Today’s guest, Dick Burke, says companies can’t expect to fill their technical roles at the speed required without turning to foreign national talent. The CEO of Envoy Global, which helps employers streamline the process of sponsoring foreign nationals, notes that 78% of students pursuing master’s or doctoral degrees for computer science are foreign nationals.
“You should be thinking of this as a whole other pool from which to fish,” he says. “While it can be complex, there are a lot of fish in that pool.”
Dick shares tactical tips for HR professionals who want to take advantage of the benefits of foreign national sponsorship. He also dispels misassumptions about foreign national sponsorship, as well as misassumptions about immigration in general.
“Don’t we want the Sergey Brin’s and the Jerry Yang’s and the Elon Musk’s and the Luke Nosek’s — don’t we want those people on our team?” he says, underscoring that the dialogue around the topic needs to divorce illegal from legal immigration. “I would think so. And don’t we know that folks who create patents and win Nobel Prizes are disproportionately foreign nationals?”
Primary sponsorship scenarios, starting with foreign nationals who are already in the U.S., including students
Notable research on the topic, including the fact that 82% of HR professionals expect their foreign national headcount to increase or remain the same in 2022
How to navigate the pain points often cited by HR professionals, such as cost, persistently insufficient availability of H-1B visa slots and a lack of predictability in the regulatory environment
The need to recognize that the economics around the topic isn’t a zero sum game; immigration doesn’t take jobs but makes them
How to build onboarding that’s welcoming to foreign national talent
Subscribe To Technically People.
Follow us on your favorite podcast player, or just search for “Technically People” wherever you listen.