With increasing demand on their IT infrastructure, you’d be forgiven for thinking demand for IT related graduates would be picking up.
According to statistics from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), 17% of Computer Science Graduates are unemployed. That’s in comparison to roughly 0% for medicine, 5% for Education and 6% for law. Other degrees with high percentage of unemployment rates include Communications and Creative Arts.
A comparison to rates back in in 2002, shows Computer Science jump 5% from 12%, Communications up also up 5% and Creative Arts up 3%. Medicine has stood firm at 0.2%, while Education unemployment rates have reportedly jumped 2.1%.
Across the board, Graduate employment rates have dropped. Graduate Recruitment particularly in the private sector is the worst its been in years. According to Charlie Ball, deputy research director at the Higher Education Careers Service Unit,
“The highest unemployment rate, for graduates six months after graduating, ever recorded in the UK, was 13.5% at the start of 1983. We’re expecting over 10% unemployment next year anyway, and it would not take much of a shock to the graduate jobs market to make the next few years some of the toughest ever experienced.”
The agency’s figures are based on the experiences of 205,000 students six months after graduation. It may very well be that computer science students are holding out for a specific “dream” job 6 months after graduating and happy to focus on freelance work until that offer comes through the door. What’s your take?
as a computer science graduate myself, the main reason I struggled to get a job is that every graduate programme I applied for, I got turned away at the first hurdle.
Having got a 1st class degree in Computer Science, employers didn’t want to know as they make the assumption that you have zero social skills and all you do all day is sit in front of a computer (especially if you weren’t captain of the netball team or a student rep).
If I’d have got a 2:1 however, I’m sure I would have been a lot more successful. Sad but very very true.
but surely they met you or do you not even get to that stage? You look like a pretty, outgoing going – not the stereotype antisocial computer geek.
think the main problem was is that they never met me as all the applications for UK grad schemes are done over the internet – i got turned away from 90% just after submitting my details – this is why them making the assumptions is really unfair!
Zee, you’ve already fallen down the social stereotyping of computer scientists. You know better than that!
My advice to students is to sign up with recruitment agents. It’s a game of numbers. Get your cv in front of as many companies as possible as quickly as possible and when at uni get relevant work experience over the summer hols. There’s no point doing bar work during the holidays, it doesn’t set you apart from others.
Do something that you can show a potential employer as relevant to the business world in your final project as well.
Go to networking events and get to meet people who already work in the industry. It helps to get a foot in the door and you’ll hear about opportunities soon that way too!
Actually in the situation of Sarah & Sophie they both are considered globally somewhat of a scarce commodity as women in IT are far less than men globally. But of course in a male dominant industry that’s not the best situation to be in.
As for the numbers, I would bet those numbers apply to the Middle East also.
We may appear to be scarce but there are women in the tech industry scattered all over the place. More than people actually realise. They may not all be in it departments but they are there hidden within companies working with code or with systems stuff.
Unfortunately when spending gets cut training and supporting graduates does tend to be reduced as do the staff with less internal systems experience. A good thing during this time is that there’s opportunity here. Lots of graduates with good ideas and a thirst to learn and create! Bring on the graduate entrepreneurs!
As a senior software developer in a large corporation I can confirm that is certainly true. People will not like the reason for this though. Simply put most computer science graduates simply do not have the skills necesary and in this economy most companies do not want to spend the money training them. The real issue is that universities have many computer science degrees that produce developers with no real world skills. That’s the sad truth, you have to interview 20 developers to find one halfway decent one.
