Perceived IT skills shortage

Owen101

Apologies if on the wrong thread here but watching the RTE 6 oclock news there this eve I got a bit p'd off. There was a whole 10 minute piece on the shortage of IT skills currently in Ireland..somewhere to the order of about 5,000 unfilled vacancies at the moment!

Is this total BS or what or just from where exactly are they getting these figures? Im thinking it must be either from agencies advertising jobs that dont exist or universities attempting to fill their college places.

I am one of last years computer science graduates and have found it difficult to get a foot in the door.Although there's jobs there its the usual need more experience, cant get experience w/o job scenario. Im sure Im but one of thousands..

Employers, could you lower your flippin' expectations slightly please and give some of the graduates a break. You never know you might actually find someone to fill some these IT vacancies...

johnnyskeleton

Owen101 wrote: »

Employers, could you lower your flippin' expectations slightly please and give some of the graduates a break. You never know you might actually find someone to fill some these IT vacancies...

I think the employers are perfectly entitled to require a certain skill level for a skilled job.

The problem in Ireland seems to be that we have a lot of people with low end computer science qualifications whereas these companies are looking for highly trained persons.

An IT qualification doesn't qualify someone to work in any IT job

leninbenjamin

tele sales or tele support or simple data entry into a PC are considered 'IT' by those who compile the stats.

KerranJast

Yeah theres no point in a company hiring someone for the sake of it. The problem in Ireland is that theres been a huge dropoff in graduates with high level quality degrees or experience especially in coding and design.

graduate

Perhaps the IT industry has a problem with its structure. Previously people might start off mostly programming after graduating and move into more customer facing roles over time. Now the routine programming type work often takes place 10000km away, but the business end of things still takes place in Ireland. There may be a gap in how people reach the customer faces roles, where experience is valuable.

MysticalRain

Well it's a sort of chicken and egg problem. Lots of IT graduates with little experience. Not a lot of employers willing to take them on because they only want highly experienced people and aren't willing to train them.

NewDubliner

MysticalRain wrote: »

Well it's a sort of chicken and egg problem. Lots of IT graduates with little experience.

Or talent...too many bluffers in the industry, not enough doers.

marblesolutions

I know what you mean I am a science graduate with a good honours degree in Chemistry and it is almost impossible to find a job yet I constantly hear about a Smart Economy and the need for more Science graduates. Why ?

97i9y3941

leninbenjamin wrote: »

tele sales or tele support or simple data entry into a PC are considered 'IT' by those who compile the stats.

yup i often think wasteing time ringing some of them companies for support,they will tell you what you already tried to recetify the fault

Firetrap

Is it an issue with the sorts of courses being offered in the universities and ITs?

Webmonkey

I am graduating this year and I am finding it impossible to find a job. I got one interview alright, luckily they found me so I'm hoping that will work out or there will be no hope.
What kills me is they are looking for commercial experience. I've being developing websites for years now, and I consider what I do good yet no this is not enough. Obviously being part of a team and in the real world is important too but from a skills perspective it is right annoying.

They don't give anyone a chance. There are graduates coming out that are a lot better than programmers in industry that have being programming for years.

But I do agree, I wouldn't hire the majority of people that come out of computer courses but they should at least give people a chance instead of knocking them off because they have no commercial experience.

97i9y3941

nope,just not enough irish are doing the courses,the goverment been ignorant blind doesnt take the following in order-

1-not everyone cant afford go to college,the grants seem to benefit the well off

2-the maths on these courses will drive you nuts

pwd

Computer science degrees need an overhaul to produce graduates with strong skillsets for IT jobs. No more of this "learning how to learn" wank.
There should be aptitude tests to start a course. The number of people who study IT who have sod-all aptitude for it is appalling. The number of them who come out with high honours thanks to good memories devalues the degrees as a whole.
The degrees should be harder to get into, not just based on leaving cert results. They should have content more relevant to skills people will actually use. There should be more of a technical focus in how they are assessed. There should be stricter controls against cheating.

marblesolutions

I don't believe the problem lies with the courses but I do believe more work experience woud benefit everyone. Employers would have the oppertunity to see what the student can do and it would make for more interesting reading on cv's. Some courses could easily lend themselves to a year out in industry.

