Oh, no doubt there are tech schools different than my example, just like that are colleges in line with the market need. Those are just the minority.
Just because someone comes from a tech school doesn't mean I will hire them right away, just like I don't dump resumes from college graduates in the trash automatically.
So how come they have such a hard time finding a job ?
Seriously, I was hoping it was obvious from my post the positions were similar or equivalent. I'm not comparing network analyst with janitorial services.
Reliability, granted. Performance ? Very rarely. Less than 0.1% at a wild guess. Solution for performance problems these days is hardware upgrade (even Oracle etc work like that).
Even Japanese companies like Honda, if they are contracting you, will set a few requirements, and none involve the kind of code purity implied brunes69. Companies like Ericsson will require a lot of documentation, but again, no code purity. Only IBM, and even then on very few cases, would require code guidelines like that to be followed.
Performance requirements usually only exist in embedded systems, or real time applications (TMN etc), but that is a very, very small part of the market and, trust me, if you are fresh out of college, what are the odds they will let you work on something like that anyway ?
As I said, cases like you pointed do exist, but they are the exception, not the rule, so basing your job-seeking decisions on those is a bad idea.
Thank you for the clarification. Most of my knowledge regarding the German education system comes through their partnership with schools and colleges in other countries (which is amazing). So I know the what, but not the how. I knew they were doing that, but was not sure for how long.
Reading all the apologies and excuses posted here, I have to say most of you will have a very hard time finding a job. It is pretty clear to me that a good part of the posters are still in college, and still have that damn college education.
Lemme clue you in. And please, if you are still in college, getting your IT-related degree, read this. I am a business owner in the IT field. My father is a college professor. I have a very, very hard time finding people who are ``hireable'' (to use a "word" I have been hearing alot). All my statements below are valid only to the IT field and colleges. So please take it in context.
First, understand that 99% of what you learn in college is useless. College is giving you some very broad knowledge, in hope that some of it will be useful, which is a valid (if hardly enough) position. They don't know what job you will get, so they are giving you as much knowledge they can cram inside your head. You will use 1% of it.
Now, for the college mentality. In college you are shown time and time again that your knowledge if measured by how well you do in a test. How much you know. College teaches you that learning is being spool fed knowledge by someone else. College teaches you that you should be measured by how much you know.
All that is wrong, plain an simple. If you don't know HOW to apply your knowledge, what you know is useless. If you can't go, find the information, process it, understand, separate what is important than what is not, filter it through common sense, and retain what is of value and can be used, you don't know how to learn. How much you know is nowhere near as important was your ability to make use of knowledge.
Companies will ask for "previous work experience". Notice those are exactly the words that are used most of the time. ANY WORK EXPERIENCE is important. That is at least 80% of the issue. Even if you were handling bags to a customer at a supermarket, taking out the garbage at McDonalds. You have previous work experience. You've been inside a company. You've seen and lived company dynamics. If you can get that work experience in the IT field, even better, but that is really secondary.
Lets say you are going to spend 5 years in college. Right around your second or third year, go talk to company recruiters. See what they are looking for. Not technical skills, but what kind of employee they want. Do they want people with read and write in spanish ? Who can speak mandarin ? Who are healthy ? Who practice sports ? There is probably some "placement" person in your college. Go talk to that person, and ask him what the companies want. Take it with a grain of salt, because you can't be sure about how much that person really knows, but it is more information for you.
Practice decision making. Practice leadership skills. Remember that companies will only give responsibilities for people who take responsibility (yeah, I know what that sounds like, but it is still true). USE YOUR TIME IN COLLEGE for more than reading books, passing tests and parties. Think of it as a big opportunity to open doors, make contacts and learn outside the box. Your first objective should be: to make yourself more attractive to the companies than the other people you will graduate with. Try and answer the question: why would a company hire YOU, instead of all the other people, sometimes cheaper, sometimes with more experience, that are trying for that position.
Try and meet recruiters and business owners. Try and understand how they think, and what they are looking for. Learn practicality. If they own a successful business (and you don't), they know better than you what is best for their company. They might not know better than other business owners, but they also know better than you what is best for OTHER companies.
Think of it this way: the fact you have a college degree isn't work shit by itself. So what can YOU do to make that degree worth something ? Remember no one will be hiring your degree. They will be hiring you. That you have a degree
Yes, I'm sure that will look lovely at the department report: we failed to turn a profit, but we know the different between a vector and a list.
