[HN Gopher] Job Listing Site Highlighting H-1B Positions So Amer...
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Job Listing Site Highlighting H-1B Positions So Americans Can Apply
Author : walterbell
Score : 95 points
Date : 2025-08-13 18:52 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newsweek.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newsweek.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.jobs.now/
|
| Relevant comment by lgleason at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44880832
| rayiner wrote:
| 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?
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| Agreed that H1B should have better job posting requirements,
| but this pre-green card check seems like a great mechanism to
| ensure we're not long-term giving jobs to non-US Nationals
| ivape wrote:
| 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.
| ohreallx wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| danesparza wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I actually saw one of these newspaper advertisements in New
| Orleans for a New Orleans based company (that had been
| recently acquired by a big multinational), and attempted to
| apply. I'm sure they must've been incredibly shocked to have
| a local applicant to reject.
| bubblethink wrote:
| >but that's not super relevant to the explanation
|
| It is entirely relevant to the explanation. PERM and H1B are
| entirely different processes handled by different departments
| of the government.
|
| >One way to 'ensure' this is to only advertise jobs in
| newspapers or in radio advertisements
|
| That's not some nefarious plot. The government (Dept. of
| Labor) requires them to post these ads in newspapers. If the
| government didn't, they wouldn't post these asinine ads.
|
| >That way, the American never knows the job exists
|
| The job does not exist for all practical purposes because
| there is already someone working in that job. Perhaps your
| goal is to affect some change so that more Americans get
| these jobs. This is not the vector of attack though. You want
| to focus on the root of the problem, namely that corporations
| are able to hire people at will in the first place. Once
| they've hired someone, applying to same job is not going to
| make them fire that person and hire you instead. You want to
| take the agency away from corporations at inception, so that
| you can be hired.
| danesparza wrote:
| I searched for 'go' (expecting there to be too many results -- I
| usually have to specify 'golang').
|
| 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?
| smnrchrds wrote:
| 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.
| philwelch wrote:
| 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.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| H1-Bs are indefinitely renewable as long as you keep your
| job.
| mavelikara wrote:
| No. They are indefinitely renewable only if a GC
| application is pending. Otherwise, they expire after two
| terms i.e. six years.
| jltsiren wrote:
| It's six years in total, excluding time spent outside the
| US. The status is valid for at most three calendar years,
| but it can be shorter for fixed-term positions. And you
| can renew it as long as your total time in the US is less
| than 6 years.
|
| I was on H-1B at a university where researcher
| appointments were nominally from July of year N to June
| of year N+2. But if you didn't start in July, your second
| appointment might be only 1 year, for some bureaucratic
| reasons. And you had to renew the H-1B for each
| appointment. I had five H-1Bs in total over ~7 years.
| jrockway wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| To be clear, H1B is not an immigrant intent visa. It's a
| non-immigrant visa. "Dual intent" is like Schrodinger'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.
| missedthecue wrote:
| 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.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| Okay but the 2nd order effect of doing this is that we're not
| permanently bringing in competitors for US jobs
| bruceb wrote:
| Selecting Other, some interesting jobs description including:
|
| 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.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| 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.
| orochimaaru wrote:
| It should not. But there is no one vetting the validity of
| the requirements.
| lovich wrote:
| Should it not be? If the criteria is there solely to make
| sure only his countrymen can get jobs and get to the US
| then I agree it's wrong. However if they were willing to
| hire anyone who spoke Russian regardless of origin then I
| think the question becomes
|
| "Are people/companies allowed to hire for niche skill sets
| that fit their specific needs, when it de facto bars 99% of
| citizens from getting the job?"
| roflchoppa wrote:
| I came into the thread to talk about the Russian one, is there
| any proof that Russian is actually required for the job, or is
| this a filtering mechanism that they can put in place in order
| to target the job listing to a specific person?
| avidiax wrote:
| > is there any proof that Russian is actually required for
| the job
|
| I suppose I could imagine a construction foreman job that
| requires Spanish, for the reason that you will be interacting
| with Mexican labor that doesn't speak English.
|
| But I doubt that Russian-speaking interior fitters in Lynwood
| don't speak any English.
