16% unemployment amongst IT Grads

[Kami]

Every IT grad I've met either at work or socially has had very little idea what field they wanted to end up in but tend to lean towards "networks or web". Both of which are huge areas with a multitude of possible jobs to pick from, but you have to know what you want to go for.

It's a bit like a medical student being asked what she/he wants to do and saying "work in a hospital".

University courses simply don't seem to match the needs in the IT industry, which is partly why people like myself with 10years+ experience, a few industry certs and bugger all higher education in IT will always be picked over IT graduates. Why take a long shot when there's someone with a proven track record?

I blame the universities for not having a clear idea what they're creating these degrees for, the government for making students feel they're socially inadequate if they don't attend university do ANY course available to them and employers in the IT sector for allowing the continued vague/shitty career path most IT professionals will have to wade through. I mean how many job titles can we give people on a helpdesk? At my work we have:

Helpdesk manager
Helpdesk analyst
Senior Helpdesk Analyst
triage analyst

All 4 of which do the same fucking thing and none of which actually analyse anything before punting it to second line unless it's a password reset or is on one of the scripts that have handy. Yet due to the way the IT sector works, if we gave any of them the title "Helpdesk operator" they'd be up in arms as lets face it at their next job interview those words "Helpdesk operator" will be less use to them than the person who's sitting with a 2:1 degree and a perfectly laundered suit.

Ahem

Ultimately 16% isn't a surprise, too many randomly useless I.T. degrees which mean nothing to most I.T. managers and too many I.T. managers who know too little about I.T.

 

[Jupitus]

Every IT grad I've met either at work or socially has had very little idea what field they wanted to end up in but tend to lean towards "networks or web". Both of which are huge areas with a multitude of possible jobs to pick from, but you have to know what you want to go for.

It's a bit like a medical student being asked what she/he wants to do and saying "work in a hospital".

University courses simply don't seem to match the needs in the IT industry, which is partly why people like myself with 10years+ experience, a few industry certs and bugger all higher education in IT will always be picked over IT graduates. Why take a long shot when there's someone with a proven track record?

I blame the universities for not having a clear idea what they're creating these degrees for, the government for making students feel they're socially inadequate if they don't attend university do ANY course available to them and employers in the IT sector for allowing the continued vague/shitty career path most IT professionals will have to wade through. I mean how many job titles can we give people on a helpdesk? At my work we have:

Helpdesk manager
Helpdesk analyst
Senior Helpdesk Analyst
triage analyst

All 4 of which do the same fucking thing and none of which actually analyse anything before punting it to second line unless it's a password reset or is on one of the scripts that have handy. Yet due to the way the IT sector works, if we gave any of them the title "Helpdesk operator" they'd be up in arms as lets face it at their next job interview those words "Helpdesk operator" will be less use to them than the person who's sitting with a 2:1 degree and a perfectly laundered suit.

Ahem

Ultimately 16% isn't a surprise, too many randomly useless I.T. degrees which mean nothing to most I.T. managers and too many I.T. managers who know too little about I.T.

You guys need me to get in there and fix that shit.

 

[SilverHood]

Think we're all preaching to the choir here.

The issue is that a lot of IT courses never do any real project work. Just theory based assignments with code demonstrations. I love my uni to bits for making everything a project. You wrote a plan. You made a spec based on written requirements. You coded the damn thing. You demo'd it. You evaluated your performance in the end. Sometimes we just wrote plans and specs. Sometimes we got specs and halfwritten code and got told to fix it up. Life cycle baby. Everyone on my course who wanted to work in IT now does so.

One thing that's overlooked is mobility. I was ready to work anywhere for my first 2 years. Get that experience no matter where. Some of my mates are still stacking shelves in Asda because they don't want to leave their home town. Fair enough, but then don't complain about lack of IT jobs

Kami... I love the use of Analyst. It gives it an aura of technical ability for a non technical job. (I have it in my job title too, but we do some actual analysis ).

 

[xomer]

Check the same stats for Greece.

Dudes you really don't imagine in how difficult situation we really are. Every 2 days all the central roads of Athens are closed cause of Strikes.