IT Graduates Not "Well-Trained, Ready-To-Go"

It's Called 'Experience'! by WrongSizeGlass · 2011-02-27 05:07 · 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).

Re:It's Called 'Experience'! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-27 05:16 · 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.
Re:It's Called 'Experience'! by Fnord · 2011-02-27 06:28 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'm a senior developer at one of the world's biggest software companies. The only reason I didn't move to management is because I want to continue writing code. I dropped out of college in the middle of my second year.
A degree certainly helps you get a job, and skips you past a few of the bottom rungs, but after a certain point talent and experience are all that matters. Its true that without a degree I had to work my way from tech support -> sysadmin -> software qa -> software development, and my friends who stuck with schol went straight to software development. However when I finally got to write code for a living I was already considered mid-level, and they were junior devs, and now ten years into the field we're all about at the same place.
Maybe my path wouldn't work for most people, but "you will die penniless and alone if you don't go to college" scare tactics just annoy me.
Re:It's Called 'Experience'! by cjb658 · 2011-02-27 07:18 · 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'! by Grishnakh · 2011-02-27 07:24 · 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'! by hairyfeet · 2011-02-27 07:55 · Score: 5, Interesting

Noooo...I'd say what is happening is he is being trapped by the current HR BS where they just put all applications into a computers and playing buzzword bingo with them and he ain't hitting the correct buzzwords.
Sadly between that and the "hire NOT to hire an American" bullshit while there are plenty of jobs listed actually getting a decent one is increasingly hard, which is why I decided to take the plunge and open my own little shop. I'll never get rich but I make a decent living and don't have to deal with the BS.
Just look at the things some of these jobs are asking for and you'll quickly be able to spot the "How NOT to hire an American" bullshit at work. We are talking jobs asking for 10 years of Java, 7 of .NET, years of IT management experience and for a starting pay of $24k. Sadly just check your local help wanted to see how badly this "How NOT to hire an American" BS has spread, depending on the area you are looking at as high as 60% of the job listings being bullshit.
So the guy is probably just running into the same BS many of my friends with years of experience ran into, on the one hand you have HR looking for buzzword bingo, on the other how not to hire an American with bullshit postings designed to get them an H1-B wage slave. Either way you look at it it isn't pretty and these corps have no one but themselves to blame by gutting the market with all the offshoring and H1-Bs. You'd have to be nuts to be just starting out and pick IT over medical or legal right now!

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Re:It's Called 'Experience'! by blind+biker · 2011-02-27 09:05 · Score: 4, 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.

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"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Re:It's Called 'Experience'! by malkavian · 2011-02-27 09:26 · Score: 5, Interesting

Wholeheartedly agree.. Not long ago, I had to call the HR department out in a serious fashion. I was recruiting for a couple of Developers.. HR field the CVs, and pass them on. I ended up with a pile, and in that pile were just a couple that looked vaguely interesting, but on interview turned out not to have the goods. Shortly afterwards, I got a few calls from candidates who were asking if their applications had been received (which to me, they hadn't, and over the phone, they seemed pretty good fits).. I went and asked HR where these applications were, and was told that they'd been 'Pre-Filtered' through HR's own internal process for applicability for the role. After yanking out the ones they'd 'filtered out', I discovered several that were pretty much an exact fit. HR just didn't know the words that actually said what the experience was, so discounted them entirely, rather than leave the judgement call to someone who knew what was going on.
Needless to say, I hit the roof with them for wasting my time. I went on to hire a couple of those that HR had rejected.
Re:It's Called 'Experience'! by istartedi · 2011-02-27 12:17 · Score: 4, Informative

This is just one small example of Greenspan's real mistake. Yes. His real mistake.
He stated that a belief that firms would act rationally was his mistake.
Rational actors are a funamental assumption of economic analysis, and all but the most blindered ivory-tower economists recognize that as a funametal flaw in the discipline. Recently, some experimental economics that pulls in the discipline of psychology has been done, so there's hope despite academia's tendancy to resist interdisciplinary study.
Anyway, I digress. Greenspan's real mistake was to buy into the fiction of corporate personhood.
Corporations don't act. They aren't persons. Employees and managers act, usually in their own self interest. Thus, the managers acting in their own self interest destroyed the firms and profited while doing so. As a collection of people all seeking their own self-interest, the firm serves the individuals that run it; but ultimately the firm itself becomes insolvent!

