Tech grads least likely to find a job
Graduate unemployment continues to grow
Posted in Management, 1st November 2010 12:27 GMT
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The number of graduates unable to find work in the UK continues to grow, and IT grads are among the worst hit.
The figures come from the Higher Education Careers Services Unit which got responses from over 80 per cent of graduates.
The total percentage of graduates in work continued to fall - from 63.3 per cent to 61.4 per cent in 2007/2008 and 59.2 per cent in 2009.
HECSU said that computing and IT graduates had been hit by the economic downturn because their likely careers were in finance, business and technology - all areas hit hardest. But number crunchers believed that the future is not so bleak with several top recruiters offering more vacancies in 2010.
The growth could be as much as 18 per cent compared to 2009, which saw a sharp fall in IT vacancies.
The quango said grads needed softer skills such as communication and literacy skills and business awareness in order to impress recruiters.
The good news is that maths and IT starting salaries remain higher than the average for graduates. Maths grads got an average salary of £21,724.
Information Systems grads pocketed £20,855, while other IT grad salaries included £20,388 for computer science graduates, £21.179 for artificial intelligence and £20,651 for software engineering.
This compares to an average across all degree subjects of £19,695. ®
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COMMENTS
And UK Government is helping by....
Opening up further opportunities for the industry to offshore IT systems and services in order to reduce costs to the public.
They probably still think there is a skill shortage.
Ah but ah!
There may be an insecurity matter to factor in (or two) but in this post I'll focus on management insecurity.
Often (especially in publicly funded organisations?) there is an insecurity about a manager employing a new, raw recruit who might have higher skills and knowledge levels than the manager himself.
What usually happens is an insecurely skilled manager will always recruit in a way that does not further challenge the manager's skills and knowledge insecurity.
Add to that a robust round of redundancies and there is not way an insecure manager is going to appoint a highly skilled, knowledgeable recruit.
The Guaduate
Have you ever *met* an IT graduate? Have you ever met an IT **lecturer*?!
What would you expect to get if Stevie Wonder was tasked with teaching a bunch of common senseless dopes how to paint? The best you could hope for would be a batch of robots who only knew how to paint by numbers - And that's exactly what IT too many graduates are.
Those who actually know their job learnt it from messing about on home PCs and warez in their bedrooms. If they even went to college, it was only to pander to the formality of getting a qualification so that some automaton manager would actually employ them, otherwise the common-senseless dope would get it instead, leading to Plusnet trashing all their customers' email - AGAIN!
Then the lecturer stays behind in la-la land, assuming the credit and basking in the glory of having taught the self-taught student all they know in the couple of years they were in their class.
Hello?
Would that be because you're the one with a degree in software engineering and 15 years commercial development experience and I'm the editor of an online red top comment blog?
LOOK MUM, I'M COMMUNICATING
"The quango said grads needed softer skills such as communication and literacy skills and business awareness in order to impress recruiters."
Yes but recruiters are idiots. You need real skills to get a job, not pretend ones. Every CV in the world starts off with "I have great communication skills" (or in my case, "I fucking love communicating"). It's not impressive. If you can't communicate then how would you ever have applied for a job in the first place? You might as well state that "employers love to hire people who can breath and who are alive". Wow, really? Whodathunkit.
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