Friday, March 28, 2008

H1B the story less told

My dear Indian friends, Boys and Girls...

IT professionals, May be from TCS, Wipro, HCL and other small big It companies all (99%) have a dream of coming to this $$$ land. Where there a lot of money and glamor.

When I used to saw Hollywood movies, i thought girls is USA are wow .. I can ask any girl to go out. Dating was just a smile away. However, I am still not contradicting my belief since its not much time spent here in USA.

Well, let me come to the mail purpose of this posting: The hidden things about H1B if you are being hired by a consultant. The things that you are not aware and find yourself in a complete alien world.

Here is the flash back till you come to a port of entry in USA.

1. You receive an email from some company saying that " Re you ready to come to the woder land USA for H1B ?"

2. You reply to it, attaching your resume and reading all the stuff in the mail.
Some consultants ask for some security money, some will file your H1B for free and also promise to give you a free ticket to and fro once a year. Some will give you USD 500 per month for grocery, others will say " We will take care of your boarding and lounging".

3. You are shortlisted "WOW", you get an interview. You crack it, you are offered somewhere between USD 55,000 to USD 70,000. And you are flying high in the sky. You just make a rough calculation 60,000 X 38 = INR 22,80,000. and you jaw falls.

4. Then you make some inquiry to the status of this consultancy, by visiting web sites, taking in forums, calling friends who are already in the USA. And hopefully you find it good.

5. You deposit the security money and the papers (mark sheets, degree certificates, current company offer letter, previous company re-leaving letter, etc) in their local Office.

6. And now you relax, until May-June. Because in this month you will hear if you have been selected in the lottery or not.

7. You guessed it right, You name has been selected. congrats!!! You get a I-797.

8. Between the month of Oct and March, your employer (consultant) will ask you to come down to USA.

So now you have to prepare for VISA interview.

9. You deposit the fee at the HDFC bank for USD 125 (previously USD 100). Book a date.

10. Before few days, you will be giving more mock interviews and the consultant will be telling you to give this answer or that question. Making you cram the address of the place where you will be working, place of residence, revenue of the company etc.

11. Date has come, VISA interview given, STAMPED.
You see the stamp more closely and shout at the top of your voice "Amerika I am coming."

You do shopping, preparing list of things to carry, pack up your things, buy tickets and now you are in USA.



Now, comes the story that I really want to tell you guys.
before this just bear in the mind that its my 22nd day in USA. and I am writing what all I have seen till date. However, what now i am going to tell is 100% truth and this will remain true.

The free boarding and lodging is actually that the company will provide you with the house and grocery and you will have to cook !!! Ha ha poor you.

Ans here comes the best part, you thou that you will land in USA, get SSN and start working @ some client location or the consultant place. You are WRONG.

1. You will make FAKE resume, saying that for the past 6-8 you are working in USA, working at different clients location right from CA to TX to Fl. So you have to decorate your resume with all the things like FAKE Project name, Correct Client Name (but you never worked for him), Incorrect Month and Year.

And your resume start marketing.

2. Client is still far. The first step is that your resume will be forwarded to vendors (Yes, this is a new term). Vendors are actually a bridge between you and the client. The vendor who are 99% non-technical will just ask you :
a. Are you available?
b. Are you familiar with VB.NET and visual Basic.NET too ? (Remember i told you they are not that technical sound).
c. Have you worked on SQL Sever?
bla bla bla...

To which you have to ans Yes, Yes, Yes happily. In you don't then it will not be sent to the client.

3. Client might pick your resume if he finds those keywords in your resume. By the way, keywords = main points in your job responsibilities like ASP.NET, C#, VB.NET, Oracle 10g etc.

the client informs the vendor that he liked you resume, ask the candidate for some suitable time/date for interview.

4 The vendor calls you and the date/time is fixed.

You will get call. Hoping that you have done good. You will sign a contact letter. And you are off to the First client's location.

Congrates, the billing has started and NOT you will receive you first salary stub.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Vishnu Agrawal said...

If you know nothing about technology/people skills/wordly skills and want to get a job in 1 week. Then ALAS. The dream land is not for you. I am here for more than 6 years and 2 years back I went to india for good. But after sometime wanted to comeback so processed my H1b with (according to you bad) consulting company. The day I landed here and my resume was floated in the market, there were 18 calls in a day. And in 3 days I had a project with a World Fortune 10 client and its been 2.5 years I am still working with them. Also I am very near to my GC with my consulting company (which according to you is bad).

So bottomline, if you think you know technology, jobs will be coming to you and you dont have to go after them.

But if you are from a 3rd grade college who just want to come to dreamland because you could not achieve anything in own country, then dreamland is not for you. Dreamland is for the best and brightest.

Hitesh said...

Vishnu

I know this is very late to post any comment.
The only difference i can figure out is that you landed when there was no recession devil in US :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Vishnu

Man u were really lucky, if u got 18 calls in a day and got project in a week.

Well, this is not the story with most of the guys like me.

I know atleast 5-10 guys with my company having almost the same story.