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If there's a tech skills shortage, why so many computer graduates unemployed?

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Re: If there's a tech skills shortage, why so many computer graduates unemployed?

#31

Post by sotojuan »

vonmoltke wrote: post #24
sotojuan wrote: post #10

The article seems to be mostly about the UK, but from my US perspective, there are just a lot of CS graduates with little to no professional coding experience either out of laziness or lack of knowledge (yes, there are people who expect a job with just a degree). There's also a lot of people who aren't that interested in it or bad at it but still manage to not get weeded out. Add that to the decades-old "CS != progra…

> there are just a lot of CS graduates with little to no professional coding experience either out of laziness or lack of knowledge (yes, there are people who expect a job with just a degree) Why are you expecting fresh college graduates to have professional experience?

I guess I didn't explain my point well. I don't expect new grads to have "professional experience" (bad choice of words in my part), but a lot of companies expect them to have SOME sort of experience, be it an internship, open source stuff, personal projects, etc.

You'd be surprised how many people don't code outside of class and if you think that's fine and companies should train then I agree with you but it's not the reality most students are living in.

Re: If there's a tech skills shortage, why so many computer graduates unemployed?

#33

Post by vkou »

mrcactu5 wrote: post #17
presidentender wrote: post #3

1. Standards to pass university classes are lower than the standards to be worth a salary. 2. Accidentally hiring someone who can't produce is more expensive than passing on a good hire.

I don't think the standards are lower (certainly they weren't at Princeton) -- University standards may not perfectly align with the job market, perhaps?

Maybe they aren't lower at Princeton, but it's entirely possible to coast through a CS degree at a decent university, showing up to class maybe half the time.

I'm, ah, quite familiar with some, ahem, people who did just that.

Re: If there's a tech skills shortage, why so many computer graduates unemployed?

#34

Post by linkregister »

Can someone speak specifically about the UK software market? We seem to wrongly be making statements about the US market, which this article is not about.

From what I've heard it's dismally underpaid in the UK; I have also heard the perspective that costs of living are dramatically lower outside London, and matched with longer vacations and shorter working hours, it evens out.

Re: If there's a tech skills shortage, why so many computer graduates unemployed?

#35

Post by presidentender »

mrcactu5 wrote: post #17
presidentender wrote: post #3

1. Standards to pass university classes are lower than the standards to be worth a salary. 2. Accidentally hiring someone who can't produce is more expensive than passing on a good hire.

I don't think the standards are lower (certainly they weren't at Princeton) -- University standards may not perfectly align with the job market, perhaps?

Your humblebragworthy alma mater is not Flyover State University, home of the Footballs. The Princetons and Stanfords and MITs of the world don't have the bandwidth to fill the industry's demand.

Re: If there's a tech skills shortage, why so many computer graduates unemployed?

#36

Post by sharemywin »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #16

Well my education is in economics and, in general, the way to solve a 'shortage' in labour is to raise wages. Of course, what they're really talking about is a shortage in engineers willing to do the job at the price they've specified, so they lobby the government to open up immigration to workers from abroad willing to work for less, while at the same time trying to push more and more kids into CS, so that the marke…

The problem is the shortage is with companies wanting exactly "XYZ" experience in the last 2-3 years.

Re: If there's a tech skills shortage, why so many computer graduates unemployed?

#37

Post by sp332 »

noamsml wrote: post #11
astanway wrote: post #8

Ah, the old "shortage" "issue". More likely, there is no shortage - just a shortage of engineers willing to be paid the low wages most likely on offer at these companies

Low wages? Silicon valley engineers tend to be fairly highly paid...

SV isn't complaining about a skills shortage.

Re: If there's a tech skills shortage, why so many computer graduates unemployed?

#38

Post by throwmeOct7 »

zzalpha wrote: post #15
sotojuan wrote: post #10

The article seems to be mostly about the UK, but from my US perspective, there are just a lot of CS graduates with little to no professional coding experience either out of laziness or lack of knowledge (yes, there are people who expect a job with just a degree). There's also a lot of people who aren't that interested in it or bad at it but still manage to not get weeded out. Add that to the decades-old "CS != progra…

Umm... Of course they're graduating with no professional coding experience. The entire point is they don't have professional experience yet. What the hell do you expect them to do? They have to start somewhere. Do chemical companies refuse to hire newly graduated chemical engineers who don't have professional chemical engineering experience? That doesn't even make sense.

Does co-op not exist any more? This is what I did. After my freshman year at Virginia Tech, I alternated between working a semester and going to school a semester. There wasn an entire university office dedicated to this (co-op program). So, I never had any "time off" months from the day I started to the time I graduated. I worked at a software company in Blacksburg, I stuck with the same company the whole time. I made close to minimum wage, but I was a programmer. I was getting paid to do object-oriented design and implementation. It did take a little longer to graduate, but I had fewer student loans.

edit: and I had 5 job offers when I graduated

Re: If there's a tech skills shortage, why so many computer graduates unemployed?

#39

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

noamsml wrote: post #11
astanway wrote: post #8

Ah, the old "shortage" "issue". More likely, there is no shortage - just a shortage of engineers willing to be paid the low wages most likely on offer at these companies

Low wages? Silicon valley engineers tend to be fairly highly paid...

There are 49.75 states in the country that are not "Silicon Valley."

Re: If there's a tech skills shortage, why so many computer graduates unemployed?

#40

Post by Mikeb85 »

sharemywin wrote: post #36
Mikeb85 wrote: post #16

Well my education is in economics and, in general, the way to solve a 'shortage' in labour is to raise wages. Of course, what they're really talking about is a shortage in engineers willing to do the job at the price they've specified, so they lobby the government to open up immigration to workers from abroad willing to work for less, while at the same time trying to push more and more kids into CS, so that the marke…

The problem is the shortage is with companies wanting exactly "XYZ" experience in the last 2-3 years.

If there was a real shortage, it wouldn't be a problem. The more a business needs labour, the more flexible the 'requirements'.
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