IT skills shortage

asim · 17 Nov 2006 at 16:47

Did a computer networks degree, a ccna and before even stepping foot into an IT job I'm already thinking of changing career paths.

Some people love IT, they love their job. I find I'm good at it but not willing to make the effort because it bores me senseless.

touch · 17 Nov 2006 at 16:49

Welshy said:
chesterstu said:

Looking good considering i am a third year software engineer

Click to expand...

Second year here

First year

DAVEM · 17 Nov 2006 at 17:00

My thoughts:

There's to much emphasis on being a 'technologist', programming skills and alike should be seen in much the same way as having a foriegn language. There are FAR to many IT/CS grads who, yes can program damn well, but know jack about anything else. Employers, such as financial organisations need programming savy graduates but who also understand the problem they are trying to solve with the tools they are developing. A CS graduate with a working knowlegde of emperical finance and economics will 9/10 give you a "solution" and not just a tool.

The amount of times I (and most likely a lot of you) see a realively simple question answered with a technically excellent but completely inappriopriate solution is ridiculous! Like mentioned in other posts, if you want really want to crack a certain market, lets say investment banking, you go along to an interview and convince them
A) you know about their business, the problems they face, and how computing solutions can be applied to those problems
B) are able to not only develop applications, but specifically applications in for their analysts/employee's
I think you'd find the ability to get a job massively increased.

Just saying "I'm the nuts when it comes to C#" is useless.

I remember asking a CS grad friend of mine who was applied for a job with a leading IB and asking them "so I take it you've looked into derviatives and exotics etc.." answer "what?"

When I graduated I did this from the alternative point of view, I was an economist who could program well (which to say the least is rare),

Find a sector in which your interested, learn about it (practically and academically) and THEN you're going to #1 when it comes to landing a IT job in that sector.

Just my thoughts,

David

bitslice · 17 Nov 2006 at 17:20

Don't worry, the Poles will save us,
they all have degrees in something or other.

.

Haircut · 17 Nov 2006 at 17:21

DAVEM said:
Just saying "I'm the nuts when it comes to C#" is useless.

I remember asking a CS grad friend of mine who was applied for a job with a leading IB and asking them "so I take it you've looked into derviatives and exotics etc.." answer "what?"

That's the way it should be, doesn't always work out like that though.

A while ago I had an interview with a top tier investment bank and they couldn't care less about how much I knew about the actual product. They were a lot more concerned that I was a decent C# programmer in the interview.

I now work for the said investment bank and it's fortunate that I am decent at all the other stuff as well as just programming as I wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes!

Investment banks aren't the sort of places where you will get a lot of chances if you don't cut the mustard either!

DAVEM · 17 Nov 2006 at 17:56

Haircut said:
That's the way it should be, doesn't always work out like that though.

A while ago I had an interview with a top tier investment bank and they couldn't care less about how much I knew about the actual product. They were a lot more concerned that I was a decent C# programmer in the interview.

I now work for the said investment bank and it's fortunate that I am decent at all the other stuff as well as just programming as I wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes!

Investment banks aren't the sort of places where you will get a lot of chances if you don't cut the mustard either!

Yeah it certainly differs between the IB's inparticular, mentioning no names ahem*ML*ahem are quite poor in this respect IMO.! :eek:

David

Energize · 17 Nov 2006 at 18:13

The only comp degrees that I have seen at unis are all the usual boring comp programming ones, which I would hate as I'm more interested in hardware and networking.

digisatman · 17 Nov 2006 at 18:46

1st year uni comp sci/soft eng student here, and the thing is, the number of graduates is going down, course is under-subscribed, courses arent getting easier,

There might lead to a shortage of programmers...all in all, its very confusing. Theres definetly less people doing CS type degree's, but the graduates are apparently finding it hard to get into a cs career? Only thing i can think of is outsourcing, but it cant be getting outsourced THAT much, can it?

But, i doubt there is any "it skills" shortage, as thats what everyone does at college lol.

S@njay · 17 Nov 2006 at 19:23

Its a pain, and experiance is crucial, finding a job is hard, and any good job is hard to get, but thats life.

I was hired as a "It Support Assistant", and so far have learnt jack! Yet if i work there for two years, and then go apply for other jobs employers would jump at my "2 years experiance".

I did a Computer Science degree, me and my course mates have found it hard to even get on the ladder this year

My last work place at Siemens working as a bench engineer had 75% of workers with a degree, just working there for 2 years to get experience.

Its soul breaking work, but i guess it must be done to get somewhere in life.

Fantom · 17 Nov 2006 at 19:34

IT isnt boring everywhere......

Chrisss · 17 Nov 2006 at 19:47

S@njay said:
...

Out of interest, what class degree did you get and where did you get it from?

S@njay · 17 Nov 2006 at 19:52

Chrisss said:
Out of interest, what class degree did you get and where did you get it from?

Not too good

2:2 at Nottingham Trent (soo close to 2:1

)

Ah well, i guess if you work hard at education or get it right your sorted!

weescott · 17 Nov 2006 at 19:57

A lot of organisations see IT as an overhead hence the outsourcing to India etc. This is a false economy. We should keep jobs in the UK.

S@njay · 17 Nov 2006 at 20:20

weescott said:
A lot of organisations see IT as an overhead hence the outsourcing to India etc. This is a false economy. We should keep jobs in the UK.

Too right!

I'n my company the "business" people just use us to get reports, or input data, sucks really, as were the ones that can really provide a good solution to thier problems

IT people have feelings too!

NiCkNaMe · 17 Nov 2006 at 21:00

Gilly said:
There's a shortage of Uni-given IT skills.

