Buyer Beware - Cont'd

The recent immigration reform bill that is being discussed has a lot of compromise built into it to allow highly skilled workers to more easily work in the US.  As I've previously posted, I've had some negative experiences finding "highly skilled workers".  In speaking to someone who places IT workers on H1B, he confirmed that there is a lot of bait and switch that occurs in the interviewing process.  Having already been told by a former coworker that the proxy-interviewing was occurring, I thought I had heard the worst of it.  But my headhunter source tells me that it's also common for someone who gets through the interviewing/bait and switch, who is inexperienced, to basically off-shore their work to cheaper labor back home.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised but I'm curious about whether any of you who follow this blog have an opinion on this.  Is this the tip of the iceberg?  Does it matter how the work gets done so long as it's done?

Buyer Beware

Have you ever interviewed a contractor over the phone and agreed to bring them on the job site only to discover that they knew alot less than your interview might suggest?

A few years ago while doing Siebel work, I was tasked with finding a contractor to augment our staff to hit a critical deadline.  Myself and a colleague ran the candidate through the gauntlet asking very technical, very specific Siebel questions.  While language skills were not the candidates best quality, he seemed to know the material and so we agreed to bring him on site.  When he arrived and we provisioned accounts for him, we expected him to hit the ground running.  Instead, we ended up explaining very basic CRM concepts to him and found out that he was asking other contractors similarly basic Siebel questions.  I was furious and asked my manager to let him go.  She insisted that he stay because "he's already signed an apartment lease".

I recently learned from a friend in India that this practice of "proxy interviewing" exists and very well qualified people are approached with a good sum of money to interview on behalf of someone else.  While my experience with this suggested that this happened in our field, I was shocked to hear it confirmed from a reliable source.  Regardless of the motivations of either person, this is fraud and completely reprehensible to me.  My advice to anyone interviewing a technical contractor: do not assume that a good phone interview is enough.  Interview the candidate in person.