Dude, seriously. No one in management cares. If you get the job done, they don't care if you used a vector, a list, a table or a lookup. They don't care if you are using threading or IPC, or if your threading is POSIX compliant or not. Get the f'ing job done, quick and out of the door before the competition does. If you can manage to save us some money, you might even get a bonus.
You don't like how that is ? Fine. Start your own company, and see how long you say in business. I'm sure your employees will be happy about that code purity when they are on the street looking for a new job.
No question a degree CAN add value. Just like further training, MBA etc can also add value. Mostly, it is the people behind those degrees, and their personal qualities, that make them what they are. And because of what they are, they go after further education. Do the degree is the consequence here, not the cause.
Here is a question I want to quote before I answer, because it is a very relevant one:
If you ran a school, could you practically train everyone for all the junior level opportunities offered?
I don't run a school, but my father is a college professor (who also teaches part-time at a technical school), and a very close friend of mine owns and run a technical school. It might not be possible to train 100% of the people for all junior level opportunities, but you can get amazing results. Sometimes over 90%. I see it in most technical schools, and on some very few private colleges (funny enough, never universities, or community colleges). What is required is a closer relationship between the school and the companies, and I'm not talking about R&D here (which accounts for over 95% of the relationship we see). Sometimes you will see companies try and get that ball rolling, but that is rare. Mostly, it is the responsibility of the schools to seek it and make it work. It is a lot of work, specially getting to the right people inside the companies and establishing a relationship, but it can be done. Sadly, most schools don't bother.
Wow. Some common sense. Thank you Qzukk. Glad to see there is still some of that around.
My company used to be like that. College degree first. Until one day we started opening internship position for people from technical school. The result was so impressive, that 9 out of 10 them got hired right away at the end of it. (Or experiences with college students interns was hiring less than 40% of them). That was a big shock for everyone, and opened several eyes. Yes, we do hope our technical level employee will go to college and get a degree, but for us, that is nothing more than further education. Just like them going to get a CCNA certification.
Due to all that, we started getting closer contact with technical school, and found out that over 90% of the recent graduates were hired in no more than 2 months, with at least 40% of them getting hired directly through their internship.
The company hiring practices are changing. Slowly, specially on the big corporations where the people who hire are completely different people than the ones managing the work.
Some of the most desirable applicants I've seen have both a technical and a college degree, usually taking 1 or 2 years out of school, after technical, to get work experience, before starting college. Which is what my daughter is going to do, by the way (she is on technical school right now), so yeah, I'm putting my money where my mouth is, both regarding my company and my family future. People with this kind of profile are a much better bet for companies. I mean, I can't imagine someone a company would like to hire more than a person with a college degree, and a technical school mentality.
That is, of course, not an option open for everyone, since many are already in college or just out of it, and can't go back. But they can look at the problem from a point of view of them not being attractive to potential employers, try and find out what the employers want, and work on that. Beats the hell out of listening to people saying "you don't have the required experience" for a whole year.
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.
Because people coming from a technical school (with is a lower level of education then college) do. They usually require 1/3 of the in-house training than a college graduate does before they start contributing to the company.
Thats wishful thinking, at best. College (not the degree) is only the foundation of the job if you know what to do during that time. Which, sadly, most colleges don't teach students. The only training you get during college (in most places) is how to work inside a college. On a good note, if you plan on following on a teaching career, you are in a good position.
On the same note, the amount of in-house training I have to give the new fresh-out-of-college people I hire is EXACTLY the same I have to give to highschool-only people.
God bless technical school, who give their students a good mix of technical knowledge, workplace procedures, laboratory experience, generic knowledge and common sense.
The ivory tower model of colleges should be taken down with extreme prejudice. It is harmful both for the student (when they try to place themselves in the job market) and to the companies. The "get people ready for the job market and what the companies need" model of technical schools is what is need. Several countries are starting to see that, and investing heavily on it (Brazil, Germany etc).
First and foremost, before "previous job experience", companies are looking for "usable skills". So you get out of college, with the ink still fresh in your certificate, with a ton of book knowledge and zero usable skills. Why would a company hire you ? Take a few hours every week, stop looks at books and how many certificates your college teacher has, and look at what the market need. Before you graduate, take the time and talk to some recruiters and see what they are looking for. I can give you a few key advices here:
- They are looking for people who can speak more than one language, or at least read/write on a second language - They are looking for people with up-to-date knowledge of the market AS IT IS (not new tendencies and technologies) - They are looking for people who can learn fast, and know how to learn by themselves, without needed another to spoon-feed them, hold their hands and all that - They are looking for people who can process information fast, and make decisions - They are looking for people who act - They are looking for people with previous work experience, EVEN IF IT IS IN A NON RELATED AREA (people who experienced company dynamics); so yeah, working at McDonalds gives you a huge advantage over the other candidate that never worked at all. - They are looking for people who don't like excuses, and don't give them (A degree is not a job training course => excuses)
Most of all, they are looking for people who don't have that damn college mentality. THAT is the real barrier.
