IT Graduates Not "Well-Trained, Ready-To-Go" 609
coondoggie writes "There is a disconnect between students getting high-tech degrees and what employers are looking for in those graduates. Employers agree that colleges and universities need to provide their students with the essential skills required to run IT departments, yet only 8% of hiring managers would rate IT graduates hired as 'well-trained, ready-to-go,' according to a survey of 376 organizations that are members of the IBM user group Share and Database Trends and Applications subscribers."
It's Called 'Experience'! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a good disconnect (Score:5, Insightful)
A degree is not a job training course.
End of.
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when did employers expect college grads to be "ready to go?" The skills they say they want are taught in college, but are pure speculation until applied in a meaningful way. Maybe that is a cry for more/better internship programs.
Who's suprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
I attended a talk by an aerospace engineer and one of the first thing he realized about his first job is he didn't really know anything. His courses were merely a foundation for the rest of his career. It is this way in any technical field.
I am not sure who these people are (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect bean counting HR types are driving the data. They are seldom technically proficient enough
to have a clue.
Getting IT people with decent job history and programmers with the same is not going to
happen for $20.00 per hour or 40 K per year.
Re:It's Called 'Experience'! (Score:5, Insightful)
Most IT hiring requires experience! Noobs are OK for some stuff but there's no way for any school to train them for what everyone in the real world is looking for ('cuz we all want something different).
Though everyone always told me that unless you went to school you'd never amount to anything and that you'd be a failure forever. No one could ever learn things they needed to know without college! Amassing huge amounts of debt in school I was told always was the most important goal of anyone looking to start a career!
Now you tell me that people want real world experience too?
Let me tell you something, that degree is just important or you'll end up like me. I have years of experience, tons of certifications but since I don't have a degree no one will hire me and I can't get promoted if I do find a job. Yeah people might not have experience once finishing school but as far as corporate politics and HR B.S. go it is the most important part for expanding your career.
I see your problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: "Why can't I pay fresh college graduate rates for someone who does the job of an experienced sysadmin?"
Reason: because fresh college graduates are not experienced, since douchebags like you collectively refuse to hire anyone who doesn't have four years experience in everything.
And to be honest, it kind of makes sense from their perspective - they could hire a guy fresh out of college, invest a couple of years in training him, and then watch him fly away to a better position somewhere else. For some reason, people just don't stick around when their skills grow, but their position and compensation doesn't! How weird!
Employee retention? Internal promotions? What's this madness you speak of?
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rhetorically, though, there is absolutely nothing for them to lose by taking this public stance. Who wants to go to the trouble of training employees if one can convince colleges and universities to train them for you at some mixture of individual, state, and parental expense? Training them yourself costs money, and means that you can't just flush them down the toilet and find a new one at a moment's notice...
That is why I find these articles(and they seem to pop up as regularly as the seasons) so infuriating. They are partly written by half-wits who don't understand that universities have a job to be doing that isn't "EZ-Training-while-U-Wait" and partially written by business lobby types who know exactly what the score is; but see nothing to lose in trying to externalize the costs of training their expendable peons.
Stop require CS degrees for all positions... (Score:4, Insightful)
If they would stop requiring CS degrees the problem would get better. They require the degree when it is not really required for the particular job they are hiring for. Of course some folks graduating from privately run IT training programs have relevant education, but the vast majority of CS degrees are fundamental math and theory. They don't train people to be IT workers, they train them to be programmers and theoreticians. Good IT workers have experience. Experience is not something school gives, especially in this field.
What a waste of electrons... (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of the skills they are asking for are reasonable:
OK, fair enough. A CS program from which you can graduate without knowing programming in some language is pretty useless.
Some are less reasonable:
Sorry guys, while a graduate should have some basics in this area, you really need real world experience to develop these skills to a useful extent. Or possibly an advanced degree in which the student studied real systems.
And some are just too vague to figure out what they want:
Database skills? You want them to know how to design a database using nth normal form? The basics of SQL syntax? How ISAM works? How to use Oracle Forms? It's not enough to say "database skills". The other one is even more vague.
The list of "hard to fill" positions is pretty useless, too. Love the one about the security clearance... of course it's hard to fill, the only people with active clearances are those who are working or very recently were working on a job which required one. You want an employee with a security clearance, stop being cheap bastards and hire someone you can get cleared. New grads are probably easier here; less time for them to accumulate skeletons in their closet.