97i9y3941

marblesolutions wrote: »

I don't believe the problem lies with the courses but I do believe more work experience woud benefit everyone. Employers would have the oppertunity to see what the student can do and it would make for more interesting reading on cv's. Some courses could easily lend themselves to a year out in industry.

defo,harks back to the old days,when you see some of the older employees are the best workers

Webmonkey

marblesolutions wrote: »

I don't believe the problem lies with the courses but I do believe more work experience woud benefit everyone. Employers would have the oppertunity to see what the student can do and it would make for more interesting reading on cv's. Some courses could easily lend themselves to a year out in industry.

Every course should have it. On top of this, rather than having lots of exams that people can learn off (some people can cramb loads of stuff not knowing what it is, sickens me), give more full blown projects right from the begining. Make people problem solve, see the bigger picture. Think for themselves, assignments are too easy to go off and google for an answer, what a lot of people do.

Crash

Owen101 wrote: »

Apologies if on the wrong thread here but watching the RTE 6 oclock news there this eve I got a bit p'd off. There was a whole 10 minute piece on the shortage of IT skills currently in Ireland..somewhere to the order of about 5,000 unfilled vacancies at the moment!

Is this total BS or what or just from where exactly are they getting these figures? Im thinking it must be either from agencies advertising jobs that dont exist or universities attempting to fill their college places.

I am one of last years computer science graduates and have found it difficult to get a foot in the door.Although there's jobs there its the usual need more experience, cant get experience w/o job scenario. Im sure Im but one of thousands..

Employers, could you lower your flippin' expectations slightly please and give some of the graduates a break. You never know you might actually find someone to fill some these IT vacancies...

Part of it stems as well from the fact that many roles being advertised as graduate roles are in fact not graduate roles, but entry level 6months to a year experience. I laughed my ass off when I saw that report, having spent just shy of 6 month unemployed since coming home in September having finished in July. Jobs in IT/CS are not being filled generally because of 1)too few graduate positions existing at the moment to provide the necessary experience and 2) Employers being unrealistic about the skillset required for a position. I have numerous friends who are in well placed grad/entry level positions that required a high level to get hired, however feel completely underutilised because the skillset for the job doesn't even come close to the skillset they were expected to have when interviewed. Idiocy from all sides imo

KerranJast

Programming is a hard subject to cram for tbh. You either understand the methods or you dont.

Webmonkey

Programming isn't the only subject in computer science. People do learn programs, structures, snippets off by heart not knowing what they doing. I've seen it through my years in college.

KerranJast

Webmonkey wrote: »

Programming isn't the only subject in computer science. People do learn programs, structures, snippets off by heart not knowing what they doing. I've seen it through my years in college.

Sure but the main problem is the majority of recent grads have either poor grades (2nd class or below) or are from the myriad of "& computing" courses that have little to do with the needs of the industry.

Webmonkey

KerranJast wrote: »

Sure but the main problem is the majority of recent grads have either poor grades (2nd class or below) or are from the myriad of "& computing" courses that have little to do with the needs of the industry.

Yeah that's true... a lot of courses are well outdated by now.

weiss

Webmonkey wrote:

What kills me is they are looking for commercial experience. I've being developing websites for years now, and I consider what I do good yet no this is not enough. Obviously being part of a team and in the real world is important too but from a skills perspective it is right annoying.

They don't give anyone a chance. There are graduates coming out that are a lot better than programmers in industry that have being programming for years.

Could you do freelance work?

There are many websites now which offer money for work..of course you still need to be careful not to get work stolen from you, but the money is there.

Owen101

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

I think the employers are perfectly entitled to require a certain skill level for a skilled job.

But not all these '5000' jobs require expert skill level surely?

Or, if they cant be filled then they must be demanding 3-5 years experience in some eccentric set of technologies. In that case, they'll probably never be filled. Why go on national news giving people the impression there's all these jobs out there waiting for people to walk into? Employers, lower your expectations.

And in light of the recession, there must be 1000s more properly skilled people out there now. To say the vacancies cant be filled just sounds ridiculous.