It was not a fluke. It was so well planned that it doesn't ever need to happen again. The terrorists did the work once, and then left to the USA (and other) government to continue their work for them. Now, they can just sit back, relax and enjoy their... hummm... what do terrorist drink ?
Hummm, the terrorist ARE inflicting terror. They are just using the government as the tool for it. They don't need to move a finger, except to drop a few well placed news and rumors.
Because the TSA people don't have enough clearance to verify yours is real ? Kinda funny, people with less clearance than you questioning you on that....
Shouldn't we ask a different quest ? Like: is it possible to put ENOUGH effort into it to make it secure ? Remember that, not only they need to avoid exploitation of the plugin (whatever) itself, they need to avoid exploitation of the browser, Windows API etc.
I have OpenVPN running nicely on my Android 2.1 phone. Had to root it, tho.
And since you are rooting it, you shoud be able to partiton you sdcard and setup some kind of encrypted filesystem. I havent tried it yet, but might just to see if is possible.
Also, in a country like that, you might try getting a phone without a camera... just in case.
Company phone is not any more unusual than company notebook these days, specially for people who need external access to the network.
Actually, for many cases, I can see the old desktop+notebook combo being replaced by desktop+smartphone. I've have heard often enough about people asking for a notebook for use during meetings and presentations. I for one stopped doing that and only use my phone these days. 99% of the time my notebook is sitting quietly in my desk (besides my desktop).
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, no doubt there are tech schools different than my example, just like that are colleges in line with the market need. Those are just the minority.
Just because someone comes from a tech school doesn't mean I will hire them right away, just like I don't dump resumes from college graduates in the trash automatically.
And would you say that your case is the rule, or the exception on the market ?
So how come they have such a hard time finding a job ?
Seriously, I was hoping it was obvious from my post the positions were similar or equivalent. I'm not comparing network analyst with janitorial services.
Fair enough. Your development manager would get fired here.
Reliability, granted. Performance ? Very rarely. Less than 0.1% at a wild guess. Solution for performance problems these days is hardware upgrade (even Oracle etc work like that).
Even Japanese companies like Honda, if they are contracting you, will set a few requirements, and none involve the kind of code purity implied brunes69. Companies like Ericsson will require a lot of documentation, but again, no code purity. Only IBM, and even then on very few cases, would require code guidelines like that to be followed.
Performance requirements usually only exist in embedded systems, or real time applications (TMN etc), but that is a very, very small part of the market and, trust me, if you are fresh out of college, what are the odds they will let you work on something like that anyway ?
As I said, cases like you pointed do exist, but they are the exception, not the rule, so basing your job-seeking decisions on those is a bad idea.
Thank you for the clarification. Most of my knowledge regarding the German education system comes through their partnership with schools and colleges in other countries (which is amazing). So I know the what, but not the how. I knew they were doing that, but was not sure for how long.
Reading all the apologies and excuses posted here, I have to say most of you will have a very hard time finding a job.
It is pretty clear to me that a good part of the posters are still in college, and still have that damn college education.
Lemme clue you in. And please, if you are still in college, getting your IT-related degree, read this. I am a business owner in the IT field. My father is a college professor. I have a very, very hard time finding people who are ``hireable'' (to use a "word" I have been hearing alot). All my statements below are valid only to the IT field and colleges. So please take it in context.
First, understand that 99% of what you learn in college is useless. College is giving you some very broad knowledge, in hope that some of it will be useful, which is a valid (if hardly enough) position. They don't know what job you will get, so they are giving you as much knowledge they can cram inside your head. You will use 1% of it.
Now, for the college mentality. In college you are shown time and time again that your knowledge if measured by how well you do in a test. How much you know. College teaches you that learning is being spool fed knowledge by someone else. College teaches you that you should be measured by how much you know.
All that is wrong, plain an simple. If you don't know HOW to apply your knowledge, what you know is useless. If you can't go, find the information, process it, understand, separate what is important than what is not, filter it through common sense, and retain what is of value and can be used, you don't know how to learn. How much you know is nowhere near as important was your ability to make use of knowledge.