Alternate reality requirements (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember seeing a job post 10 years ago that required 20 years of Java... do the math.
Once upon a time (1981) my then employer advertised for a programmer with five years of experience in 8088 (not 8086) assembly code. I pointed out that they were effectively screening out honest applicants, but they ran the ad that way anyhow.
Events proved me right.
Re:It's Called 'Experience'! (Score:2, Insightful)
If that's the case, you're not doing it right.
I only have a high school diploma, and a bunch of odd classes here and there. I also have a near-six-figure job doing what I love in the IT field, and have people under me.
The secret is not that a degree will get you where you want to go. I know a lot of people who have advanced degrees, but are still stuck in lower-level jobs.
The secret is to become cultured, know how to interact with people who have degrees, have an actual vocabulary, know how to write well, know what you're doing in your field, and know how to lead others well. IT also requires more confidence than a typical four-year-degree holder, because you have to believe in yourself more than the average person.
Re:It's a good disconnect (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. There is a world of difference between an academic qualification and a "vocational" qualification. The former is "education", the latter is "training".
When industry calls for specific skills, they are demanding that education be replaced with training. Nope, sorry. Academic study is too expensive to be used as a glorified training course. Remember that training can become obsolete. Training has to be renewed and revisited. Let's not confuse the two.
Re:I see your problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Why companies like to keep salaries secret:
It's cheaper to pay higher to poach one person than to give everyone a raise.
Even if that one person isn't as good as existing employees, the company may need that additional person badly so has to pay higher in order to get that person to switch jobs.
Whereas most of the people already in the company aren't in the process of switching jobs
That's why if you want your salary to keep going up, you forget about long term loyalty and switch jobs regularly for a raise (but not too often that it makes you look bad).
Re:It's a good disconnect (Score:5, Insightful)
I would not expect someone getting a computer science degree to take a course on writing functional specifications or using bugzilla and Eclipse, just like I would not expect a medical doctor to take a course on filling out patient charts.
These are things you learn ON THE JOB. Lawyers clerk, doctors have residency. Heck even McDonalds employees have WEEKS of training. I don't understand why people think someone can graduate from computer science and instantly integrate into a workplace and start coding, it is ridiculous.
Re:Article is dead on (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of a degree isn't to learn language X, then language Y, then language Z so that five years later their training is useless because things have moved on to language A, lanugage B, and langugage C. The point is to learn how a RDMS works, so you can pick up whatever particular flavor a given shop is using quick as well as easily move on to whatever "the next big thing is". The problem here is that you're expecting the university to make up for the fact your company has no training budget even if it causes long term damage to their students careers. You should be asking questions like: "Given a particular problem description, show me how you'd develop a properly normalized set of relations to capture the database". That's where the value is. Figuring out how to translate that table schema into whatever syntax your database tool uses is relatively trivial once that happens.
Pot-kettle black (Score:5, Insightful)
yet only 8% of hiring managers would rate IT graduates hired as 'well-trained, ready-to-go,'
I would rate only 8% of managers as having the skill to deduce what they are hiring.
Re:It's Called 'Experience'! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet, companies want to pay graduate prices (at best) for people with 5+ years of experience. Not only do they want experience, they want experience in the exact same technologies they're using - everything is extraneous. They may even be perfectly experienced in the desired skills and not be considered a 'good candidate' because they've got a degree in something tangential/unrelated, or have a couple years of experience doing something not quite the same.
The simple fact is, IT folks are considered an unwanted expense 9 times out of 10. (Thus the rise of MSPs and contractors continues - companies would rather pay by the hour or for a quantifiable checklist - even if they don't check it - than hire someone to do the same job.)
It comes down to companies not knowing shit about IT. Maybe it's our fault for pushing these 'wonder technologies' over the years, giving the illusion of 'it just works', or maybe it's vendors selling the latest-greatest wiz-bang with false pretenses, but the end result hurts everyone (companies included).
Re:Of course graduates lack what IT managers want (Score:5, Insightful)
Start at 14 and code code code (Score:5, Insightful)
I can only speak to programming but we should be exposing kids in middle school to all of the different languages and let them go to town if it is something that they like. Summer interning in High School would probably lead to a direct hire on graduation and they can get their degree on the company's dime. At the very least they will be three or four years ahead of any other graduate when they are out looking for work.