| healsdata wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| shaftway wrote:
| This happens at a much smaller level too. We knew an au
| pair that the host family particularly liked, and wanted
| her long term. A typical au pair contract is for 1 year,
| maximum is 2. They worked with an immigration attorney to
| craft a "job" that she was uniquely qualified for, went
| through the whole dance, and got her into the system. She
| stayed with them for the next 10 years. They covered room
| and board, but she worked for free otherwise; getting her
| in the door and on the way to citizenship was her "pay".
| lispisok wrote:
| 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.
| Schnitz wrote:
| This is referred to as tayloring and it is not allowed.
| Furthermore you have to have the experience for the job from
| before you started working for the sponsoring employer, so
| tayloring can only target your prior experience, not what you
| learn on the job.
| fakedang wrote:
| 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.
| aiauthoritydev wrote:
| The law itself is pretty idiotic. Why would an employer give up
| a well accustomed well proven candidate for the sake of some
| random guy, waste money to recruitment and cross fingers that
| the employee would actually join and perform ?
|
| It is like giving up a lottery ticket you have won for another
| lottery ticket.
|
| Also, the law mandates certain compliance steps which the
| employers do. There is no expectation that they should actually
| hire someone else unless the compliance steps are violated. So
| everything is working exactly as intended.
|
| This PERM process and law has harmed countless american
| citizens and employers both. Citizens end up applying for jobs
| they are not going to get and HR wastes time on resources over
| candidates they are not going to hire.
|
| A better solution would be to hand a greencard to any immigrant
| who has worked for 5 years and has earned a certain high salary
| as proven by the W2.
|
| This whole circus can be gotten rid off if you ask me.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| >A better solution would be to hand a greencard to any
| immigrant who has worked for 5 years and has earned a certain
| high salary as proven by the W2.
|
| Huge non-sequitur. Why is this better? Better for whom?
| gboss wrote:
| Better for everyone because the talented H1B employee is no
| longer shackled to their employer and can leave demanding a
| higher wage and raising wages for everyone.
| georgemcbay wrote:
| Well you just answered why they don't/won't do this.
|
| The H1B employees being shackled and thus having little
| to no leverage to demand higher compensation or better
| working conditions is (from the point of view of the
| companies abusing the system) a feature of the system,
| not a bug.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| > can leave demanding a higher wage and raising wages for
| everyone.
|
| This is simply not believable. More competition for a
| limited resource (jobs) means lower wages, not higher
| wages.
| gboss wrote:
| I guess you're proposing eliminating the h1b program to
| raise wages. That would maybe work but our companies
| would theoretically be less competitive globally. If
| we're going to allow immigration based on professional
| skills then these people should be fast tracked to having
| the same employment rights as natives otherwise it
| creates a subclass of workers that depress wages because
| those that belong to that group will be too risk adverse
| to ask for more money knowing that they'll likely have to
| leave the country if they get let go.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| As someone who used to work in contract recruiting, hiring
| requirements that made absolutely no sense and were fishing for
| H1-B eligibility were common. I'm still adamant about the idea
| that an H1 should be paid at least 120% of the average salary
| for the position at the hiring company. If it's THAT hard to
| hire an American, then clearly you should need to pay more for
| such rare expertise.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Trump is at least taking a step in the right direction by
| changing the H1-B lottery system to favor more highly paid
| and skilled candidates, but as you say to remove the current
| rampant abuse it should be made mandatory to pay more than
| the market rate for the position.
|
| Personally I'd just scrap the H1-B program altogether, and
| let the free market sort it out. H1-B is almost as bad as
| simply exporting jobs via outsourcing. Laws should be made to
| benefit US citizens, not US companies and shareholders.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| H1B is worse than exporting jobs via outsourcing. With
| outsourcing we are only competing with other countries for
| jobs, but with H1B we get to compete with other countries
| for housing (in our own towns) too.