IMHO the IT skills shortage is a complete lie!

weiss

Owen101 wrote:

And in light of the recession, there must be 1000s more properly skilled people out there now. To say the vacancies cant be filled just sounds ridiculous.

IMHO the IT skills shortage is a complete lie!

Fair point, but its also fair to say that graduates need to lower their expectations too.

MysticalRain

I just watched the piece off the RTE website now and it's a hoot! The guy from Google basically stated in so many words that they only want to recruit from the top 200 IT graduates in the country. High standards indeed. But a company who is that choosy is always going to have a hard time finding people at that rate. Apparently their recruitment process is about eight months long which doesn't help matters either.

I would love to see how they arrived at that "5000" figure. I wonder if those journalists in RTE are adding up all the jobs listed on the top 2-3 recruitment websites in Ireland without considering the fact that a typical job might be listed on all 2-3 websites.

Owen101

pwd wrote: »

There should be aptitude tests to start a course. The number of people who study IT who have sod-all aptitude for it is appalling. The number of them who come out with high honours thanks to good memories devalues the degrees as a whole.
The degrees should be harder to get into, not just based on leaving cert results. They should have content more relevant to skills people will actually use. There should be more of a technical focus in how they are assessed. There should be stricter controls against cheating.

Absolutely. At the moment it seems to be just a gravy train for the universities knowing full well half the 1st years wont finish the course.

Getting back to the point, if there are 5000 jobs out there could the govt please start working with the companies to sweeten the deal a bit (sponsored work ex. maybe) and start considering graduates or those with even some of the skills.

Id happily work at dole rate in some company if I knew I was getting valuable experience in stuff Im actually interested in. If the company felt I was no good after say 1-3 months they could say thanks but no thanks but at least Im now starting to accrue some experience.

dvpower

KerranJast wrote: »

Programming is a hard subject to cram for tbh. You either understand the methods or you dont.

Depends on the exam. Some of the MS certification (MCP) exams have a lot of questions that just require that you remember some syntax. Waste of time imho; I can't remember the syntax of methods that I use every day, since intellisense remembers it for me.

Crash

Having had friends go through the Google interview scheme, and having gone through the MS previously, Its quite interesting how the interview process itself essentially weeds out candidates. In Google its the sheer length of time and effort involved, in MS its 6 1 hour interviews for 6 different positions in 1 day.

I do remember reading something recently about how Googles interview process is in fact its biggest limiter on how fast the company can grow, as they simply can't hire fast enough.

Meh, i'm happy with my company - interviewed on the Thursday, found out the next Friday, started on the Monday after - 4 months before the grad program began Worked out well.

LoLth

to the guys having trouble getting work straight out of college: its the same everywhere. 12 years ago when I left college with a shiney finance degree I couldnt get a job because they all wanted 6 months experience. eventually, after almost a year, I had completely given up. interviews became something I expected to fail in because of experience shortfall and I got a suprise job in market analysis. (voluntary work in the local credit union helped a lot - Before this I had offered to work for free, just to get the experience)

4 years later, I had moved to IT and worked as the network admin for over a year. the company shut down and moved to england and I went looking for work. I was turned down for data entry jobs because I didnt have a computer based degree. eventually I got into tele-support and started working my way back up all over again.

It happens. Employers' expectations for even the most basic of IT jobs is completely out of touch with reality. Havign said that, i worked in one company where the Network Engineer was employed on the back of a CCNP and a load of experience in a routing heavy environment. Somewhere aroudn the middle of his second week he asked me (who had nothing to do with Cisco kit) to show him how to telnet to a router.....

IT , imho, should be ability driven and not just a list of certs. I had an interview two years ago where the last part was a physical test. they simulated something wrong on the network and you did what you could to find and resolve it. Really enjoyed that.

AARRRGH

The 'vacancy' figures are taken from the various jobsites; in other words, at least 95% of the vacancies are with agencies, so most likely are duplicates or fake job adverts to attract CVs.

The main problem is most people who study computer science in college really should have picked a different subject. We are churning out people who don't really like computers, can't program, and in general are technically crap.

We have to look abroad for a lot of our employees as it is so hard to get decent, skilled people in Ireland. This isn't because people don't want to study computer science anymore, it's because most of the people we interview clearly have no interest in IT.