On a final note I can say definitely that no cares about a college degree if you have the required experience.
Re:What a waste of electrons... (Score:4, Insightful)
People who can solve problems and grow from the experience are exactly that kind of workers you'd like to have. It doesn't matter if they don't know everything when they start, but they're willing and able to tackle issues that they've never experienced before. Anyone who's unable to do this is going to be the first sorry sod replaced by computers, robots, etc. as they're just the functional equivalent and a lot more expensive to keep around.
On a general note, of course employers always want more. In a down economy where jobs are tight, they can even expect to get a little more than they usually would. Some of it's just HR pie-in-the-sky requirements, but that doesn't mean all of it is unrealistic. If a job lists problem solving skills, make sure to be ready to give an example of how you've solved a problem during the interview.
Corporate Serfs or Educated Citizens? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's a good disconnect (Score:5, Insightful)
God bless technical school, who give their students a good mix of technical knowledge, workplace procedures, laboratory experience, generic knowledge and common sense
Good for you. I'm glad you're one of the three employers not demanding a Bachelor's or Master's degree for every job position.
Most of all, they are looking for people who don't have that damn college mentality. THAT is the real barrier.
Then they should stop demanding college degrees, and stop giving excuses for why they want a college degree but they don't want college educated students.
Re:Of course graduates lack what IT managers want (Score:5, Insightful)
You need Cisco, Photoshop, and Flash to do a Joomla installation?
A better analogy than you think. Most mechanics will have no experience with upholstery besides sitting on it. Transmissions are also typically done by people who specialize in them. A mechanic's experience with stereos will likely be limited to removing and reinstalling them to get at something else. And they may not do air conditioning, though that's less common nowadays.
Re:It's Called 'Experience'! (Score:4, Insightful)
The real problem is that the employers don't know what they want. If they articulated it in a consistent manner, someone would fulfill that need. However, they want "experience" without explaining what experience is the valuable part. Do they want someone who knows how to do things, but possibly not necessarily the details so that those would be taught on the job? Or do they want tech-school graduates, not college graduates? Note in the summary they are talking about "running" IT departments. Apparently, the colleges or the employers think that a simple 4-year degree should be sufficient to be CIO. I wouldn't disagree with the point that sufficient education should be able to substitute for experience (not that I'm asserting that "sufficient" education is common or available), but to actually run a department takes a lot of business classes that aren't covered in IT degrees.
Not that learning the difference between an "expense" and a "capital expenditure" is difficult, but that if someone doesn't understand the difference, it is very hard to make an accurate budget or stick to it. Ever seen someone run a profitable business into bankruptcy? I have, multiple times. If they'd had a business class, they'd have known the difference between cashflow and profit and would have been able to see it coming, even if they couldn't prevent it. Additionally, you need precious little in technical skills to "run" and IT department. All you need is a well developed "tech BS" meter to ward off snake oil salesmen and lazy primadonnas who permeate the industry and managerial skills. The CIO isn't asked to code or install a firewall.
So it comes back to industry. They actually want the education system to fail because then they can point to deficiencies to justify low salaries, outsourcing, H1-Bs and such. If the industry had a consistent and articulated definition of what they wanted from a graduate, they'd have millions of them lined up. They obviously don't actually want that, or else they'd do it. So we are left with what industry wants, even if they then say it isn't what they want. But then, confusion benefits them, so why would they want to fix it?
You make excellent points. (Score:4, Insightful)
The key factor (imo) is whether are self-motivated enough to learn the college level material on your own.
I'd still recommend a degree. But only because it makes some of the future steps easier. But get the cheapest, fastest degree you can find. Any degree. You can improve it later.
20 years down the road, you have 19 years of experience in "IT" (13 years writing code professionally) and the people who went to college have 16 years experience in "IT" (16 years writing code professionally).
The difference will not be with the groups. It will be with the individuals who push themselves to learn more and to do more.
Re:It's Called 'Experience'! (Score:5, Insightful)
I was "well trained, ready to go" right out of college, no thanks to my formal education. My degree is merely something that makes employers think I know what I'm doing. My time playing around with stuff is why I actually know what I'm doing.