| viktorcode wrote:
| The companies do that because they already had an applicant
| from abroad for this role they accepted. And now they must wait
| out the period for job posting to be live before inviting the
| applicant.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| The companies are just trying to work with the flawed system
| that is place. Even if a role is in shortage, it's impossible
| for a company by itself to prove that there is a shortage. If
| in the total market, there are 10000 jobs for "position X" and
| there are 8000 total US citizens that qualify for that role, if
| you are a company that has an H1B for the other 2000 positions,
| there is no way you can prove there is a shortage. The system
| requires you to put out an advertisement and prove there are no
| US citizens. The minute you put out a generic requirement, at
| least the few people from the pool of 8000 will apply even if
| they are employed in the same role because... drum
| role...people switch jobs. So even if overall there is a
| shortage for a specific position, there is no way an individual
| company can prove it when they are required to actively recruit
| for the position.
|
| The system is flawed and it forces immigrants and companies to
| work with the rules that are set. And people who don't fully
| understand the system are angry about it.
| avidiax wrote:
| You have a good point that it's very hard to define a
| shortage by lack of applications, when there is always a
| certain amount of churn.
|
| It would be much better to simply define this as an economic
| test:
|
| 1) Are the prevailing wages for a position rising faster than
| inflation?
|
| 2) Is unemployment in the position both low and remaining
| flat?
|
| Seems hard to claim a shortage if either of those is false,
| and there is little gaming to be done for simple government
| reported labor statistics, recent news notwithstanding.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| The funny thing is that prevailing wage determination is
| also done as part of the process and if your wages are
| lower than median, your application has a higher risk or
| audit and/or rejection. No reason why you can't update the
| process to be more data driven, they already have all the
| information they need.
| lgleason wrote:
| If this was to be implemented, you would see a large
| lobbying effort by the tech companies around how
| unemployment is calculated and these numbers would end up
| being under-reported to keep the supply of cheap labor
| coming in.
|
| You will also start to see people with ties to big tech
| being hired to actually compile the data.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| At least when I went through the process the reqs had to be
| crafted such that applying h-1b employee needed to possess them
| _before_ the current gig so unless that has changed in the last
| 15y I call bullshit on your claim.
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| 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...
| 1024core wrote:
| The "best" part about H1-B (from a company's viewpoint) is that
| it's very difficult to switch jobs if you're on an H1-B. So you
| basically become an indentured servant, always afraid Da Bossman
| will fire you and you'll have 30 days to get out of the country.
| There's no way they can pull such shit on American workers.
| Ocha wrote:
| that's not true - it's pretty easy to switch. Your application
| does not count against new quota - employer just needs to pay a
| lawyer to file paperwork and done. Been there, done that.
| orochimaaru wrote:
| It's not easy to switch. I've been on this more than a decade
| ago and if you're laid off or leave you have 60 days to find
| something new.
|
| Any job you take you need your new employer to be able to
| undertake the effort for H1B renewals and the inevitable
| green card application. There's big companies that do it and
| smaller ones that will absolutely refuse to.
|
| Either way an H1B prefers to stick around until the green
| card is done. They will not willingly prior to that unless
| they see a much better offer.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| It was probably closer to truth 20 years ago just for lack
| of experience among lawyers and hr but today h-1b transfer
| is not hard at all.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| The point is not that the transfer is difficult, the
| point is that finding a suitable new job in the
| designated time period has a difficulty you can't
| predict.
| lovich wrote:
| I have run across multiple job postings stating that they
| would not accept applicants needing company support on visas
| so at a bare minimum they are cut off from that portion of
| the economy and have a harder time than Americans would
| dilyevsky wrote:
| That is absolutely not the case today. Also in the spirit of hn
| pedantism it's H-1B not "H1-B"
| y-curious wrote:
| Cool, a job board site where you're guaranteed to be rejected
| because they are only posting the job to hire an H1B. Is there
| any legal mechanism in place by which this jams up the company
| posting these? I don't think so. They'll just say you aren't
| qualified and move on
| avidiax wrote:
| Just tell them you are qualified.
|
| Now they have to interview you to determine that you are not.
|
| Ultimately, this is something that the government should be
| monitoring. It's a legal farce that the system depends on U.S.
| citizens diligently applying for jobs that both sides know will
| never result in a job placement.
| fundad wrote:
| I can't figure out how they know the job is related to the PERM
| program. I looked at a job posting and didn't see an indication,
| does Jobs.now read from filings with USCIS or DOL?
| avidiax wrote:
| These jobs are being posted in places that no normal job
| applicant would look.
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