At least one company I worked at purposefully crafted these job descriptions so that no one would be qualified. They'd find the most obscure parts of our tech stack, require hands on experience with each library, knowledge of our niche, and so on.
You basically had to be already working for us to have the required experience.
aaronbaugher · 20m ago
It's hard for me to believe that anyone working in a tech industry hasn't seen this kind of thing happening or heard managers/owners talking about gaming the system. When people say they've never heard of it or don't think it happens, I wonder if they're incredibly naive or being evasive.
rkomorn · 11m ago
In many places it's talked about only by immigration lawyers and people who must be involved.
If you're not very active in recruiting (especially at a sizeable company), it's not hard to be outside of the circles where those conversations are happening.
lispisok · 17m ago
I witnessed employers doing that to get people greencards too. Claim the exact combination of their stack plus experience in the domain is a requirement. Only way to meet that is to have been working the job.
fakedang · 8m ago
It's the same with most job adverts in the UK, written to satisfy the 3 week listing requirement before the job can be offered to a foreign national.
bruceb · 46m ago
Selecting Other, some interesting jobs description including:
https://www.jobs.now/jobs/153205684-senior-director-enrollme...
Must have masters in Project Management, IT, Business Administration (pretty broad). Also have 4 years experience in enrollment management systems & operations in higher education setting.
Probably a decent number Americans who could qualify for this.
toomuchtodo · 27m ago
For the job requiring Russian, that requirement is likely because the owner or hiring manager speaks Russian (the name where to send resumes to is Russian). Should that be a legitimate requirement to allow a visa for someone to work in the US? I cannot speak to that.
The H1B system is just so terrible for everyone involved. No job posting requirement for H1B but you have to post the job when someone applies for a green card a decade later?
pelagicAustral · 22m ago
I think the true selection comes with the requirements. I my country, employers are circumventing the same local-first rule by coming up with the craziest Rube Goldberg requirement contraptions so they hire whoever they want anyway...
danesparza · 1h ago
I searched for 'go' (expecting there to be too many results -- I usually have to specify 'golang').
As a simple comparison, doing a quick job search for 'golang' on dice.com yields 5k+ jobs. Tell me why I'm going to use jobs.now again?
smnrchrds · 57m ago
The only effect of applying to jobs on jobs.now is that someone who is already working in the US on H1-B, and was gonna get green card if you hadn't applied, would instead stay on H1-B.
missedthecue · 21m ago
Another thing is that the company must respond to your application within 30 days. Unlike Indeed or Linkedin applications which simply disappear into a void.
philwelch · 49m ago
H1-B visas eventually expire. I think it’s technically a guest worker visa, so the expectation is that the visa holder will go back to their home country after working in the US a few years.
jrockway · 27m ago
H1-B is an immigrant intent (actually dual intent) visa. I know a lot of Canadians that started working in the US on a TN visa, which doesn't let you ever become a permanent resident. They had to do all the paperwork (and win the lottery) to convert to H1-B status so they could begin the process of getting permanent residency.
rayiner · 19m ago
To be clear, H1B is not an immigrant intent visa. It’s a non-immigrant visa. “Dual intent” is like Schrödinger's intent. It allows someone who is on a non-immigrant visa to avoid the presumption of immigrant intent that would otherwise apply—rendering them deportable—when they apply for a green card.
The statutory protection for H1Bs is thin. In 1990, Congress excluded H1B from the requirement applicable to other non-immigrants that they retain a foreign residence, and from the rebuttal presumption that someone who applies for a green card has immigrant intent. That’s it. The common operation of H1B as being an immigrant-intent visa is mostly a matter of administrative grace.
smnrchrds · 37m ago
H1-Bs are indefinitely renewable as long as you keep your job.
mavelikara · 32m ago
No. They are indefinitely renewable only if a GC application is pending. Otherwise, they expire after two terms i.e. six years.
ivape · 1h ago
Yeah, well, won't matter. Those H-1B jobs are full on Java with the most vile old school stacks you can imagine.