Re:It's Called 'Experience'! (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, I have been completely passed by, because I don't have a degree. Having a degree in the IT field helps a lot. I have 16 years experience so that gives me MAJOR advantages over those just coming out of college. I am going to school now, part time to get my degree. When I get out, I will have over 20 years experience AND an IT degree. It is kind of the best of both worlds. I also know of at least one guy that is a very brilliant programmer that almost got let go from a company that was reorganizing, just because he didn't have a degree. A LOT of his co-workers lobbied to keep him on.
A degree gives you upwards mobility. That is pretty much it. It also lets you get your foot in the door. Everything else in the middle is up to who YOU are.
Re:It's Called 'Experience'! (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to break it to you, but in my experience as a software engineer, most American companies are shitty in many ways. My determination of this has nothing to do with degrees (I have one), but the way the company is managed overall. Most American companies these days are all about cutting costs in stupid ways to create better quarterly results so their CEOs can get big bonuses, while putting the company further and further into debt. One of my former coworkers at Freescale told me recently that they sold off all their buildings recently and leased them back, so they could generate more cash which they could give to their owner (Blackstone) before they're spun off in an IPO to unwitting investors. I doubt Freescale will be around in 5 years. This is the same company that invested tons of money in a GPON chip, then when the first revision powered up successfully, they laid off the entire design team with the idea of having an Indian team do the support work. Then it turned out the chip was full of bugs and there was no one available to fix them (the Indian team declined the work).
Re:It's Called 'Experience'! (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to break it to you, but in my experience as a software engineer, most American companies are shitty in many ways.
To be exact, most publicly traded companies anywhere are shitty. There is no arguing that corporate psychopaths have swamped the ranks of executives of publicly traded companies, and care nothing for the long term viability and health of the company or the well-being of the employees.
In private companies, things are different, because the owner cares of what the heck is going on in his/her company, and would tighten the screws on any management that is not in the actual best interest of the firm. Owners want their companies to last long and not just till the end of the fiscal year.
Re:It's Called 'Experience'! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the current situation is that HR is overwhelmed. Partly due to the current recession and associated unemployment, but mostly due to the rise of online applications.
No. It predates that.
I once applied for a job at one of the Energy Department's national labs, and was very pleased to be called in for an in-person interview. I didn't get the job, but they were very courteous and seemed pleased enough with me, and a real-life HR person even phoned me to let me know I wouldn't be getting the job, but thanking me for my time and encouraging me to keep applying if I saw positions that interested me. (When's the last time that happened?)
What they told me during the interview, though, was that posting the job on Craigslist (where I saw it) was a first for them. As a government agency, they tended to adopt new technologies for procedural things rather slowly. They also told me they probably wouldn't be posting jobs there again. Within 24 hours of posting the listing, my interviewer said, they had about 200 applications in hand. In the end, of those, there were maybe 3-4 that they felt were worth calling for an interview, of which I was one.
Sure, I was flattered. But I also knew I wasn't a perfect fit for this job, either. It wasn't quite the same thing I had been doing before, but I was enthusiastic about the opportunity and was willing to be flexible. So I asked them -- in one of those "do you have any questions to ask us?" interview moments -- what was it about the other 196 applicants that had ruled them out? What, typically, had been a red flag for them?
The interviewer said it wasn't really anything like that. Quite frankly, the vast majority of the applicants had no business applying for this job anyway. Some were fresh out of college, with no experience whatsoever and no hint of what might make them a good fit for this particular position. Others had experience in seemingly unrelated areas -- a lot of generic business managers, and even some with mainly restaurant experience. Some had a poor grasp of English. A lot of them just seemed like cookie-cutter, form letter applications. One thing I always do when applying for a job is try to attach a cover letter with my resume to explain what it is about the opportunity that appeals to me; apparently, most people don't even do that. So in the end, they were left sifting through this big stack of paper, most of which looked like garbage to them. It was like coming back from a long vacation and having to sift through all the junk mail in your mailbox, to make sure you don't throw away any paychecks.
But if you read through all that hoping to find my explanation, unfortunately I have none. It makes some sense to me to apply for a job you're not fully qualified for -- how else do you grow? But to apply for a job you don't even really want doesn't make much sense to me. I've even walked out of in-person interviews convinced I won't take the job if they call me back. Life's too short. Similarly, to apply for a job that you do want but to not even really try -- not even bothering to tweak your resume so it lists a few of the asked-for skills? What's up with that?