Thought Garage

USCIS announced yesterday, 19th March 2008 a few changes to the H1B 2009 selection process.

1.  No duplicate petitions for the same worker by the same firm

To ensure a fair and orderly distribution of available H-1B visas, USCIS will deny or revoke multiple petitions filed by an employer for the same H-1B worker and will not refund the filing fees submitted with multiple or duplicative petitions.

2.  Applications will be accepted for 5 days, even if the cap is reached on day 1.

April 1, 2008 is the first day petitions may be received for an October 1, 2008 start date.  When it is determined that the numerical limitations have been reached, USCIS employs a random selection process to choose among the petitions received on the “final receipt date.”  If the “final receipt date” falls within any one of the first five business days, the random selection will be run using all the cap-subject petitions received on those five days.

3. For 20,000 limit for Advanced degree holders, if cap is reached within the first five days, random selection will be carried out in two phases. Lottery will be first conducted ONLY for advanced degree holders first (for 20000 applications). And include all those that are not selected in the lottery for the 65000 cap along with regular applicants.

If the 20,000 advanced degree limit is reached during the first five business days, USCIS will randomly select from those petitions ahead of conducting the random selection for the 65,000 limit.  Petitions subject to the 20,000 limit that are not selected in that random selection will be considered with the other H-1B petitions in the random selection for the 65,000 limit.

Source: USCIS Announces Interim Rule on H-1B Visas Rule Modifies Selection Process and Prohibits Multiple Filings

Also read Fact Sheet: Changes to the FY2009 H-1B Program for more details.

One of the Best Speeches I have ever heard. Read the transcript here.

Aha!!

Via textually.org: Modern Products in Vintage Ads

Read this provoking thought at Seth’s Blog: Why bother having a resume?

I think if you’re remarkable, amazing or just plain spectacular, you probably shouldn’t have a resume at all.

….

If you don’t have a resume, what do you have?

How about three extraordinary letters of recommendation from people the employer knows or respects?
Or a sophisticated project they can see or touch?
Or a reputation that precedes you?
Or a blog that is so compelling and insightful that they have no choice but to follow up?

Some say, "well, that’s fine, but I don’t have those."

Yeah, that’s my point. If you don’t have those, why do you think you are  remarkable, amazing or just plain spectacular? It sounds to me like if you don’t have those, you’ve been brainwashed into acting like you’re sort of ordinary.

Great jobs, world class jobs, jobs people kill for… those jobs don’t get filled by people emailing in resumes. Ever.

Well, not quite delete your resumes yet. What this thought means is more about the format of your resume. Everybody agrees that we don’t want just plain vanilla word document that lists out all your achievements, that nobody have time to read through. But look for a unique way to convey the message to your potential employer what you can do to the organization.  More about the presentation of your current resume, rather than getting rid of it.

Sending in a nice cover letter or letters of recommendation or your previous work profile, I still think, is more like a resume. Just in a different format. And assume, everybody follows this approach, (everybody have a blog, everybody have a nice web site to showcase, and everybody get a reference from someone bojo A listers)  you will find another post on Seth’s blog itself talking how nonsensical and banal this approach is. Its not a matter of getting rid of a resume, but finding your own unique way of presenting it, the 101 of marketing.

“A thought which does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action which does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all” – Anonymous. Few notable thoughts that are worth sharing and spreading.

Is daylight-saving time costing us money?
A year ago, we covered the newly extended daylight-saving time (DST), which, as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, was expected to generate energy savings nationwide. But a recent Wall Street Journal article reported that the extra month of daylight time might actually be costing us money, not saving it as planned.

Thirsting for Energy in India’s Boomtowns and Beyond
A beacon of India’s red-hot economy, the new suburb of Gurgaon on the edge of the capital, New Delhi, is also a symbol of India’s fast-growing hunger for energy.

Startups do fail. What’s New?
Birds fly. Fishes Swim. Deals Fall through and Startups Fail. This is the natural order of things. The only thing we can do is alleviate the chances of success for a startup by a small degree. We do not, neither can anyone assure anyone of success and failures totally. Heck, the Silicon valley, which is considered to be this rich ecosystem, has its fair share of failures. What are we going to do about that?

You’re Better Off Working at Starbucks Than Running a Social Network
“The CPMs are so low it’s really hard to build a real business unless you have several billion page views and your own sales team. Social networks get 5 to 10 cent CPMs, and less outside the U.S. At one point we were averaging 3 cent CPMs. We figured out if we all got up and worked at Starbucks instead we would make more money as a company than selling 300 million impressions a month of ad space.”