You Down With H-1B? (No, you must NOT know me…)

re: You Down With H-1B? (No, you must NOT know me…)

Vijay — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 12:01:31 GMT

Love your funny takes on tech...landed here after reading your write-up for Office Hours. You should certainly write more...after all, the more the merrier :)

The allure of a US stint hasn't cooled in India...folks do want to get some international exposure similar to American professionals heading to India or China. But, one aspect that has changed is that many don't want to take up long term assignments abroad. With the Indian economy on the upswing and plenty of opportunity to make it big back home, most professionals are opting to take up challenges in India rather than settle down abroad and contribute to economies of other countries.

If you like computer problem cartoons, do come by http://sillygloop.spaces.live.com/

re: You Down With H-1B? (No, you must NOT know me…)

philipsu — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 10:17:38 GMT

Kevin -- I don't have specifc numbers, but I suspect Microsoft receives hundreds of thousands of resumes a year, not millions. Microsoft is hiring thousands of people this year, so a 98% "rejection rate" (depending on whether that means "never contacted the candidate" or it's loose language for a "2% acceptance/hired rate") suggests hundreds of thousands of resumes. Also, according to the NSF, about 10,000 people in the US graduated with "science & engineering" degrees in 2003. Some subset of those are computer science majors. This, with some imagination, also suggests resumes on the order of several hundred thousand (if you estimate some small percentage of resumes are for campus-hires as opposed to industry folks).

This is all back-of-the-envelope, so I could be completely wrong.

re: You Down With H-1B? (No, you must NOT know me…)

Kevin Eshbach — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 16:52:16 GMT

Just curious but how many resumes do Cisco and Microsoft receive a year? Is it in the hundred of thousands or low millions?

re: You Down With H-1B? (No, you must NOT know me…)

Stanly Johnson — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:16:16 GMT

Thats a very good article there.

I think Yogesh is kind of right.

A 32 (average age of a H1B benificiary) year old guy in india should be a TL/ PM/ Architect with 11-12 years experience. The average salary (if he is really good) will be Rs 14 lacs+. With all the tax rebates you have in india you can easily get 11.5 lacs after tax, which is ~30000 US$.

If you are staying in your home town with your own house and a car, all that will be required for a very decent living will be say 2.4 lacs, so you save a flat 9 lacs, (that is a whooping 20000 USD only in saving every year)

In US for $60000 all that you get is $40000 after tax. You have to pay your insurance, rent, food, car emi, phone bills, gifts to your relatives, etc, i dont think you can save much.

All this after you miss the comforts of traditional indian family life, great food, and the truck loads of money to spend?

hey guys i do not mean to hurt any ones feelings. Just put down my thoughts.

re: You Down With H-1B? (No, you must NOT know me…)

vivek — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 15:53:25 GMT

hi yogesh, who is paying 52000 $ in india, may be to a leader or manager which just fights to take credits of people who really does the work, even MNCs are not paying that much, and as per work programmers are coolies in india. nobody is even willing to pay more then Rs 5 lakh for 2 and 1/2 years of c++ experience, even if you are good, ya if you are not good and you can play politics you will get good money, a fortune 500 companies pay 4 lakh to 2 years experience in india are in that list, and no doubt work is not a devlopment work. ya one thing is sure politicians can get good money at indian software companies, good people will need to move to US for long term.

re: You Down With H-1B? (No, you must NOT know me…)

Yogesh Mulye — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 13:24:24 GMT

Interesting read this one. The figures all around were quite startling.

I think you will find that the lure to USA is not as it used to be in 98 and 2003. Today, best IT jobs in India pay equivalent of say $52000 in Indian rupees. Why would the best want to leave the comforts of traditionalIndian family life, great food, and the truck loads of money to spend?

I'd say majority of the current crop of H1Bs are really going to be your average Joe programmers who may not make in big in any Indian IT companies.