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For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Re:It's Called 'Experience'! by rtb61 · 2011-02-27 13:04 · Score: 4, Interesting

It is actually more complicated than that. Any company should be ideally run as three companies. Company 1 owns all the capital assets plus pays management, company 2 the business contracts and company 3 manages and pays the staff. Company 2 is the company that actually trades, and rents the assets and contracts management from company 1 and contracts the staff from company 3 which also contracts management from company 1.
You should be able to guess why it is structured in that manner. If contracts go bad, company 2 goes bankrupt but all of the assets are retained in company 1. Company 3 is kept in survival mode only, barely able to meet current employee contractual conditions let alone long term ones, those unpaid long term obligations actually become a bonus for company 1 when all the staff are dumped. All profits are constantly siphoned off from company 2 and 3, in building rentals and management fees so if anything goes wrong the companies are simply wound up with minimum loses to management. Sometimes (far to often) management just let's debt build up in company 2 and 3 until they collapse and then walks away with all the profits in company 1. Interesting side note, if the employees are unionised, the union has the funds to pursue company 1 to recover the employees lost pay, no union and the employees are screwed (mortgages and credit cards ensure they have no means to pursue company 1), another reason why companies hate unions.
Back on topic there is a major difference between trade schools and universities. If you want staff you can immediately employ trade schools are the only way to go. If you want employees with a broad knowledge and research skills, that you need to train, universities are the way to go. If you want the best employee pick the ones who do both in either order, university and trade schools for certification.

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Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen

It's a good disconnect by DavidR1991 · 2011-02-27 05:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

A degree is not a job training course.

End of.

Re:It's a good disconnect by Half-pint+HAL · 2011-02-27 05:31 · 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.

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Re:It's a good disconnect by brunes69 · 2011-02-27 05:36 · 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:It's a good disconnect by Qzukk · 2011-02-27 06:28 · 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.

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If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Re:It's a good disconnect by gonzonista · 2011-02-27 06:33 · Score: 4, Interesting

Sound advice. The requirements you listed are pretty universal throughout the job market, no matter what the industry. However, the issue here is that employers are looking seemless transition from school to work. This is a somewhat unreasonable desire because the people who have the characteristics you list probably could find work without additional education. That leaves everybody else. If you ran a school, could you practically train everyone for all the junior level opportunities offered? Probably not, as the job market is too diverse.
We could argue about the educational process but for me it boils down to the tortoise/hare race. Educating students on technical specifics works well in the short run but has limited shelf life. Educating on generalities lasts a life time. It is up to the student to transfer the generalities to specifics. Those who do that, do well. Ever wonder why those with degrees form the minority of the workforce but run the majority of companies? The degree must be adding value somewhere.

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If absolute power corrupts absolutely, what does this say about renewable power?

Huh? by Bedouin+X · 2011-02-27 05:11 · 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.

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Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...

Re:Huh? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-02-27 05:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

In terms of actual expectation, only noobs and idiots ever have. Theory and experience are complementary; but you can only substitute one for the other so much.

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.

Who's suprised? by T-Bone-T · 2011-02-27 05:12 · 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.

Re:Who's suprised? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-27 05:21 · Score: 5, Interesting

Remember:
1) you get a BA/BS and you think you know something
2) you get a MS/MA and realize you know nothing
3) you get a PhD and realize that nobody else knows anything either -- and it's all ok; we shall muddle on together.
I fail to see why business should expect new graduates to be ready to work; at best when I review resumes I'm looking for someone who's ready to learn with solid abilities to analyze problems. A spark of creativity is a bonus too.

