The Deception Under Opt Visa - Linkedin Post

[solman]

I was reading through the Gressley Durbin bill. It addresses the issues of lost jobs to US workers, to the legal immigrants on H1 and L1 Visas and the need to make changes.

There is a huge population of technology consultants out here in the US under the OPT category (the optional Practical training). These consultants finish their degree in their home country, have couple of years of experience and most of them none at all, come here to the US to do their Masters. Once they complete the Masters – they get their OPT Visa that allow them to work full time with the STEM extension for 17 months. The purpose of this is to get the necessary training for their career.

As part of an IT staffing company and in the industry for almost 9 years, I have and am witnessing the gross misuse of this opportunity provided for the OPT Visa. This is how the trend is; There are several companies who just live off the OPT students. They find them, train them in various skills that are in high demand in the market. The latest being big data, Hadoop and mobile development. The courses run for a period of 4 - 6 weeks, mostly online and the the trainers are offshore. Many companies don’t charge for the training but hope to make up for the training cost when they find a job for the OPT resource. Many companies rent a two bedroom apartment, where these students can stay free of charge. This way they have control on them and it is an insurance for the companies, that the students don’t vanish after they get the training. Ok, till this, it’s legal, straightforward and a good model of business in a thriving IT industry.

Then comes the deception. After the training, the OPT students have some basic understanding and knowledge of the skill in which they are trained. But the market is different. Not many companies want to hire freshers’.  They look for experienced hands-on people who can come in and finish the job within the time line. So the art of resume fixing kicks in. A fresh out of college student with 6 weeks'of training gets his resume fixed by the companies. Projects, companies they worked in, the skills and the kicker !- the number of years of experience are all stretched beyond recognition. The final product is a perfect looking resume with a minimum of 6 - 7 years’ experience with all the right skills that the market demands. This resume is of the guy who can barely answer the most basic question in the skill he claims to be an expert with many years of hands on experience. It doesn’t stop there, now that the resume is ready the lies are further strengthened by having the names ready for reference checks if it comes to that. The references are also in cahoots. 

Next stage is the interview. How does someone attend an interview confidently when he/ she claims to have 7 years’ when actually it is just 6 weeks’ of training material - he/she doesn’t? The candidate or the company hires someone to proxy interviews. They have become so creative that proxies are done even with video interviews. One might think how is it even possible? As I said they are getting more and more cleverer.

With all the deception they finally land the job depriving a well deserving guy of the opportunity. When they go to the work spot, they have the full support of the company that markets them. They get online assistance to work on the project for 3 to 4 months. Coding, bug fixing all done remote. They just have to pretend to work and know how to manage. Most of the times they get away with it, sometimes they get kicked out due to non-performance. They don’t care, they just move on the next job.

IT staffing companies like ours that depend on resources in the market to make placements with the clients for their needs gets hit badly. Our reputation is ruined, we lose clients, credibility and business. We have learnt the hard way and have made our internal screening process stronger and with more scrutiny. But we are losing to other companies which actually don’t do it, take the risk, place these OPT students. It’s a vicious cycle.

I don’t think the US government is even aware of this. The election year talks so much about the immigration policies and H1 restrictions and so on. But the poison spreading in the industry is happening right under their noses. There is no law, no penalty and people are doing it since there are no repercussions. Every year loads and loads of these people are coming to the country.

The government and law makers have to wake up  to the fact that these deceiving students and companies are depriving students who are born here and spend thousands of dollars to get their degree and hoping to make a good life for themselves.

Just to clarify, I am not implying that all OPT students do this. But most of them do, especially from India (which I am ashamed to say, since I come from that country).

The law makers should take a closer look at this, bring in strict laws, and impose heavy penalties for the companies that do this. If the student gets caught they should have laws that will prevent them from applying for H1.