Companies will ask for "previous work experience". Notice those are exactly the words that are used most of the time. ANY WORK EXPERIENCE is important. That is at least 80% of the issue. Even if you were handling bags to a customer at a supermarket, taking out the garbage at McDonalds. You have previous work experience. You've been inside a company. You've seen and lived company dynamics. If you can get that work experience in the IT field, even better, but that is really secondary.
Lets say you are going to spend 5 years in college. Right around your second or third year, go talk to company recruiters. See what they are looking for. Not technical skills, but what kind of employee they want. Do they want people with read and write in spanish ? Who can speak mandarin ? Who are healthy ? Who practice sports ? There is probably some "placement" person in your college. Go talk to that person, and ask him what the companies want. Take it with a grain of salt, because you can't be sure about how much that person really knows, but it is more information for you.
Practice decision making. Practice leadership skills. Remember that companies will only give responsibilities for people who take responsibility (yeah, I know what that sounds like, but it is still true). USE YOUR TIME IN COLLEGE for more than reading books, passing tests and parties. Think of it as a big opportunity to open doors, make contacts and learn outside the box. Your first objective should be: to make yourself more attractive to the companies than the other people you will graduate with. Try and answer the question: why would a company hire YOU, instead of all the other people, sometimes cheaper, sometimes with more experience, that are trying for that position.
Try and meet recruiters and business owners. Try and understand how they think, and what they are looking for. Learn practicality. If they own a successful business (and you don't), they know better than you what is best for their company. They might not know better than other business owners, but they also know better than you what is best for OTHER companies.
Think of it this way: the fact you have a college degree isn't work shit by itself. So what can YOU do to make that degree worth something ? Remember no one will be hiring your degree. They will be hiring you. That you have a degree
Yes, I'm sure that will look lovely at the department report: we failed to turn a profit, but we know the different between a vector and a list.
Dude, seriously. No one in management cares. If you get the job done, they don't care if you used a vector, a list, a table or a lookup. They don't care if you are using threading or IPC, or if your threading is POSIX compliant or not. Get the f'ing job done, quick and out of the door before the competition does. If you can manage to save us some money, you might even get a bonus.
You don't like how that is ? Fine. Start your own company, and see how long you say in business. I'm sure your employees will be happy about that code purity when they are on the street looking for a new job.
No question a degree CAN add value. Just like further training, MBA etc can also add value. Mostly, it is the people behind those degrees, and their personal qualities, that make them what they are. And because of what they are, they go after further education. Do the degree is the consequence here, not the cause.
Here is a question I want to quote before I answer, because it is a very relevant one:
I don't run a school, but my father is a college professor (who also teaches part-time at a technical school), and a very close friend of mine owns and run a technical school. It might not be possible to train 100% of the people for all junior level opportunities, but you can get amazing results. Sometimes over 90%. I see it in most technical schools, and on some very few private colleges (funny enough, never universities, or community colleges). What is required is a closer relationship between the school and the companies, and I'm not talking about R&D here (which accounts for over 95% of the relationship we see). Sometimes you will see companies try and get that ball rolling, but that is rare. Mostly, it is the responsibility of the schools to seek it and make it work. It is a lot of work, specially getting to the right people inside the companies and establishing a relationship, but it can be done. Sadly, most schools don't bother.
Wow. Some common sense. Thank you Qzukk. Glad to see there is still some of that around.
My company used to be like that. College degree first. Until one day we started opening internship position for people from technical school. The result was so impressive, that 9 out of 10 them got hired right away at the end of it. (Or experiences with college students interns was hiring less than 40% of them). That was a big shock for everyone, and opened several eyes. Yes, we do hope our technical level employee will go to college and get a degree, but for us, that is nothing more than further education. Just like them going to get a CCNA certification.
Due to all that, we started getting closer contact with technical school, and found out that over 90% of the recent graduates were hired in no more than 2 months, with at least 40% of them getting hired directly through their internship.
The company hiring practices are changing. Slowly, specially on the big corporations where the people who hire are completely different people than the ones managing the work.
Some of the most desirable applicants I've seen have both a technical and a college degree, usually taking 1 or 2 years out of school, after technical, to get work experience, before starting college. Which is what my daughter is going to do, by the way (she is on technical school right now), so yeah, I'm putting my money where my mouth is, both regarding my company and my family future. People with this kind of profile are a much better bet for companies. I mean, I can't imagine someone a company would like to hire more than a person with a college degree, and a technical school mentality.
