Should I be more helpful?

[fretted]

Im a database developer/data analyst.

I've been assigned a graduate, who is very eager to help and learn from me. The problem is he has very little basic IT skills eg. He would just about know how to use some basic excel functions (but not know how these actually work!). I have very short deadlines, where I'm often working lots of overtime to complete and don't really have time to teach anyone. I do feel guilty that he is just sitting there doing nothing while I'm busy but I'd do assign stuff to him, not only will he struggle to understand what needs to be done he will just bug me until I've shown him how to do it all (thereby I might as well have done it myself and saved myself time).

I've spoken to my manager about this and he understands that I don't have time to teach him but there is no one else who has the skills to - I'm the only data person they have in our office of about 50 consultants (big four).

 

[fretted]

I have tried giving him books and tutorials to go through and some dummy projects but he claims to have read the text books in an afternoon but just constantly pesters me when I passed him work to do relating to the subject matter. Even after I have shown him or given him big hints n how to approach the problem.

To me he wants hands holding all the way but I don't have time nor do I want to do that. I believe in the power of Google for basic research and that he needs to be at a certain level before he is allowed to take on any real work but I fear he has different ideas and thinks data analytics is easy to pick up.

In my workplace, there is an emphasis to grow our own but lots of our graduates become accountants and not data analytics (these are usually hired from outside) so am surprised that he ended up with me.

He is not fresh out of university, he has been at my workplace for at least two years on a graduate scheme