How some Desi HR consultants harm Indian techies
By Bala Shah

The US had set up the H-1B visa program to hire on a short term basis highly skilled workers not available in America. While most Indian tech firms win contracts based on their quality computing skills and competitive costs and treat their H1B techies well, there are others which exploit Indians at every opportunity.

This misuse by some Indian body shops of the H1B Visas not only harms Americans, but it has a negative affect on skilled Indian techies as well.

A number of respected Indian techies have blogged about their exploitation by fellow Indians.  In Nov, 2009 Techgoss had reported on how an Indian techie had blogged at Shilpadesh about her bad experiences with some of these body shops. Quite mysteriously, this blog post has now disappeared.  But not before Techgoss had got a copy of what was written.

Another Indian blog sonyvellayani.com had given their first hand experience

“
I fully know that there are a lot of good desi consultants out there. But recently so many have mushroomed that they are just looking out for a “living human body” so that they can file H1B on his/her behalf. Only thing that human body should have is that he should be able to give them around $4000. Rest will be taken care by the consultant. The desi consultant would make a fake resume with tons of experience loaded into it in which you won’t even know a word other than your own name and fool the immigration system in US and file for your H1B visa.

If a desi consultant calls you or you call a desi consultant, within the first 5 minutes he will ask you this question “How old are you?” Why? The older you are the more experience they can show in the fake resume they prepare. My wife is 25 years old and many desi consultants are ready to hire her. When we told them that she doesn’t have any experience in the IT field this is what one of the consultant told us ”Any year you lived after the age of 18 can be converted to relevant experience by making a fake resume. So to apply for H1B you need to be only 23 years. Any one above 23 years can easily get a H1B visa”. For those consultants no educational qualification would matter other than your age.

What is the net result of all these fraud practices by desi consultants? The genuine talented people who deserve to get H1B visa suffer.

Desi consultants are insulting the system. They should be made to obey the law of the land. Let us spread the word among our friends, relatives and others we know about the evil practices of those consultants so that they won’t get any more “living human bodies”. Let us expose them.

“If we don’t act now this menace called desi consultants will grow into a big mafia powerful enough to suck the blood of genuine employment seekers in the US”
“

(Techgoss had published the following on Nov 10, 2009)

Indian blog pulls HR post
By Bala Shah

The US had set up the H-1B visa program to hire on a short term basis highly skilled workers not available in America.  The ground reality is that some tech firms have used every loophole in the H-1B system to bring in low cost workers.  The ongoing misuse of the visas is an open secret.  A few Americans had started anti H1B and anti Indian sites.  The most caustic (with a tinge of humour) anti-Indian and anti-H1B site is ITGrunt.  ITGrunt was even interviewed by international magazine Businessweek.

ITGrunt has a huge network of fans, sources and admirers who sent him facts and figures to feed his anti H1B and anti Indian blog posts.  Now ITGrunt has got hold of a blog post by an Indian techie Shilpa in America who blogs at shilpadesh.wordpress.com.

The Indian techie Shilpa had written about how some Indian (desi) HR consultants in USA try to rort the system.  Shilpa has removed the blog post but not before ITGrunt copied and published it on his own website.  Shilpa’s views would be an eye opener to many Indians who think we are winning huge contracts in USA based purely on our merit and cost competitiveness. Her blog post (which no longer exists on her site) reads as follows

“
When I had graduated from my grad school and was looking for jobs I would get calls from desi(Indian) ‘consultants’ who would call and tell me they found my number from monster or some other jobs portal. That made sense because I had my resumes floating all over the place. Having a masters’s degree and no job was something that did not sit very well with me and I took to finding a job like a fulltime job in itself! Most(all) of these ‘consultants’ would tell me to go to New Jersey to join them, and then get ‘trained’ in data warehousing/database management/.NET ASP/whatever is hot. The first time I heard this I was intrigued. I naively asked him if they would get me a job after the training and he said yes. I said wow that sounds great but if I really have not much background in these technologies and if I just get trained, which company would be willing to hire me?  He said you would have to modify the contents of your resume to highlight these skills. I said, but what if I have no skills? At this point what the person on the other end told me made me find a seat and sit down and gasp! We will help you buffer your resume with experience on these technologies from companies where we have contacts already, who will be willing to back up your claims! He said the market is such that you will have to ’show’ that you have 7-8 years’ experience(to get hired) and that entails that you remove your masters degree from the resume and bump up your age a few years. All this for a job and a few extra dollars? I told him no thanks but I will find a job with my ‘real’ resume. He tried to persuade me by saying that in this market there is no way I will find a job with my skills and experience level, and that everyone does this. He also told me doing this will ensure that I will enter the market at a higher salary level than what I would otherwise. I calmly said thanks and disconnected the call. After this I received numerous calls and the first question I asked each one of the callers was would you ask me to buffer my resume, and every single one of them would start stuttering, hamming and then say yeah you will have to do that market, rate, job, experience, technology blah blah blah. I would promptly cut the call. This I did for 3 months before I found a job with my ‘real’ resume. This was my first tryst with things Indians in the US do to earn more money.

shilpadesh.wordpress.com
“

(Techgoss had published the following on Oct 28, 2009)

ITGrunt: Hi Hindi Hitlers
By Bala Shah

The US had set up the H-1B visa program to hire on a short term basis highly skilled workers not available in America.  The ground reality is that some tech firms have used every loophole in the H-1B system to bring in low cost workers.  The ongoing misuse of the visas is an open secret.  A few Americans had started anti H1B and anti Indian sites.  The most caustic (with a tinge of humour) anti-Indian and anti-H1B site is ITGrunt.  ITGrunt was even interviewed by international magazine Businessweek.

IT Grunt is very vocal and has even called for metaphorically killing Indians.  ITGrunt uses the cover of anonymity to spew hate on Indians it calls ‘slumdogs’ and ‘American traitors’ who support the H1B Visa system.

But this hatred did not sit too well with many American companies indirectly associated with ITGrunt. As reported by Techgoss, in July 4 ITGrunt was evicted by its California-based web hosting company.  ITGrunt then moved his web hosting to Panama. He also stopped using Google mail as he feared Indians working at Google may not protect the anonymity of this American patriot.  He told his readers that he would dump Google and move elsewhere.

Where is ITGrunt now and what is he writing about Indians misusing the H1B Visa system? 

Firstly, ITGrunt was off the net for about 2 weeks. He has just come back online to explain his absence for so many days.  His ISP in Panama had suffered a Denial of Service attack allegedly at the hands of we ‘enemy slumdogs’. Apparently, the Panama ISP was a honey pot to track and record all threats from Indians bent on harming him and his website.

ITGrunt also lets his legion of admirers know that he has shifted his ISP from Panama back to GoDaddy in USA.  ITGrunts Tunnel Rat promises his American techie fans that he will never ‘go away and continue to be a beacon of inspiration for local techies’.

Whats an ITGrunt post which does not have some clever words mocking us?  ITGrunt says he will never let “Hindi Hitlers spoil his fun”

Welcome back ITGrunt’s Tunnel Rat.  You say you are ‘just a blogger’, but we slumdogs see you more than an American patriot, H1B activist and blogger.  This slumdog (Bala Shah) and writer learns clever turn of phrase and subtle sarcasm from each of your blog post. For this, I thank you. You say you hate Hindi Hitlers, and half of India agrees with you.

And ITGrunt, the next time you are looking for good reliable web hosting, consider India as well.

God bless America. God bless India.