That is, of course, not an option open for everyone, since many are already in college or just out of it, and can't go back. But they can look at the problem from a point of view of them not being attractive to potential employers, try and find out what the employers want, and work on that. Beats the hell out of listening to people saying "you don't have the required experience" for a whole year.
Because people coming from a technical school (with is a lower level of education then college) do. They usually require 1/3 of the in-house training than a college graduate does before they start contributing to the company.
Thats wishful thinking, at best. College (not the degree) is only the foundation of the job if you know what to do during that time. Which, sadly, most colleges don't teach students. The only training you get during college (in most places) is how to work inside a college. On a good note, if you plan on following on a teaching career, you are in a good position.
On the same note, the amount of in-house training I have to give the new fresh-out-of-college people I hire is EXACTLY the same I have to give to highschool-only people.
God bless technical school, who give their students a good mix of technical knowledge, workplace procedures, laboratory experience, generic knowledge and common sense.
The ivory tower model of colleges should be taken down with extreme prejudice. It is harmful both for the student (when they try to place themselves in the job market) and to the companies. The "get people ready for the job market and what the companies need" model of technical schools is what is need. Several countries are starting to see that, and investing heavily on it (Brazil, Germany etc).
First and foremost, before "previous job experience", companies are looking for "usable skills". So you get out of college, with the ink still fresh in your certificate, with a ton of book knowledge and zero usable skills. Why would a company hire you ? Take a few hours every week, stop looks at books and how many certificates your college teacher has, and look at what the market need. Before you graduate, take the time and talk to some recruiters and see what they are looking for. I can give you a few key advices here:
- They are looking for people who can speak more than one language, or at least read/write on a second language
- They are looking for people with up-to-date knowledge of the market AS IT IS (not new tendencies and technologies)
- They are looking for people who can learn fast, and know how to learn by themselves, without needed another to spoon-feed them, hold their hands and all that
- They are looking for people who can process information fast, and make decisions
- They are looking for people who act
- They are looking for people with previous work experience, EVEN IF IT IS IN A NON RELATED AREA (people who experienced company dynamics); so yeah, working at McDonalds gives you a huge advantage over the other candidate that never worked at all.
- They are looking for people who don't like excuses, and don't give them (A degree is not a job training course => excuses)
Most of all, they are looking for people who don't have that damn college mentality. THAT is the real barrier.
Rule #1 of politics: You can replace the flies, but the shit will remain the same.
Yeah, because the TSA won't be jumping into the bandwagon pretty soon, right ? They would never do something like that ...
Santa Claus, Easter Bunny and an ARRT-accredited FSA security worker walked into a bar .....
Probably the Australian counterpart of Fox News, if they are buying this "optional" bullshit.
It was not a fluke. It was so well planned that it doesn't ever need to happen again. The terrorists did the work once, and then left to the USA (and other) government to continue their work for them. Now, they can just sit back, relax and enjoy their ... hummm ... what do terrorist drink ?
Hummm, the terrorist ARE inflicting terror. They are just using the government as the tool for it. They don't need to move a finger, except to drop a few well placed news and rumors.
Because the TSA people don't have enough clearance to verify yours is real ? ....
Kinda funny, people with less clearance than you questioning you on that
Bread and circus ....
And, on a Orwellian mentality, we could also add: external enemy.
That is all the government needs and, from what you can see, they are playing it by the book.
Shouldn't we ask a different quest ? Like: is it possible to put ENOUGH effort into it to make it secure ? Remember that, not only they need to avoid exploitation of the plugin (whatever) itself, they need to avoid exploitation of the browser, Windows API etc.
I wonder if we can get FUSE working on Android. That would open a lot of possibilities...
I have OpenVPN running nicely on my Android 2.1 phone. Had to root it, tho.
And since you are rooting it, you shoud be able to partiton you sdcard and setup some kind of encrypted filesystem. I havent tried it yet, but might just to see if is possible.
Also, in a country like that, you might try getting a phone without a camera... just in case.
Company phone is not any more unusual than company notebook these days, specially for people who need external access to the network.
Actually, for many cases, I can see the old desktop+notebook combo being replaced by desktop+smartphone. I've have heard often enough about people asking for a notebook for use during meetings and presentations. I for one stopped doing that and only use my phone these days. 99% of the time my notebook is sitting quietly in my desk (besides my desktop).