But given that the majority of them are inconsequential for a job in IT its no big deal really. People have started realising that only for specific jobs like developing, programming, design, etc. do degrees have any bearing at all. For any kind of support, project, service or management role a degree merely shows aptitude and ability to learn. You can show that in other ways too though.

I'd pretty much agree here.

I get annoyed when people write degree's off however, which usually comes from people who left College/Sixth form with their A levels, and went straight into industry - and fair do's have a pretty good job now.

However, you have absoulutly no knowledge of what university teaches you! I'm in the second year at the moment, and (having chosen 80% of my own modules this year (studying comp sci - but edging towards networking) - benifit of going to a university pretty much dedicated to computing studies) take stuff from the lectures that I know will be of direct use to me when I start in my chosen field! I'm intending on going into some area of Networking (ideally comms) - and the technologies i'm learning about are crucial to the future.

No offence to you lot who went straight into work - but without university students the world would (Technology wise) hit a standstill. Everything we have today would be pretty much it, no more advancements. I feel and hope as though once i've completed my degree (incidentally i'm *hopefully* getting a year out, on placement for experiance

) I'l be able to bring things to whoever employs me and would love to carry on 'learning' and hopefully increase on what we know.

And you mentioned support, project management and service, etc Gilly... we're actually forced to take a PED module (professional enterprise & dev) this semester... It's intended at the stereotypical comp sci student; geeky with little social skills

and is meant to help increase knowledge of interacting with people, managing projects... working under pressure, enterprising (setting up yourself) as well as how to spruce up your CV, etc. Bit knaff, but guess it's a good idea...

weescott · 17 Nov 2006 at 21:21

NiCkNaMe said:
I'd pretty much agree here.

I get annoyed when people write degree's off however, which usually comes from people who left College/Sixth form with their A levels, and went straight into industry - and fair do's have a pretty good job now.

However, you have absoulutly no knowledge of what university teaches you! I'm in the second y...waka waka waka

I agree to an extent however, those coming from 6thform/year or whatever have the advantage of being young and being able to mould into the environment. Also, those coming from within a.n other. industry may be able to move into thier IT dept as they know how the business works. Only a proportion of the inovative / pioneering IT graduates have a chance of getting into IT as a whole for this very reason.

Joe42 · 17 Nov 2006 at 21:25

Gilly said:
There's a shortage of Uni-given IT skills.

But given that the majority of them are inconsequential for a job in IT its no big deal really. People have started realising that only for specific jobs like developing, programming, design, etc. do degrees have any bearing at all. For any kind of support, project, service or management role a degree merely shows aptitude and ability to learn. You can show that in other ways too though.

Strongly agree with that, but what do you mean by 'You can show that in other ways'?

The thing that annoys me currently is i have to sit through a degree course to get a piece of paper which proves i have the ability to learn and then i have to get a rubbish badly paid job to prove i can actually do it and to get some experience.
I should be getting the experience on the degree course and i think that's the problem. Companies don't want to pay for graduates to gain experience, they want the experience to be already there, which it should be and sadly isn't.

-I-Am-Great- · 17 Nov 2006 at 21:37

Haircut what's the craic with your sig?

Voltage · 17 Nov 2006 at 22:26

well if i ever get miffed off with my current employer i can take my MSC and MCSE and 4 years experience somewhere else

life is good!!

Gilly · 17 Nov 2006 at 22:28

NiCkNaMe said:
I get annoyed when people write degree's off however, which usually comes from people who left College/Sixth form with their A levels, and went straight into industry - and fair do's have a pretty good job now.

I'm not sure if thats aimed directly at me but thats not what I was intending if thats how you read it. Even in IT there's certain career paths that want degrees.

NiCkNaMe said:
However, you have absoulutly no knowledge of what university teaches you! I'm in the second year at the moment, and (having chosen 80% of my own modules this year (studying comp sci - but edging towards networking) - benifit of going to a university pretty much dedicated to computing studies) take stuff from the lectures that I know will be of direct use to me when I start in my chosen field! I'm intending on going into some area of Networking (ideally comms) - and the technologies i'm learning about are crucial to the future.

Network design? Network support? If its the first it'll probably be worthwhile but if its the latter you'll be taking the first 4 (?) years of your adult life and putting them into a continuance of learning whereas in an alternate dimension an alternate you will spend those 4 years learning how to do a network support role and would be well ahead of you when you leave Uni.

NiCkNaMe said:
No offence to you lot who went straight into work - but without university students the world would (Technology wise) hit a standstill. Everything we have today would be pretty much it, no more advancements. I feel and hope as though once i've completed my degree (incidentally i'm *hopefully* getting a year out, on placement for experiance ) I'l be able to bring things to whoever employs me and would love to carry on 'learning' and hopefully increase on what we know.

I hope you manage it, but to use the furtherance of mankind as a proof is a pretty big statement

Whether numbers for IT students at Uni continue to fall or not there'll still be people actually studying, its the people themselves that offer a continuance of development not just Uni students. Who is to say that if one person who is going to further mankind through Uni wouldn't do so if he were not to attend Uni?

NiCkNaMe said:
And you mentioned support, project management and service, etc Gilly... we're actually forced to take a PED module (professional enterprise & dev) this semester... It's intended at the stereotypical comp sci student; geeky with little social skills and is meant to help increase knowledge of interacting with people, managing projects... working under pressure, enterprising (setting up yourself) as well as how to spruce up your CV, etc. Bit knaff, but guess it's a good idea...

It is a good idea, yes. They're important skills. Standalone and industry recognised courses and exams can be attended for these things though, so even if you weren't studying them at Uni you could still learn them.

Joe42 said:
Strongly agree with that, but what do you mean by 'You can show that in other ways'?

I mean through personal advancement. You can learn, other ways and other things to Uni. That demonstrates a willingness to learn and an ability to push yourself.