
IT graduates still find it hardest to get jobs - strawberryshake
http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/careers/3246733/it-graduates-still-find-it-hardest-to-get-jobs-a-new-survey-shows/?cmpid=sbycombinatoranguyen
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sp4rki
A Computer Science or Programming job is not the same as an IT job. There is a
shortage of Computer Scientists and good Programmers _everywhere_. In contrast
IT jobs (think The IT Crowd) are completely over-saturated. Having a bunch of
certifications that say you know where to put a ram stick or connect a hard
drive will only get you so far. IT jobs are more akin to mid point in between
the 'real' computer geeks and 'normal' human beings.

In any case, there's plenty jobs for Programmers and holders of a CS degree.
And off course, this fields prefer proven experience, so that might be another
reason why people find it hard. Here's a tip though, proven experience doesn't
mean proven experience in another company. Build something and prove yourself
and it will be easy as pie to get a job.

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dmitri1981
A rather ill informed article that bundles all "computery" stuff together to
arrive at some half-baked conclusions. I can tell from personal experience
that there is a huge shortage of developers in the UK and fail to see how a
decent developer would find it 'hardest' to get a job in the UK at the moment.

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joshuacc
"recent IT graduates" != "decent developer"

Based on the evidence from my own school, I'd be inclined to state that recent
IT graduates are unlikely to be developers at all, and if they are developers
it is unlikely that they are decent yet.

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ax0n
You spend two to four years learning rote-memory crap from outdated books,
then you get thrown into the fire where your mnemonics mean absolutely
nothing. In the real world, IT folks are forced to wing it using critical
thinking skills, which you don't usually pick up in a beige classroom.

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michaelhart
"IT folks are forced to wing it using critical thinking skills, which you
don't usually pick up in a beige classroom."

That sums it all up quite well :) The best of the best in IT know all they
need to know out of passion long before they go into a classroom dedicated to
that purpose.

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loupgarou21
It's been a long time now, but when I was first looking for jobs in IT after
graduating, all of the "entry level" positions required quite a bit of
experience. Luckily, I had already been providing IT support for an elementary
school when I graduated, but it always struck me as odd that an entry level
position would require experience...

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Tycho
Oh dear. I find that almost all job adverts ask for people with 2+ years
experience, plus rather a lot of skills. There don't seem to be any _aimed_ at
recent graduates. My plan is to work whatever crappy job I can find for a
couple of years, while making sure I genuinely practice website/webapp
development in my spare time, so that eventually I will be 'qualified' for the
majority of job postings (for developers/engineers).

Of course it often crosses my mind that the requirements are some sort of
elaborate bluff and the abundance of expert programmers (in Scotland) is a
complete myth.

~~~
ig1
Where are you looking for jobs ?

There are at least a couple of hundred companies recruiting for graduate level
developers in the UK.

I'm guessing location might be the primary thing holding you back if you're
only looking for jobs locally, have you considered looking for jobs elsewhere
in the country ?

~~~
Tycho
I'm not really looking at the moment admittedly, just concentrating on my MSc,
but when I have a browse the job websites or notice boards that's the
impression they leave. Plus I know CS graduates who have never managed to get
a job with their 4 year degrees and don't work in IT at all.

But yes graduate programs is probably my best bet (I live in Glasgow which has
a few big operations locally, eg JP Morgan), although I wonder what the ratio
of places to applicants is. It just seems a shame that the normal job adverts
are strictly aimed at experienced professionals, when an intelligent and
enthusiastic beginner/graduate could probably pick up the skills needed
relatively quickly; but I'm not complaining, I realise how greatly
productivity varies from programmer to programmer and how risky hiring could
be for teams/companies.

~~~
ig1
Check the graduate recruitment job boards and go to careers fairs.

By and large most mainstream job boards are dominated by professional
recruiters, and companies don't generally use recruiters for graduate level
roles, hence mainstream job boards aren't the place to look.

Generally applicant:place ratio for most grad tech roles is typically
50-100/place (that's for London; I'm guessing it might be less for Glasgow),
but about 90% of applicants fail at the CV review stage. So if you make your
CV compelling you've got a decent chance.

There are a lot of graduate developer roles available, the financial sector in
London alone takes 500-1000 CS grads/year. Most banks recruit from across
Europe, because they simply can't hire enough good CS grads from the UK.

~~~
Tycho
Thanks very much for the info. Actually there was a careers fair and one of my
classmates got a good job out of it straight away, without even having stay on
for a full MSc (ie. not just Post-Grad Diploma). It was Black Rock in
Edinburgh. So that was heartening. I think I'd fair better in interviews than
a lot of people (CS grads I know can't explain OOP or design patterns and
basic stuff like that), but perhaps my CV wont be the best. I have some
experience doing VB scripting for a previous office job, but I hope to add a
few pet projects/web-apps and websites made for acquaintances to my resume by
the time I graduate.

P.S. I can pass the FizzBuzz at least ;)

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RiderOfGiraffes
The report seems to be available here:

[http://www.hecsu.ac.uk/research_reports_what_do_graduates_do...](http://www.hecsu.ac.uk/research_reports_what_do_graduates_do_november_2010.htm)

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Goladus
I think many mid-to-large organizations would benefit greatly from internal
training or mentoring programs for technical people. The "thrown into the
fire" mentality is really not necessary. It just happens that way because
that's how the culture has evolved.

I bet that the ramp-up period Brooks talks about in _The Mythical Man-Month_
could be greatly shortened with a reasonable investment in mentoring and
training processes.

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ig1
This article is wrong in several places confusing IT and Computer Science. IT
degrees have high-unemployment, Computer Science degrees don't.

Treating both subjects as the same thing is incredibly shoddy, and I'd expect
better from a magazine targeted at the IT sector.

~~~
Goladus
The article talks about both.

~~~
ig1
The article is wrong, the study it refers to as being about Computer Science
is about IT degrees.

I run <http://universityreport.co.uk> a university course comparison website
which uses the same underlying survey data (collected by HESA) that the study
used, so I'm intimately familiar with the data set. They're using a mishmash
of data and most of the CS figures they quote are actually for general IT
degrees.

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jcnnghm
IT jobs are skill jobs. Most new college graduates have practically no
experience in their fields. This isn't so bad for most fields, but in IT, they
will be competing with smart people that also have lots of experience and who
are deeply interested in the field. While it is almost expected to enter
certain fields with no real experience (Law, Medicine - Internships don't
count) that expectation seems to be reversed in IT.

~~~
dmitri1981
Isn't that quite reasonable since you can code all you want in your spare
time? Something that is not really possible with law or medicine.

~~~
Goladus
You can code all you want in your spare time, but if that practice doesn't map
exactly to what a employers (or consumers) are looking for then it doesn't
matter. I wrote a SNES rom-hacking utility in C/win32 while I was in college
and that didn't impress anybody. After I graduated (2001) I spent 3 months
stacking boxes of silverware on pallets until I got a job as a night-shift
backup operator for $10/hr. After 6-12 months of that I was like, "hey guys I
automated everything can I work days now?" And just kind of went from there.

And typically, even when you do have the skills an employer wants, actually
learning their particular systems well enough to be useful takes another 3-6
months, because training and integration is completely neglected. You'll get
"read the docs." Which, if you are lucky, will be a disorganized mess of wiki
rather than a slow and nearly impenetrable sharepoint labyrinth.

It doesn't have to be this way. I'm sure at the best tech companies, it isn't.

