16% unemployment amongst IT Grads

[rynnor]

BBC News - Graduate unemployment 'at a 17-year high'

Pretty shocking - I knew it had gotten bad but didnt realise it was that bad - I will really discourage my kids from studying IT.

So where did all the jobs go? Is it all down to outsourcing?

 

[Chilly]

That's because 16% are lazy ***** who dont put the effort in to read around the subject and find themselves a job.

As with any field, if you work hard and are sharp you will get on. Tell your kids to do their homework, not which field to get into.

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

In IT, industry skills/certs > out-of-date college training.

Nothing to do with career path, just what people are taught and the false expectations given.

 

[rynnor]

In IT, industry skills/certs > out-of-date college training.

Nothing to do with career path, just what people are taught and the false expectations given.

Surely its related to supply and demand though? When I left uni in the mid 90s the demand was so high you could easily get onto a graduate IT scheme with no experience and a non-IT degree (largely due to Y2K projects).

I think theres a lot less graduate IT schemes now and a lot more grads so competition is tougher. I also think the continued integration of IT skills into the mainstream is diminishing the value of generic IT training.

 

[Tom]

I'd like to see the stats for media students.

 

[Gumbo]

I'd like to see the stats for the sheer rise in graduates in everything in the same period. Too many people going to uni these days.

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

I also think the continued integration of IT skills into the mainstream is diminishing the value of generic IT training.

For low-skill areas, yes. For medium-high in current technologies, no and far from it.

I get the impression a lot of people are leaving with a college cert in generic IT stuffs. What companies seem to want from grads is something a bit higher up the foodchain, like highly skilled developers and such and these have always been in shorter supply.

The more generic skill-based grads are up against youngsters that might only have desktop-related certs and a year or two of experience but will still in many ways be of more use at ground level in IT services than the graduates. Bear in mind that basic IT service people are often treated like dogshit, something that winds me up (although not on the service desk, in recent years I've spent a large amount of time looking after the service desk people I've worked with).

Higher up the foodchain the wet-behind-the-ears grads are up against experienced industry people, usually industry certified, so they need something extra to bring to the table.

I think people that go to college or university and come out with IT skills are being mis-sold the validity of the skills they will gain, rather than there being a massive problem in the IT sector. That said, IT sector has been slow this year or so.

Anyone that is going for an IT role I would strongly suggest they get industry certs on top of whatever qualification their college or university will give them. Yeh, its a bit of a ball ache and it seems unfair but the two combined will make for an awesome sauce CV.

 

[old.user4556]

It really depends on which sector you go into.

2 of the large Scottish financials have just binned nearly 10,000 IT jobs between them because they're banks; they don't want to have a large IT footprint. Almost all of the IT work is being outsourced to India because it's cheap. I have to work with Indian colleagues extensively and I've met a few gems, but about two thirds are lazy, useless and lack any sense of urgency. Needless to say, their communication skills (oral and written) are absolutely rubbish. I get the usual "well, their English is better than your Hindi" and I suppose it is - but try telling that to business colleagues when the project has slipped because the offshore partner didn't deliver on time again. What gets on my nerves even more, is that there is a retained layer of onshore permanent colleagues to "QA" their work (read: babysit), so that if anything goes wrong they don't even blame the fucking offshore partners - they blame the onshore guys. It's fucking insane .

I can't speak for the rest of the sector, but the term "IT" is such a huge catch all that encompases hardware, programming, project management, support, development, architecture, computing science etc. then we don't know what sort of skills these graduates have when they come out of uni. Certainly when I graduated back in 2000 then walking straight into an "IT job" was nigh on impossible; you absolutely had to start on an 18 to 24 month graduate scheme that usually took what skills you had and built upon those by sending you on specialist training courses (perhaps MSCE, J2EE, Prince2, Cisco, depending on which field). For me, it was SQL / SAS / Oracle, data warehousing, business intelligence, reporting and analystics - none of which I had learned at uni.

What the BBC article doesn't say is how many IT graduate positions are out there - is this 16% not in employment because a) there aren't enough graduate positions or b) they're not qualified enough to get on the graduate schemes?

