Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Which Google Should Congress Believe?

Posted by Zonk on from the playing-with-the-big-boys-now dept.

theodp writes "In Congressional testimony last month, Google's VP of People Operations told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration that, due to limits on the number of H-1B visas, Google is regularly unable to pursue highly qualified candidates. But as Google stock tumbled in after hours trading Wednesday, Google's CEO blamed disappointing profits on a hiring binge and promised Wall Street analysts that the company would keep a careful eye on headcount in the future. So which Google should Congress believe?"

17 of 428 comments (clear)

  1. The two are not mutually exclusive by bartyboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The lack of qualified candidates doesn't mean that Google can't hire people with less/no talent.

    For all we know they hired 10,000 janitors and have trouble finding programmers.

    1. Re:The two are not mutually exclusive by vfrex · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I was about to hit the trigger on the same title. The two are not mutually exclusive, and this article is flame bait.

    2. Re:The two are not mutually exclusive by Red+Flayer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      For all we know they hired 10,000 janitors and have trouble finding programmers.
      Or because of a lack of real talent to recruit, they had to hire 10,000 PoS programmers instead of 3000 good ones, hence high payroll and emplyee overhead expenses. Could be used as more fuel for their arguments to increase the H1B visa cap.
      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    3. Re:The two are not mutually exclusive by Jeremy_Bee · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Thirded, (not a word I know). This article should be removed, it's junk.

    4. Re:The two are not mutually exclusive by eln · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe they're having trouble because the best programmers know they can get hired anywhere they want and don't have the patience to deal with Google's ridiculously long and convoluted hiring process.

    5. Re:The two are not mutually exclusive by PCM2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just as 9 women can't make a baby in 1 month, adding more people to a project rarely speeds it up and almost always slows it down.

      Just remember, though -- while 9 women may not be able to make a baby in 1 month, they most certainly can make 9 babies in 9 months, while even the most talented woman would have a hard time producing more than 2.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    6. Re:The two are not mutually exclusive by Retric · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yea, the article is junk but so is the H1B quota system. It seems like the simple solution is for the government to auction off H1B's.

      If Google really want's someone they can offer 50k but they can probably get local talent for cheaper. My guess is H1B's would balance out to around 25K a pop and most Americans would be fine competing on that type of playing field.

    7. Re:The two are not mutually exclusive by eln · · Score: 5, Funny

      Sure, but then you have all of the additional overhead costs associated with maintaining 9 babies instead of just one.

    8. Re:The two are not mutually exclusive by dup_account · · Score: 5, Insightful

      OMG! Finally someone has a bright idea on how to fix this! Please mod up as insightful.

      Also, I think them getting in on this side of the H1B argument goes against their "do no evil" policy. I may not seem so microly, but macroly it hurts everyone except those 70 people they want to hire.

    9. Re:The two are not mutually exclusive by PCM2 · · Score: 5, Funny

      So what are you saying? I need to have sex with 9 women this month in order to optimize overall baby production?

      Not exactly. The Mythical Man Month teaches us that when you're having woman problems, throwing more women at the problem is never the solution.

      The formula is n(n-1)/2 ... that is, for each group of women n, the number of channels of communication in the group is equal to n times n-1 (where the 1 is you), divided by two.

      Because of this, Fred Brooks recommends that you not engage any baby-producers until the overall system of women is well architected. Note that this process can take an incredibly long time. Another solution is to employ women with off-the-shelf babies, which often come with a third-party support contract.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
  2. Stupid question by Verteiron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Whichever one makes the larger campaign contribution.

    Duh.

    --
    End of lesson. You may press the button.
  3. how about believing that this is a false dichotomy by moderatorrater · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, just because Google says they hired too many people doesn't mean that they don't also believe there's a shortage of qualified people because of immigration. There are a lot of other jobs at Google that don't involve development, and their statement to wall street might make sense if you view it as, "yeah, we hired too many people, including under-qualified developers."

  4. Qualifications by Pyramid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And by "qualifications", they mean, "willing to work for pennies"

    --
    ~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
    1. Re:Qualifications by moderatorrater · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually, by "qualifications" they mean "people who have Ph.D.s"; they're similar to what you were saying, I know, but the difference is there.

    2. Re:Qualifications by Pyramid · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No. I meant what I meant. Ph.D. or Devry graduate is irrelevant. Generally, most companies complaining they can't find qualified American candidates really mean, 'We can't find qualified native candidates for the paltry compesation we're offering". No wonder considering the cost of higher education these days.

      I work at a huge company with plenty of H1B holders. The ratio of talented to useless slob H1B holders is roughly the same as "home grown" employees here. It's just that the H1B folks COST LESS.

      --
      ~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
  5. Re:how about believing that this is a false dichot by Otter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While that's theoretically true, it's funny to see everyone here rushing to embrace the "American programmers are incompetent! We need more immigrants, now!" position if that's what it takes to defend Google's honor.

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
  6. Re:how about believing that this is a false dichot by djones101 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    American programmers are qualified alright on average, but there aren't enough of them. Personally, I'd disagree with that statement. The lack is qualified programmers that live in the tech-rich areas of the country. I've met certified programmers who could make code practically sing, putting others in Silicon Valley to shame. The difference was they didn't want to live in LA, or Houston, or any other tech-rich area. They enjoyed their smaller cities where you don't fight a 2-hour backup in the morning for a 15-minute drive. The qualified programmers are out there, the companies just need to learn that they need to look beyond the silicon corridor and the outsourcing countries.