With a heavily compromised moral compass these companies will spew out fake candidates’ with fake resumes into the market mucking the entire industry. If something is not done and done immediately, this epidemic will continue its onslaught. I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. It looks pretty dark to me!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/deception-under-opt-visa-prathiba-kalyan?trk=hp-feed-article-title-like

 

 

[mastercheif]

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[GunturGongura]

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Chary Chary ROLF, I can understand ur jealous feeling over legends. If ur father was no there, you wouldn't be here to comment on legends. We are all waiting for ur low class labour speeck on special status of andhra lol you moron ... chary chary pappuchary

[TechAdvice]

Repost bro.. Some one already posted link for this one on afdb

I was reading through the Gressley Durbin bill. It addresses the issues of lost jobs to US workers, to the legal immigrants on H1 and L1 Visas and the need to make changes.
There is a huge population of technology consultants out here in the US under the OPT category (the optional Practical training). These consultants finish their degree in their home country, have couple of years of experience and most of them none at all, come here to the US to do their Masters. Once they complete the Masters – they get their OPT Visa that allow them to work full time with the STEM extension for 17 months. The purpose of this is to get the necessary training for their career.
As part of an IT staffing company and in the industry for almost 9 years, I have and am witnessing the gross misuse of this opportunity provided for the OPT Visa. This is how the trend is; There are several companies who just live off the OPT students. They find them, train them in various skills that are in high demand in the market. The latest being big data, Hadoop and mobile development. The courses run for a period of 4 - 6 weeks, mostly online and the the trainers are offshore. Many companies don’t charge for the training but hope to make up for the training cost when they find a job for the OPT resource. Many companies rent a two bedroom apartment, where these students can stay free of charge. This way they have control on them and it is an insurance for the companies, that the students don’t vanish after they get the training. Ok, till this, it’s legal, straightforward and a good model of business in a thriving IT industry.
Then comes the deception. After the training, the OPT students have some basic understanding and knowledge of the skill in which they are trained. But the market is different. Not many companies want to hire freshers’. They look for experienced hands-on people who can come in and finish the job within the time line. So the art of resume fixing kicks in. A fresh out of college student with 6 weeks'of training gets his resume fixed by the companies. Projects, companies they worked in, the skills and the kicker !- the number of years of experience are all stretched beyond recognition. The final product is a perfect looking resume with a minimum of 6 - 7 years’ experience with all the right skills that the market demands. This resume is of the guy who can barely answer the most basic question in the skill he claims to be an expert with many years of hands on experience. It doesn’t stop there, now that the resume is ready the lies are further strengthened by having the names ready for reference checks if it comes to that. The references are also in cahoots.
Next stage is the interview. How does someone attend an interview confidently when he/ she claims to have 7 years’ when actually it is just 6 weeks’ of training material - he/she doesn’t? The candidate or the company hires someone to ***** interviews. They have become so creative that proxies are done even with video interviews. One might think how is it even possible? As I said they are getting more and more cleverer.
With all the deception they finally land the job depriving a well deserving guy of the opportunity. When they go to the work spot, they have the full support of the company that markets them. They get online assistance to work on the project for 3 to 4 months. Coding, bug fixing all done remote. They just have to pretend to work and know how to manage. Most of the times they get away with it, sometimes they get kicked out due to non-performance. They don’t care, they just move on the next job.
IT staffing companies like ours that depend on resources in the market to make placements with the clients for their needs gets hit badly. Our reputation is ruined, we lose clients, credibility and business. We have learnt the hard way and have made our internal screening process stronger and with more scrutiny. But we are losing to other companies which actually don’t do it, take the risk, place these OPT students. It’s a vicious cycle.
I don’t think the US government is even aware of this. The election year talks so much about the immigration policies and H1 restrictions and so on. But the poison spreading in the industry is happening right under their noses. There is no law, no penalty and people are doing it since there are no repercussions. Every year loads and loads of these people are coming to the country.
The government and law makers have to wake up to the fact that these deceiving students and companies are depriving students who are born here and spend thousands of dollars to get their degree and hoping to make a good life for themselves.
Just to clarify, I am not implying that all OPT students do this. But most of them do, especially from India (which I am ashamed to say, since I come from that country).
The law makers should take a closer look at this, bring in strict laws, and impose heavy penalties for the companies that do this. If the student gets caught they should have laws that will prevent them from applying for H1.
With a heavily compromised moral compass these companies will spew out fake candidates’ with fake resumes into the market mucking the entire industry. If something is not done and done immediately, this epidemic will continue its onslaught. I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. It looks pretty dark to me!
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/deception-under-opt-visa-prathiba-kalyan?trk=hp-feed-article-title-like

[perugu_vada]

Ento veella edupu ;)