<p>Let’s not get carried away here (is there an echo in this room?)</p>
<p>If Biotech is anything like IT, anyone ‘non-desirable’ will likely get an interview filled with questions that resemble Jeopardy final round for $25k level of obscurity (as in, questions whose answers are in the footnotes of the Microsoft .NET framework documentation). </p>
<p>Those who advocate the current free-for-all have never gone to an interview that is as close to a kangaroo court as it can get, never mind qualifications.</p>
<p>I agree with you, turbo. People with a bias can justify a no-hire decision if they want. They don’t even have to know that they are doing so.</p>
<p>I guess the reason I am still fascinated with the mostly-foreigner biotech workplace is that I would have thought that native born lovers of life science would be thronged at the doors of what I have to assume would be a fascinating job and stimulating work environment. But I also assume that foreign born workers work for less and wonder how that plays into the workplace imbalance.</p>
<p>Speaking as a former software engineer ( who worked in exclusively US citizen workplaces as a defense contractor employee) I know that there is a lot of ageism in the computer world, and a lot of Purple Squirrel searching, and the resulting ‘shortages’ are used to justify the ongoing cry for more imports. I am curious as to whether the imbalance at the biotech workplace involves some of these issues, or if it really stems from a short supply of native born post docs.</p>
<p>It sounds like nothing has changed in the 30 years since I entered the EE/CS field - which I’ve long since left. At that time, the benefit for a US student to stay the extra year or two for an MS was minimal. Starting salaries for a BS were only a few thousand less than for a MS. Consequently, schools filled their graduate ranks with Indian and Chinese students. Also keep in mind that India in particular has the IIT schools which rank with top US schools like MIT and CalTech in terms of rigor. The IITs produce a huge number of undergraduate engineers every year who are looking to come to the US and gain the prized H1B visa. </p>
<p>I think there is a real issue of ageism in the CS/technology fields. Companies would much prefer to hire a twenty-something for the latest and greatest. Tech degrees have about a 5-10 year half-life.</p>
<p>From what I can see of biotech (and here you have to realize that I’m practically spitting distance from the NIH so that affects local hiring patterns), the US-born have many more employment options outside the lab than the internationals do. Just like those US-born engineers who move into management, leave to found their own company, start an organic farm, become full-time editors for academic journals, join a patent law firm, or get a teaching certificate so they can have parent-friendly work calendars, a fair number of US-born biotech people move on to new career fields. People who have an H1B really are stuck with one company until they get a green card. If they aren’t interested in management (or don’t have the language skills or personality for it), they are likely to stay in the lab because the money is good and the work can be reasonably steady.</p>
<p>At Happydad’s current work place, there is no evidence that a foreign passport is necessary for a lab job. Knowing how tight management is with the budget, I fully expect anyone who didn’t require processing and then maintaining an H1B would get an instant hiring boost. Immigration lawyers (even in the currently depressed economy) don’t come cheap.</p>