), China ($60 billion), the Philippines ($24 billion), and Mexico ($23 billion). Other large recipients are Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Lebanon.

 

Female Migration Inflow clusters


Male Migration Inflow clusters

Bottomline: If picture is worth a thousand words, use of Big-data to tell the story of migration can substitute for reams of reports or powerpoints!

Looking beyond the political debate on immigration and offshoring

Infosys, Wipro, TCS in a headline on offshoring visas is sure to attract attention in a highly charged immigration overhaul debate. Therefore, it is not surprising to see headlines like the recent one in Economic Times titled “TCS, Infosys and Wipro abusing H-1B visa system: Senator” The article like many recent ones starts by saying “Amidst Congressional debate on the comprehensive immigration reform, a top US Senator has accused big Indian IT companies - TCS, Infosys and Wipro - of abusing the H-1B visa system.
"There are some specific abuses of H-1B," Senator Richard Durbin, said during a Congressional hearing on immigration reform by the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, during which the lawmakers discussed threadbare the H-1B visa issues.”

The immigration debate and the proposed bill is focused on ensuring that companies that bring in people on H1 visas also hire a good percentage of local Americans (citizen, residents). Rightfully so, one might argue. The argument is that visas should be issued to hi-tech companies that generate value to American economy – Microsoft, google and the like - and also happen to be based in America, with a majority of employees being American.  (ref: NYT blog “New American Bill Threatens Indian Outsourcing Companies”)

Offshoring firms, many of which are headquartered in India (Infosys, Wipro, TCS) or incorporated in Bermuda (Accenture) try to neutralize the argument by trying local hiring and promising future growth with “onsite, proximity development centers.” Offshoring firms have been trying hard to hire and retain the few Americans (native or naturalized) whom they happen to employ. They also try and go the extra length to retain employees who gain permanent residency (green cards). Of course, the business model is skewed towards cost arbitrage that comes from serving clients with an offshore cost base, not being onsite-heavy.  (Personal note, in my past work-life, I joined and enjoyed the offshoring wave for nearly eight years with an offshoring major, despite being a US permanent resident. In a sense, I was an exception to the norm.)

Hiring local is an argument offshoring firms cannot win, leading to a lot of fuzzy math. For instance, NYT blog had to post a correction "An earlier version of this post said that Indian companies have invested $820 million in the United States to set up offices closer to their American clients. The correct figure is $5.9 billion." Rather than trying to argue on the exact investment - 820 million or $5.9 billion - there may be a better argument to be made in the TCO and value of offshoring

Outsourcing has long been a win-win proposition for corporate America. Sourcing non-core functions, including IT development and maintenance activities helps companies free up capital and resources to invest in other core activities that help in revenue generation. Offshoring extends the benefits of sourcing by leveraging a larger pool of resources across the globe, aided by seamless communication and technology. The fact is that much of Corporate America relies on cost benefits of offshoring. And while Microsoft, google and other hi-tech companies benefit from "foreign born" talent imported on H1 visas, rest of the corporate world also benefits by retaining the services of offshoring firms who need to import talent from offshore locations to service clients onsite.  The Microsofts and Googles may certainly be leading the technology innovation curve, but most other companies, large and small also leverage Information Technology to run their business. The "development and maintenance" of such IT systems requires armies of skilled technologists.

Refocusing the visa debate on the basic need from Corporate America is not as tenuous as it sounds.  However most logic is sure to get muffled in the rhetoric of political arguments.

Should CIO's worry over a visa fraud trial? Musing on Immigration, visas and Offshoring

Last week I was musing about Indian Outsourcing firms hiring "thousands" in U.S. I briefly touched on the visa angle in the post. Continuing the thread, there was an interesting blog post by, Joel Schectman on Wall Street Journal’s CIO Journal titled "Infosys Visa Fraud Trial Should Leave CIOs 'Worried'" The blog states
"The practice of improperly using business travel visas is common for outsourcers that send workers to client sites, said Phil Fersht, CEO of HfS, an outsourcing research firm. The H1B work visa–the appropriate document for longer-term onsite work–costs companies thousands of dollars per employee and the federal government has reduced their availability in recent years. "Outsourcers are trying to get staff to work an engagement as quickly as possible and they will work the system as much as possible," Fersht said."

A few days after that Phil Fersht posted a viewpoint (perhaps clarifying his quote) "Give Infosys a break" stating
"Forgive me if I am wrong, but if an India-based expert visits a US client temporarily to support a contract process or consult on getting an onsite-offshore project working, then there really ain’t too much wrong with using said visa for said purpose."

Not surprisingly, Don Tennant who has blogged extensively on the "Infosys visa issue" had a viewpoint on this "Who Will Infosys Throw Under the Bus in Visa Fraud Case?"


Besides the sensational titles, the blog posts are perhaps a case of the same old wine in new bottles.

There are new issues/risks that a CIOs have to ponder over. Sure, CIO’s or their proxies sometimes have to sign off on invitation letters - for staffers of sourcing vendors - which are attached to visa applications. And if a vendor is indeed found culpable of systematic fraud, one would have to really dig deeper to research whether the person/s signing the invitation letters did so in good faith or was equally culpable.

Bottomline: what’s new here? Such letters have been required by immigration authorities for as long as business and work visas have been in vogue. And such requirements for invitation letters and documentation is not unique to US visa applications alone. Most western governments that have stringent work-visa policies require similar support letters and documents.

(footnote: none of what is stated above is legal opinion…. Just simple common sense!)

American Missionaries and Hikers: why are Americans flouting global immigration laws?

