Computer Science Graduates are the Least Employable in the UK
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Re: Computer Science Graduates are the Least Employable in the UK
#2After just the other week observing a few articles on HN regarding the situation with jobs for CS graduates in the US, one article stating a 2:1 ratio between the number of available jobs for developers and the number of developers, this came as much of a surprise to me, as well as being pretty disconcerting since I'm in the UK and planning to study CS next year.
I'm very interested to hear the opinions on this from those actually in the industry, is the situation really that polar opposite between the US and the UK?
Re: Computer Science Graduates are the Least Employable in the UK
#3After just the other week observing a few articles on HN regarding the situation with jobs for CS graduates in the US, one article stating a 2:1 ratio between the number of available jobs for developers and the number of developers, this came as much of a surprise to me, as well as being pretty disconcerting since I'm in the UK and planning to study CS next year. I'm very interested to hear the opinions on this from…
Your real education starts after you graduate, but nobody wants to invest in employee's education, regardless of their age.
Things only get better after a couple of years of experience. You have a better idea of what you're doing while being very cheap to employ.
Re: Computer Science Graduates are the Least Employable in the UK
#4And yet as an employer (not in the UK though) I have a hard time finding talented developers.
Re: Computer Science Graduates are the Least Employable in the UK
#5Not terribly suprising...
I think that most computer science grads are not interested in building enterprise software or rails web apps, but would rather work on advancing the field of theoretical computer science. Unfortunately, I doubt there's much demand nowadays for this type of work.
Re: Computer Science Graduates are the Least Employable in the UK
#6And yet as an employer (not in the UK though) I have a hard time finding talented developers.
Here's the three step trick that works across the board:
1. Pay more
2. Offer amazing benefits.
3. Sponsor tech events and become active in a tech community.
That's what I say to everyone who "can't find anyone decent." Decent people can pick and choose at the moment. If they aren't choosing you, you're not giving them enough reasons.
Re: Computer Science Graduates are the Least Employable in the UK
#7And yet as an employer (not in the UK though) I have a hard time finding talented developers.
I assume by talented you mean experienced. There is also the other talent of showing promise, but most companies don't bother with that and prefer the ones that the ones that come out the womb as objc rockstars.
Re: Computer Science Graduates are the Least Employable in the UK
#8Not terribly suprising... I think that most computer science grads are not interested in building enterprise software or rails web apps, but would rather work on advancing the field of theoretical computer science. Unfortunately, I doubt there's much demand nowadays for this type of work.
I read CompSci at UCL graduating in 2006. Of the people I'm still in touch with, most do Java at ibanks or went on to non-computer work. The remainder are smattered about higher education, bioinformatics and the web-startup scene. Not a one has had trouble finding work, and they all studied a lot harder than I did.
Re: Computer Science Graduates are the Least Employable in the UK
#9Bear in mind that this blog post is 2 years old and relates to stats that are 3 years old; and that finance was and is a fairly major industry in the UK.
Re: Computer Science Graduates are the Least Employable in the UK
#10I used to run a university comparison site largely based upon HESA data so I have a reasonable level of expertise in this field.
The data is hugely flawed, primarily because under the title of "Computer Science" they're aggregating together all technology related degree. So it includes subjects like "Game Design" and "Multimedia" which have very low employability which brings down the average substantially.
There's also a strong correlation between university quality and employment rate. At the top CS departments employment is often in the high 90s.
I actually wrote to the government minister responsible for higher education (David Willets) on this precise issue expressing my concern that the poor classification of subjects was resulting in misleading news coverage which in turn would scare much-needed students away from studying Computer Science.
Here's the reply I got:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/11248954/243427%20Signed%20letter%2...
(apologies for it being in PDF)