I am not sure who these people are by zoomshorts · 2011-02-27 05:12 · 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.

Of course graduates lack what IT managers want by Dracos · 2011-02-27 05:17 · Score: 4, Interesting

No one ever graduated with the wide range of expert-level skills and the absurd amount of experience required. IT employers want candidates to know everything under the sun, and to have known those skills at least since they were created. For example, I remember seeing a job post 10 years ago that required 20 years of Java... do the math.

IT managers need to get real. The chances that they'll actually find a candidate with real expertise in PHP, RoR, Python, MySQL, Oracle, Apache, Cisco, JavaScript, jQuery, UI/UX, Photoshop, and Flash is pretty slim (yes, I saw that just the other day).

Re:Of course graduates lack what IT managers want by mjwalshe · 2011-02-27 06:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

if you need "I need folks who are able to hit the ground running" you don't hire new graduates you hire old hands who have a few years of experience. This is just the old whining of companies not wanting to pay for training.
Re:Of course graduates lack what IT managers want by russotto · 2011-02-27 06:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

I disagree. The requirements for "PHP, RoR, Python, MySQL, Oracle, Apache, Cisco, JavaScript, jQuery, UI/UX, Photoshop, and Flash" is pretty reasonable. It simply describes a Joomla CMS installation with an incoming feed from an Oracle database somewhere, with a one-off Ruby site somewhere. It's actually almost exactly what we have where I work, and I expect all of my hires to be able to work with those technologies.
You need Cisco, Photoshop, and Flash to do a Joomla installation?

To use the car analogy, it would be like posting an auto mechanic position that specifies, "must have real experience with Breaks, Transmission, Steering, Engines, Air Filters, Air Conditioning, Fuel Filters, Suspension, Radiators, Stereos, and Upholstery."
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.

I see your problem by IICV · 2011-02-27 05:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

Employers agree that colleges and universities need to provide their students with the essential skills required to run IT departments...

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?

Education vs. Training by overshoot · 2011-02-27 05:25 · Score: 5, Informative

Many, many years ago the HR manager who hired me for my first job had a sign on his wall:

A four-year degree means a man is trainable.

Universities are not trade schools. Employers who are expecting any new employee to be instantly productive are deluded.

Last week I interviewed a candidate with a Masters degree and 20 years of experience in the industry. We'll probably hire her, but we figure that she could be productive in three months and won't be worried if she takes six [1].

[1] That's net. In other words, she'll be doing useful work fairly soon, but by the time she's 100% up to speed we'll have invested three to six months of her terminal productivity getting her oriented, etc.

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Lacking <sarcasm> tags, /. substitutes moderation as "Troll."

What a waste of electrons... by russotto · 2011-02-27 05:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

Some of the skills they are asking for are reasonable:

77% want schools to provide programming skills

OK, fair enough. A CS program from which you can graduate without knowing programming in some language is pretty useless.

Some are less reasonable:

76% would like schools to provide analysis and architectural skills

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:

82% seek database skills
80% seek problem solving and technical skills

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 by overshoot · 2011-02-27 05:29 · Score: 4, 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.

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Lacking <sarcasm> tags, /. substitutes moderation as "Troll."

Re:Article is dead on by Stormy+Dragon · 2011-02-27 05:43 · Score: 4, 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 by microbox · 2011-02-27 05:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yeah, they want experience with specific technology XYZ -- not knowing enough about IT fundamentals to realize how closely related technologies can be -- and further, that being skilled with programming fundamentals is the most valuable kill of all.

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.

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Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right

Start at 14 and code code code by wdhowellsr · 2011-02-27 06:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

Unfortunately the market does expect more experience than any college graduate can get in four years. I started programming at fourteen as a freshman in HS and at 45 can honestly say I have thirty years of coding experience. I also jumped in on the beta of the up and coming MS .Net technology circa 2000 so actually have ten years experience with .Net.

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.

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