Should I presume that you are looking for people who were born professionals then? No one was born a professional with “real world” experience. It is true that many universities offer IT degrees these days and most of them “produce” quite a bunch of graduates who can’t explain what an object is in OO programming but I can assure you that there is a great deal of smart and enthusiastic university leavers who are very passionate about technology and computers, but struggling to find a job (like myself). If the employers in this country can’t be bothered with hiring us and benefit from our enthusiasm to do what we really enjoy doing (I personally started learning some basic programming techniques when I was 12), then unfortunately we’ll have relocate to another country. Which is not gonna be very good for the UK economy though…
Well, I’m currently hiring, and if you can convince me that you’re the right person for the job, and have gained suitable experience from open-source projects, I’ll happily take a graduate who hasn’t worked full-time in the industry before now. It was the route I took 20 years ago, and I don’t understand why more Comp Sci graduates don’t get involved in the wider software community whilst at uni.
http://www.gradwell.com/about/careers/webdevleader
Having looked for a software engineering job for two years after graduation, I now work as a sales executive for a Telecom company. Although I earn a decent wage, I totally regret spending 3 years in the university – it was a money and years wasted.
If you still want to do it don’t give up on your dream. You can transfer between industry sectors.
Just a question, when was this statistics taken? If its in the past 2/3 years, we have to remember that we have just been through a bad financial year. Many IT people were let go, including me. Companies stopped hiring. So, don’t talk about Graduates, even the seasoned more experienced ones couldn’t get a job.
In anyway, apart from that, I think the the amount of IT Graduates have increased quite a lot since I graduated 10 years ago. Back then, UK couldn’t cope with the IT demands that the government put IT job in one of the ‘special list’ so that people from other countries were ‘Fast-Tracked’ when they apply for Work Permit.
Now, we just have too many of them, but not enough work.
When I was a University student briefly a couple of years ago, one thing I noticed was that there is far too much focus on modular course structuring, they do this in the hope that they cover a variety of topics. The problem I think this creates is that it’s extremely broad in the sense that students are not given a chance to hone their individual skills (to the required level). The majority of graduates coming out of university have not been provided with the essential ‘real-world’ practical training in order for them to develop their core skills such as leadership for example, a trait every employer looks for in an applicant and true leadership is hard to come by, so when they do come by they grab them up pretty quickly.
From an observational point-of-view, the majority of graduates I know of have all been taught the same module-structured sets of information (which isn’t of much use), in the same regimented fashion. Therefore when they search for jobs they get turned down for the simple fact that I’m assuming employers do not see that they offer any highly developed and looked-for skills and they might not want to wait for them to be trained as demand for highly skilled recruits have increased due to the recession and a need for innovation to create competitiveness.
To be honest, traditional C.Vs are a thing of the past. People are now driven to go one step further in getting the perfect job that they are creating videos explaining why they are perfect for the job and what they have to offer and to also show off their personality and emailing or even better posting a CD to them by mail directly to the companies, providing links to showcases of their work and projects, briefly speaking to employees when they are out of the building and building rapport with them, in hope that they are able to talk to their manager into getting them a quick mini-interview with someone suitable. Going to networking events and trade-shows not just to get your ‘foot in the door’ but to also show them you have a keen interest in the industry and want to be in the know about everything that goes on. Those are just to name a few things people are now doing.
So my advise to graduates and others is don’t rely for one second on agencies (who really do nothing and only pass on details as it’s all they can do) and simply handing out C.Vs, waiting for that email or phone call to come. Instead be proactive and show yourself you have enough ambition and drive to go out there and get the job you want and not giving up until you do. You can spend time listing out all the possibilities for why you get turned down OR you can do something about it! Maybe there is an examination you can take that will give you the level of certification you need in order to be considered as an applicant. Do whatever it takes, that’s all I’m saying. :-)
I find this very odd. I have just graduated with a first in computer science. I have applied for no jobs.
All I did was post my CV on monster and created a profile on there. Since then I have had regular phone calls from firms and agencies. From this I accepted three interviews and was offered all three jobs. Many of my uni classmates have had the same experience.
Do you work for Monster? :) clever ad…. but not sure if it works, Computer Science graduates are not that stupid….
Well, I found the comments more interesting the post, no offence to the post.. its good! But I do think there are opportunities for the automatically assumed anit-social geeks! As a Comp Sc. grad myself, I explored the various options and with a masters in business later, landed in a graduate job and Comp Sc. studies weighed out over the masters! So, be proud and go get yourself an awesome job!
Grads,
If you get an interview , make sure you are well prepared.
Check out what questions have been asked at other companies.
http://www.hired4sure.com