A couple of recent incidents are making one reflect on dual-standards of globalization; one for westerners (including Americans) and another for the ‘others’ in the globe
Case A) U.S. Baptist Group in Haiti Charged With Child Abductions: Ten Americans who tried to take 33 children out of Haiti last week without proper documentation were charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy, the New York Times reports. The group, made up mostly of members of a Baptist congregation in Idaho, said they were transporting the children to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. “We did not have any intention to violate the law, but now we understand it’s a crime,” NYT quoted Paul Robert Thompson, a pastor who led the group in prayer during a break in the session.
Question to self: Sure, there is a strong humanitarian motive here. But what the heck were these Americans thinking? A third world country ravaged by natural disaster is a case study to “rescue” orphans, take them across international borders without papers, and get some brownie points from the one above?

Case B) A few months ago, the media in America was all over the story of three American hikers who were arrested in Iran after “straying” across its border with Iraq.
Again Question to self: What the heck were these American “kids” doing, “hiking” in such a volatile part of the world, especially without the right papers/visas?! Reverse the situation; what would happen to a couple of hapless Iranian “kids” who "happen to stray" into American borders while hiking in the Canadian Rockies or in Mexican-US border near Rio Grande? A very hypothecal question I guess since few Iranians will get visas to come “hiking” in Canada or Mexico. And the rare few who do will probably not be foolhardy to stray near American borders without American visas. Given this, why did it surprise the American media when “Iran Accused U.S. Hikers of Espionage”

I completely sympathize with the helpless individuals in both situations who find themselves at the receiving, finding themselves in Iranian or Haitian prisons, especially if they were innocent.

There again, if a crisis is an opportunity, here it is: Americans who have the time, energy and wherewithal to go out to the world and solve others problems could reflect on the humanitarian aspects of immigration and closed borders back home?! Just a couple examples:
• Spouses and minor children of American Legal Immigrants (Green Card holders) have to wait at least 4 -5 years before being granted an Immigrant visa to enter the US legally! Would ANY American missionary be willing to sneak in a spouse or child of a legal resident on “humanitarian” grounds?
• Workers in America living legally, paying taxes have to wait years before their Green Card applications are processed. How many missionaries are willing to stick their neck out here

Doctor heal thyself is an old adage comes to mind. But what am I saying, aren’t American Doctors and healthcare workers trying to heal the system? Well, that’s a different story in itself.

With Global Mobility of its people, Tata Consultancy to Expand Footprint in Emerging Markets

The recent article and interview with TCS’s new chief N. Chandrasekaranmade for interesting reading. [Software Exporter to Expand Footprint in Emerging Markets]

With revenues of $6 Billion, the largest Indian software services firm is certainly a global player. Mr. Chandrasekaran's comments to WSJ were measured, and to some extent upbeat. However, one question stood out. When asked, "What are the challenges to ramping up hiring in the U.S.?"
he replied:

"Mobility is an issue. If I hire someone in California, and the next project is in North Carolina, I can't really move them. If I send someone from India, they can go to California, and when that's done I'll send them to North Carolina. Also, we want to train people in our methodology. In India, we recruit people and train them. It isn't just about having the correct software coding skills..—I'm sure we could find enough skilled programmers in the U.S."

I addressed the same issue of mobility in my book (Offshoring IT Services) while examining the cultural aspects of Indian software developers and how their ability to be mobile made them attractive in the global marketplace. Mobility of people is a big factor in Globalization of businesses, but wasn’t the flattening of the world supposed to mitigate the need for mobility? I guess it is true to some extent. Case in point the H1-B visa quota for this year, annually capped at 65,000 is not yet exhausted even half-year after the gates were opened. During the last few years, the quota was exhausted in just a few days after the April deadline.

As they embark on expanding the footprint in global markets, I guess the question that. Chandrasekaran and team must be asking themselves: how to motivate their Indian employees to pack up and head to Timbuktu, Mongolia or Siberia when even H1 visas are going begging?

The Czech Republic Pays for Immigrants to Go Home: Global Immigrant backlash?

Last week there was news that Japan would pay immigrants, especially second generation Latin American immigrants to go "home." Wall Street Journal now reports that Czech Republic is following suit (The Czech Republic Pays for Immigrants to Go Home)
Questions: One wonders if this is the beginning of a global Immigrant backlash? Is this the beginning of a trend where Western countries ask Legal permanent residents and immigrants to voluntarily leave for their "home countries"? (Surely the policy makers in the Land of Immigrants - USA, Canada, Australia, UK - are watching?!)
Wonder what would happen when the tide turns and the economic climate improves: will the same governments again issue immigrant visas and one-way tickets inviting immigrants back "home"? And Speaking of Home, where is a "home" for immigrants like Trin Van Pham, the Vietnamese immigrant featured in the WSJ story who took on $11,000 in debts to get to his new home?

Other blogs on the topic:

• Economist.com: And don't come back: “Naturally, we don't want those same people back in Japan after a couple of months,” Mr. Kawasaki said. “Japanese taxpayers would ask, ‘What kind of ridiculous policy is this?’"
• Japanese Government Adopts BNP Policy: Pays Foreigners to Go Home: The Japanese government has officially adopted the British National Party’s policy of humane voluntary repatriation by offering foreigners cash grants to go home on the understanding that they never attempt to enter that country again.
• Expats return home to the UK: More than double the number of British Expats are selling up their life in the sun and returning to the UK since the impact of the economic crisis hit last year
• Japan, Czech Republic, and Spain: Foreigners, we’ll PAY you to leave
• Japan to Immigrants: Thanks, But You Can Go Home Now
• As Jobs Die, Europe’s Migrants Head Home
• Europe's Immigrants Return Home
• Spain’s Migrants Return Home
• A New Dark Age Is Dawning: "The Czech Republic Pays for Immigrants to Go Home"
• Czechs in America: Earlier this month I wrote about the Czech government's scheme to encourage foreign workers to leave the country. The Wall Street Journal ran a story about this incentive program today

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