One of my recent positions was as a Training Manager for Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC), one of the major software consulting firms in the US. There I would teach consulting skills, database skills, and programming skills in Java, Web Development and even Cobol.
About two and one half years ago, CSC dismantled their Associate Training Program here in Chicago. The demand for entry level consultants had dried up. Just last year the large Anderson/Accenture Training Facility in St. Charles also closed its doors. As I said before, this is a tight market!! I have helped to form an IT Network here in Chicago, and am relating to you some of the experiences of over 200 compatriots in IT. I have read closely some of the responses to your thread. There are some wonderful suggestions. The key to remember is to be creative. The best way to get into an entry level IT position is to work for a company in some paralell capacity. Then show you skills in that capacity. Any IT manager worth working for will grab you up as soon as they can, since you are already an employee. A degree no longer guarantees you a great job. Companies need people of action, not just well trained workers. Steve -------Original Message------- From: Tim Nicholson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: 02/04/03 02:43 AM To: JDJList <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [jdjlist] gap between universities and employers ???? > > Thanks Steve for that bit of input. Yeah -- I was just looking at the 3 IT employment websites that I have access to here in Australia. And seeing -- with Bachelors degree in Engineering in Software Engineering -- what sort of jobs I should be able to get. I thought that you should be able to get a job as a "software engineer" if you graduate with a software engineering degree. A lot of jobs advertised on the 3 sites that I look through, advertise positions for "software engineers" but when you look at what the specifics are of what they say their job applicants "must have", it was as I mentioned before (below in me previous email) ( which I included with this one so that someone reading this would be able to follow the train of thought of this) that employers are wanting a whole lot of skills and experience that new graduates just don't have and like me, have never heard of even in our undergraduate degree. And yet, they still say you "must have these skills". What you said, was actually very interesting. I just wanted to ask if you could perhaps point to any literature (websites, books, journal articles, conference papers, magazine articles) that talk about what you mentioned in your email Steve ? Or anyone else who might know anything documented about this ? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Gawron" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "JDJList" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 2:06 AM Subject: [jdjlist] Re: gap between universities and employers ???? Most universities just do not spend enough time staying current with the way corporations are doing business. Whether it is the time and energy involved in keeping abreast of what major businesses want or the difficulty in finding qualified instructors for the current business skills with the curriculum vitae and are willing to work for academic wages. The problem has existed as you described for years. The current job market is a buyers market. It means without the correct basket of skills, they won't talk to you. No one is willing to invest the time to train a recent graduate who will likely leave in two or three years. This is reality!! Statistically, 8 out of ten persons end up working outside of their field of study. The above is a big contributor to this fact. Good luck, and don't get too discouraged. Sooner or later the market changes. Business is dynamic. Companies must compete, or cease to exist. Steve Gawron -------Original Message------- From: "M. E. Zawadzki" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: 02/03/03 10:51 AM To: JDJList <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [jdjlist] Re: gap between universities and employers ???? > > You simply get a shit job for the first couple of years to get that experience. It's part of life. --- Tim Nicholson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Just wanted to pose a question :- > > Have any of you found there to be a large gap between what universities > produce (ie as graduates) and what employers want ? > > Like for example --- one employer wants someone who has experience with > "Advantage Gen". I have no idea what this is and have never come across it > before. Maybe some of you might have heard of this ? > > And another employer wants someone who has skills with the "Rational > toolset" . I am not talking about Rational Rose but about products like :- > TestManager, TeamTest, ClearCase, ClearQuest. > > These are just 2 examples of trying to illustrate the point that I am > experiencing -- that employers seem to want a whole lot of "skills" that are > not taught at universities. > > I find this quite concerning. > > Also ofcourse there is the issue that almost all employers want someone who > already has "2 or 3 years of commercial experience". > > What happens to people who have just come out of university ? What sort of > job opportunities do they have when employers don't seem to want to "give > anything" ? ie they want someone who already knows about these new products > that a freshly graduated person has never heard of before. > > I don't know if it counts as "commercial experience" if for example your > university has a final year > project -- which is a "real life" problem with a real life client who has > come to the university with this problem ? I would hope that it is. > > > > > > ____________________________________________________ > To change your JDJList options, please visit: > http://www.sys-con.com/java/list.cfm > > Be respectful! Clean up your posts before replying > ____________________________________________________ ===== Mark Zawadzki Performance Engineer/DBA/Programmer extraordinaireâ?T [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Democracies die behind closed doors," - Judge Damon Keith "The people of this country, not special interest big money, should be the source of all political power. Government must remain the domain of the general citizenry, not a narrow elite." - Sen. Paul Wellstone __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ____________________________________________________ To change your JDJList options, please visit: http://www.sys-con.com/java/list.cfm Be respectful! Clean up your posts before replying ____________________________________________________ > ____________________________________________________ To change your JDJList options, please visit: http://www.sys-con.com/java/list.cfm Be respectful! Clean up your posts before replying ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ To change your JDJList options, please visit: http://www.sys-con.com/java/list.cfm Be respectful! Clean up your posts before replying ____________________________________________________ > ____________________________________________________ To change your JDJList options, please visit: http://www.sys-con.com/java/list.cfm Be respectful! Clean up your posts before replying ____________________________________________________
