H1B sponsors come in two flavors
While looking for employment in the US, you will find that there are two types of employers as such. There are employers who hire you to work for them and to work on their products (we will call them direct employers). Then there are employers who will hire you so that you can work on their behalf for someone else (we call such firms consulting firms, headhunters, "body-shoppers".

Why two flavors?

In the US, there are a large number of employers of the second (headhunter) variety. This is the direct result of the business advantages that direct employers get of keeping themselves lightweight in a very competitive market. Each employee requires not just salary, but benefits, and the proper administration of these benefits. Companies like to avoid the hassle associated with the latter two. They want to concentrate on their products and their competition. They wouldn’t mind going through all this trouble if they find a person valuable to their company.

But, for others, they would rather avoid the overhead associated with having regular employees. So they hire contractors to do small chunks of their work. The deal with contractors is that they can pay them some money to work for them (mostly on an hourly basis) and forget about the rest. They don’t have to be given any benefits. They can fire them anytime with about 2 weeks notice.

To fill this need for reliable and skilled contractors that direct employers have, consulting firms/headhunters/recruiters come into the picture. These are people who set up firms, make it their business to look out for candidates, put out ads if required, and solicit you to become their employees. They offer you pay (either monthly or an hourly-rate), offer you standard benefits, sponsor your visa and take up many of the extra activities that the direct employer wants to avoid.

The major work of non-direct employers is to match your resume with the requirements of direct employers (called "end-clients" in this context). Once an end-client likes you, they negotiate an hourly pay-rate with the end-client, keep a (small/nice) portion of it for themselves and then pay you from the rest. You work at the client-site and are called a contractor or a consultant.



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Direct Placement vs. Consulting -- which one for me?
That being a little bit of the behind-the-scene story, you might want to know about what the story means to you. You might want to weigh the pros and cons of the different types of employment, before you actually start searching or before you accept an offer. Here is a table that highlights the major differences between getting directly placed in a firm and being recruited by a consulting firm.
Direct Placement Consulting
Pros Cons
Direct placement jobs are more stable and certain. The proverbial [3] "bench time" does not exist in this type of job.
Bench Time: The time before you get your first project and end-client and also the time between projects/end-clients. Even though many companies offer you bench-pay (sometimes less than full pay), it could quickly get dull and boring. It can be a trying period.

Direct placement jobs usually provide more benefits like vacation pay, more holidays, loans, stock options etc.
The kind of benefits you can get from a consulting firm tend to be the basic ones a few holidays, vacation pay (sometimes), insurance.

In direct placement jobs, there is usually very little or no travel involved unless the specific job you take up demands it. You stay put at a place.
When your end-client doesn’t want you anymore, you have to pack up and find a job elsewhere, maybe in another city, state.

Cons Pros
It is hard to find end clients that sponsor H-1B visas for people who are abroad unless the candidates are pretty valuable/hot.
Many consulting firms will offer to sponsor your H1, pay for your travel to the US and later sponsor your Green Card too.

Usually, lower salary. In many cases, this may be much lower than the salary you get as a consultant.
Consulting firms usually offer a higher salary as there is always a period when you don't have a project ("bench time", because you get fewer benefits and because of the economics involved.

Table 1: Direct vs. Consulting.

These are the common issues that you will face while weighing the pros and cons of seeking H1B sponsorship from a direct employer or a consulting firm. Much depends on the specifics of the area you are in, the negotiation you do and the offer you can get for yourself. It also depends upon what skill-sets are hot in the market.



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So, what skills are hot?
According to a recent survey conducted by ComputerWorld*, these are the hottest skills of 1999:

Under Internet Skills:
Net Development Tools (Cold Fusion, Visual InterDev and the likes) ranked the highest, with HTML & Java taking 2nd and 3rd places.

In the languages section:
COBOL ranked highest while C++ and C follow close behind.

In DBMSs:
while Oracle still reigns supreme, Microsoft SQLServer takes second place while DB2 and Sybase are struggling to keep up.

User-interface Development:
Visual Basic, Oracle Developer 2000 and Visual C++ rank 1,2 & 3.

Computerworld's Skills Survey shows that 27% of respondents plan to train HTML programmers next year, 22% plan to train Java programmers, and 13% will train in C++.

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Sucess is not an accident it is a result of hardwork with intelligence.

Nishito - Do you know of any H1B sponsors? Body shoppers or direct, whichever? Any leads? Addresses?
Thanks.

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wisernow

interesting figures....

This year I may get my citizenship.

I dont know If I should get an H1 or TN...
that is If YOu at all get something in USA....

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I once made a mistake, but I was wrong about it.

Same here...I am getting my citizenship in a few weeks. Want to move to the US but whether it is ok to move on TN or better to try for H1B. The latter is better because of two reasons. 1. You do not have to renew it every year. I understand that frequent renewals of TN cause the US INS to frown and may make things difficult. 2. With an H1 one can simultaneously try to get a Green card. This is not possible on TN.
So, any leads to H1 sponsors, anyone?

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wisernow

If my information is correct, the H-1 quota is already full for this year. New H-1 wouldn't start till Sept/Oct. It is good to go on TN immediately. H-1 processing takes some time and some employers are not willing to wait.

Quote:

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Orginally posted by wisernow

Same here...I am getting my citizenship in a few weeks. Want to move to the US but whether it is ok to move on TN or better to try for H1B. The latter is better because of two reasons. 1. You do not have to renew it every year. I understand that frequent renewals of TN cause the US INS to frown and may make things difficult. 2. With an H1 one can simultaneously try to get a Green card. This is not possible on TN.
So, any leads to H1 sponsors, anyone?

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Quote:

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Orginally posted by AnilKG

If my information is correct, the H-1 quota is already full for this year. New H-1 wouldn't start till Sept/Oct. It is good to go on TN immediately. H-1 processing takes some time and some employers are not willing to wait.

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wisernow

TN - only for cdn citizens , Only limited to jobs as in the Nafta list , renewable every year , no limit , Cannot file GC on TN

H1B - quota constraints , INS approval , GC allowed , Labour approval , 6 year limit

you decide

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We will find a way or we will make one