Edit:
I'm mostly saying it because everyone now days thinks every tech job is some html and javascript and anyone can pick it up. Doesn't matter how smart you are, one does not simply walk into a h1b Java role. You have to be born in the darkness, molded by it.
danesparza · 1h ago
There is a single job posting on jobs.now for Java. Posted 3 weeks ago.
I don't think this is succeeding even as a jobs site.
ohreallx · 1h ago
Ah yes, the kind of job you can do 9x5 for decades without pressure to use your own time to make sure you are really staying up to date with the fads for your job next year while trying to deliver something stable enough to make it to your last day..
danesparza · 1h ago
So the narrative of this site is that they think recruiters are doing a poor job of spamming me with positions that nobody wants?
I mean, hiring is down -- but I still get those spam messages.
(And spoiler alert: I still don't want those positions)
missedthecue · 32m ago
No, the ELI5 is that the companies are posting jobs in a way that makes it very inconvenient to find online or apply for them, to ensure it goes to the H1B visa holder and not to an American national. (actually it's less about filling the job itself and more about the PERM greencard process, but that's not super relevant to the explanation.)
By law, these companies must prove the job cannot be filled by an American in order to hire the visa worker. One way to 'ensure' this is to only advertise jobs in newspapers or in radio advertisements, or in unlinked and unindexed webpages. That way, the American never knows the job exists, and the company can prove on paper to the Department of Labor that they tried to hire an American but couldn't find one. The InstaCart job posting for example requires resumes to mailed in through the postal service to their immigration department.
The goal of the project is to aggregate these jobs in a place that Americans can find and apply for them. An additional thing to note is that the company MUST respond to the US applicant within 30 days, or the applicant can file an official complaint with the government.
You basically had to be already working for us to have the required experience.
If you're not very active in recruiting (especially at a sizeable company), it's not hard to be outside of the circles where those conversations are happening.
https://www.jobs.now/jobs/151415137-hotel-renovation-special... Must be fluent in Russian. Do you really need to have this to do the job?
https://www.jobs.now/jobs/153205684-senior-director-enrollme... Must have masters in Project Management, IT, Business Administration (pretty broad). Also have 4 years experience in enrollment management systems & operations in higher education setting.
Probably a decent number Americans who could qualify for this.
Relevant comment by lgleason at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44880832
I got a single result. For an auto technician.
For Ferraris.
(not kidding: https://www.jobs.now/jobs/150823097-ferrari-classic-master-t...)
Oh, the irony.
As a simple comparison, doing a quick job search for 'golang' on dice.com yields 5k+ jobs. Tell me why I'm going to use jobs.now again?
The statutory protection for H1Bs is thin. In 1990, Congress excluded H1B from the requirement applicable to other non-immigrants that they retain a foreign residence, and from the rebuttal presumption that someone who applies for a green card has immigrant intent. That’s it. The common operation of H1B as being an immigrant-intent visa is mostly a matter of administrative grace.
Edit:
I'm mostly saying it because everyone now days thinks every tech job is some html and javascript and anyone can pick it up. Doesn't matter how smart you are, one does not simply walk into a h1b Java role. You have to be born in the darkness, molded by it.
I don't think this is succeeding even as a jobs site.
I mean, hiring is down -- but I still get those spam messages.
(And spoiler alert: I still don't want those positions)
By law, these companies must prove the job cannot be filled by an American in order to hire the visa worker. One way to 'ensure' this is to only advertise jobs in newspapers or in radio advertisements, or in unlinked and unindexed webpages. That way, the American never knows the job exists, and the company can prove on paper to the Department of Labor that they tried to hire an American but couldn't find one. The InstaCart job posting for example requires resumes to mailed in through the postal service to their immigration department.
The goal of the project is to aggregate these jobs in a place that Americans can find and apply for them. An additional thing to note is that the company MUST respond to the US applicant within 30 days, or the applicant can file an official complaint with the government.