Microsoft Ready to Hire More Indians and Chinese
Kevin Schofield is a general manager at Microsoft Corp.
Recently he testifed before Congress that because of wait times and other hurdles, the software giant "must often do without critical members of a team because of visa delays."
In other words, the Chinese, Indians and others who could otherwise do those jobs, don’t because they aren’t here.
Maybe Congress is doing the US a favor by making it so hard to enter.
Congress could eliminate personal interviews for every applicant – especially those who are re-entering. Congress could create a new visa allowing reputable workers multiple entries. Congress could limit background checks to legitimate threats. Congress could make it easier for people to stay here longer…..
Congress could do nothing AND American young people could start studying harder and prepare to do those jobs themselves. How about that for an idea?
The answer is NOT always overseas, is it?
What do you think?
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14/05/2006
You’re taking a little out of context what I said.
Microsoft is a company that builds software for people around the world. Even if we did all of the core product development in the US, we’d still want to hire people in other parts of the world to make sure that the software we designed was appropriate for people in that region. The point I was making with the quote was that not only do we have trouble hiring people from outside the US (China, India, but lots of other places too) to work in Redmond, but the people we’ve hired who are working at our facilities around the world often can’t get even a short-term visa to come to Redmond for a meeting without all sorts of incredible hassles.
But to your larger point: Eric Roberts of Stanford has a great way of explaining this.
Support there is a software developer in the US that you could hire for $200k, who would add a million dollars of value to your company. And there is a software developer in India that you could hire for $50k, who would also add a million dollars of value to your company. What do you do?
You hire them both. Why would you throw away $800k?
That’s what Microsoft is doing. We’re hiring like crazy in the US — just look at the job postings on http://www.microsoft.com. We’re also hiring in other parts of the world where we have research and development centers. We keep the bar very, very high everywhere. We’ve said over and over again that the biggest constraint on our business is our ability to hire great people. Many other tech industry companies are saying the same thing.
American students should be studying to get these great jobs. Students in other parts of the world should too.
14/05/2006
Thank you, Kevin, for your remarks.
Many of my readers are Indian and Chinese. My intent in the title was to encourage them specifically by letting them know that someone such as you was pressing the visa issue.
In the third section, I mentioned Chinese, Indians and OTHERS. Perhaps in the title, I should have mentioned said Chinese and Indians, too.
Please accept my apology if you feel I misrepresented you.
That’s a great quote by Eric Roberts. I just posed the question to my wife (Chinese – MBA) and she went for the Indian.
Yours and his point is well made.
FWIW, I have a fairly large readership on a Chinese website and I posted a similar blog there to encourage students and engineers to apply at Microsoft.
Once again, I hope you will accept my apology.
I hope to do things right and make a contribution.
BTW…I was in the audience the other day when Steve Ballmer spoke here in Silicon Valley. He seems to be quite a character. It was my first time to hear him speak.
Thanks again for reading and I welcome your comments anytime.
14/05/2006
Thanks for the clarification. Glad we got this all sorted out. And I’m glad you’re encouraging people (wherever they might be) to apply to Microsoft — I’ve worked at MS for almost 18 years, and I’m still there because it really is a fantastic company.
15/05/2006
Maybe overseas is not always the answer but this is the available opportunity as of the moment. Microsoft is a big company and I am sure that it could provide good job opportunities to people all over the world.
16/05/2006
As MS goes more and more overseas…perhaps we will see them setting up shop in other countries and having their engineers produce things locally.
Why not?