 

[Furr]

As a Computer Science undergrad, and current postgrad, I managed to get a job fine in the intervening years, mainly due to the fact that I had spent years outside of uni developing web sites so I was able to demonstrate what I could do, IT students especially should have a four year course, with the 3rd year being a year where they learn programming skills in a commercial environment, so that when graduated and job hunting they can show they have at least a years hands on experience writing code and delivering.

Also, as many of you I'm sure know, people in technology have a disproportionate number of people who seem incapable of being socially aware and, well, normal... doesn't come across well during interviews and the like.

//edit - Postgrad course be expensive yo...

 

[MrHorus]

It really depends on which sector you go into.

2 of the large Scottish financials have just binned nearly 10,000 IT jobs between them because they're banks; they don't want to have a large IT footprint.

And I used to work for one when I was a contractor.

Thank fuck I jumped ship and found a permie job just before the economy went titsup

 

[old.user4556]

As a Computer Science undergrad, and current postgrad, I managed to get a job fine in the intervening years, mainly due to the fact that I had spent years outside of uni developing web sites so I was able to demonstrate what I could do, IT students especially should have a four year course, with the 3rd year being a year where they learn programming skills in a commercial environment, so that when graduated and job hunting they can show they have at least a years hands on experience writing code and delivering.

I absolutely agree, I think some courses are indeed sandwich courses where 5 years are done (my mate has just graduated in such a course) - 2 years studying, 1 year placement and then 2 years studying. He walked into a job quite easily once he graduated because he had one year developing and delivering.

 

[Raven]

I'd like to see the stats for media students.

Low, most of them work in Tesco.

 

[throdgrain]

I expect the sales of sandals will go down now with all them IT chaps out of work

 

[old.Osy]

Or do it like I did, be a highschool grad only, teach yourself stuff and get experience by doing low-level admin/support jobs, then strike lucky with a big company. However, this requires passion for the field and for the job.

 

[DaGaffer]

Funnily enough that "17 year high" coincides with the time I finished Uni and IT graduates were also some of the worst off back then. In fact I remember being warned off a CompSci degree back in the late 80s because of perceived oversupply issues. Of course that didn't turn out to be the case, and it will probably sort itself out this time as well.

Having said that; I wouldn't recommend any child of mine did an IT degree; most of my friends who ended up doing well in IT had anything but IT degrees, and the smart ones differentiated themselves with an Masters and/or some kind of business qualification. I'd also point out to anyone thinking about IT as a career; your boss probably doesn't have an IT background, which tells you all you need to know about your long-term prospects.

 

[Furr]

...the smart ones differentiated themselves with an Masters...

This is what I'm doing....

 

[old.user4556]

Having said that; I wouldn't recommend any child of mine did an IT degree; most of my friends who ended up doing well in IT had anything but IT degrees, and the smart ones differentiated themselves with an Masters and/or some kind of business qualification.

Absolutely, both my sister and her previous long term boyfriend (who are both in IT, one for Accenture, one for an investment bank) have degrees in engineering.

I'd also point out to anyone thinking about IT as a career; your boss probably doesn't have an IT background, which tells you all you need to know about your long-term prospects.

Again, absolutely agree.

The shit hot programmers I've known in my time went contracting and stayed contracting getting anywhere between £350 to £550 a day. Some of them then clubbed together and setup a small consultancy.

 

[DaGaffer]

Absolutely, both my sister and her previous long term boyfriend (who are both in IT, one for Accenture, one for an investment bank) have degrees in engineering.

Most of my mates who got on to grad IT schemes were engineers, but I know guys with everything from economics to political science to biochemistry who ended up in IT.

Again, absolutely agree.

The shit hot programmers I've known in my time went contracting and stayed contracting getting anywhere between £350 to £550 a day. Some of them then clubbed together and setup a small consultancy.

Contracting isn't what it was, thanks to Gordon Brown, and I know I would find it soul-destroying in the long run. I actually could have gone down the contracting route in my early 20s (in aircraft design) but went to uni instead when most of my friends went off to the US and Europe on big money. At the time they thought I was mad, but 20 years later a lot of them are still doing the same thing, where I've had a real career with variety and loads of interesting stuff to do. Sure the day rates have been lucrative (I used to earn £200 a day when I contracted in the summer holidays in a design office 20 years ago), but god it must be dull.

 

[Chilly]

I think gordon brown corrected some of the problems with contracting, rather than ruined it. He stopped people taking the piss and pretending to be contractors when they are just permies on more money.

 

[JingleBells]

I absolutely agree, I think some courses are indeed sandwich courses where 5 years are done (my mate has just graduated in such a course) - 2 years studying, 1 year placement and then 2 years studying. He walked into a job quite easily once he graduated because he had one year developing and delivering.

I did a sandwich year as part of my CS degree, and would 100% recommend it to anyone who wants to do CS at university - it gave me a years worth of solid experience in the development (something I wished to work in upon graduation), without that the only experience I'd have of dealing with difficult clients would involve the summer job I had at a milk factory...

 

[Fweddy]

No wonder CompSci grads are unemployed ? The Register

 

[rynnor]

I'd like to see the stats for media students.

Its lower suprisingly - 10% same as Engineers and Architects.

Perhaps this reflects their higher 'soft skills' (not software) - I know guys who have fantastic technical skills but cannot interview to save their lives.

 

[old.Tohtori]

I know guys who have fantastic technical skills but cannot interview to save their lives.

Biggest problem in the game industry when you want to hire coders really - best guys absolutely suck at interviews.

Unless they're like that one guy we had working, top notch coder, ladiesman, suit...freakin impossible combo

Not to mention the superpower he ahd, game peeps will know; he completed things pre-deadline and never said "can't be done".

 

[old.user4556]

That's another big complaint I have about some of the more gifted technical people I have to work with; sure they can write shit hot and efficient code, or they have an expert knowledge in an area that noone else does (riddling the place with single points of failure, but that's another story), but their simple soft skills and interaction with human beings seems to be an enormous challenge for them.

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

No wonder CompSci grads are unemployed ? The Register

 

[DaGaffer]

That's another big complaint I have about some of the more gifted technical people I have to work with; sure they can write shit hot and efficient code, or they have an expert knowledge in an area that noone else does (riddling the place with single points of failure, but that's another story), but their simple soft skills and interaction with human beings seems to be an enormous challenge for them.

But this has always been thus; highly technical subjects tend to attract more introverted and OCD biased personalities; sometimes cliches are cliches because they're true. To a great extent the role of analysts and PMs is to act as a filter between these guys and the suits, and it shouldn't matter if they interview badly, because you shouldn't expect them to be doing show and tell to the CEO every day. Blaming an introvert for being introverted is a failure of management imagination, not the coder in question, the interviewer should account for it. Of course if the introvert in question is an obnoxious twat, that has to be taken into consideration, but you don't hire techies to kiss the MD's arse, that's what marketing is for

 

[Scouse]

I think gordon brown corrected some of the problems with contracting, rather than ruined it. He stopped people taking the piss and pretending to be contractors when they are just permies on more money.

This is utter bullshit.

Labour stuck the knife in when they were first voted in in '97, then they've twisted it ever since. There were a few incidences of friday-to-monday contractors but the vast majority, as always, are and always have been normal people taking all the risks that come with contracting.

 

[Scouse]

Gah, left it too long to edit. I agree wholeheartedly with Gaff.

Most management types are small-minded fuckheads with no imagination and no grasp of how to manage the differing personalities that they come into contact with - 'cause they're rarely clever enough to do so. This is true of every large multinational I've ever worked at.

 

[rynnor]

Oh my god - I find myself in agreement with two of scouses comments in a row!

<goes for a lie down.>

 

[ECA]

Gah, left it too long to edit. I agree wholeheartedly with Gaff.

Most management types are small-minded fuckheads with no imagination and no grasp of how to manage the differing personalities that they come into contact with - 'cause they're rarely clever enough to do so. This is true of every large multinational I've ever worked at.

What about the HR departments stuffed with soap watching women who only employ people who they think could be extras on hollyoaks?

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