For example, someone who's hobby is writing little applications or working on open source projects - they are one in a million. And they're the type of people you want to hire.

AARRRGH

pwd wrote: »

There should be stricter controls against cheating.

I agree with the rest of your post, but the above quote in particular really bothered me when I was in college.

People who were CLEARLY cheating (as in, were practically caught with their hand in the cookie jar) were allowed pass.

Drove me nuts as it devalues my qualification. And from an employers perspective, I can't trust anyone who has a degree. Maybe they're a moron who cheated? I just don't know. So I will only hire someone who has a number of references I can speak to.

Arcee

Yeah, I'm fed up reading about all the IT jobs out there too. Just because there are jobs advertised in Google, eBay etc doesn't mean they are IT jobs. It seems that customer service, HR and finance jobs in these companies are falling into the category of "IT".

It's intensely annoying to read the (obviously thrown-together with no research) articles about it in the papers and even worse when your mates think it's true and aare wondering why you don't have a job yet if there's so many of them out there :mad:

ixoy

I can't believe this one either. I know people with multiple years experience in Java for example and they can't get a job at the moment. I also know people with other skillsets and they can't get work. The 5k jobs - I'd love to see it backed up with some serious analysis of their data.

AARRRGH

You really can't believe anything the media or the 'experts' say anymore. Vested interests control everything these days.

It's ****ed.

Webmonkey

LoLth wrote: »

Havign said that, i worked in one company where the Network Engineer was employed on the back of a CCNP and a load of experience in a routing heavy environment. Somewhere aroudn the middle of his second week he asked me (who had nothing to do with Cisco kit) to show him how to telnet to a router.....

He must have bs'd or something about having a CCNP, because Cisco are fairly serious with their exams and a pass mark is generally up towards 80%. The CCNA exam is difficult enough not to mind CCNP. With CCNP you can do much more than telnet to a router! :pac:

Mena

Webmonkey wrote: »

He must have bs'd or something about having a CCNP, because Cisco are fairly serious with their exams and a pass mark is generally up towards 80%. The CCNA exam is difficult enough not to mind CCNP. With CCNP you can do much more than telnet to a router! :pac:

Ah now these exams are generally easy to pass what with all the "braindumps" on the net. Can't trust them anymore either. I need to see qualifications, years of experience and certifiable, reliable references before I let them through the door these days.

MysticalRain

AARRRGH wrote: »

The 'vacancy' figures are taken from the various jobsites; in other words, at least 95% of the vacancies are with agencies, so most likely are duplicates or fake job adverts to attract CVs.

The main problem is most people who study computer science in college really should have picked a different subject. We are churning out people who don't really like computers, can't program, and in general are technically crap.

We have to look abroad for a lot of our employees as it is so hard to get decent, skilled people in Ireland. This isn't because people don't want to study computer science anymore, it's because most of the people we interview clearly have no interest in IT.

For example, someone who's hobby is writing little applications or working on open source projects - they are one in a million. And they're the type of people you want to hire.

Well if you're limiting yourself to those kinds graduates who fall into the "one in a million" category then of course you're always going to be short of people. Employers need to play their part as well. I think most newly minted graduates are not going to be decent programmers right out of the box without some kind of training and mentoring. Those that don't are very rare breed, and are probably more interested in starting their own business than becoming employees themselves. The trouble is most Irish employers want an awful lot in return for giving very little.

doolox

I did an Information technology course years ago and got as far as diploma in it.
When I went for degree I couldn't do the programming and fell at the final, failing computer science ( programming a game simulator in LISP.....) twice.
Unfortunately I am unemployed at the moment, just finishing a FAS course in Industrial Automation which will not get me into a job as I do not have the necessary maintenance experience to secure the few jobs available at the moment.
With the recent job losses in SR technics, Dell,Xylinx, and others I am under no illusions how long it will take me to get any job in this present climate.
I have 28 years experience in technical roles in electronics since I started work and none of it counts for anything in the present economic set-up.
Any attempt to break into another career path is difficult as I am 50 yrs old and have only 10-15 years payback if I take up any degree programme, most degrees taking 4 years to do.
Any job out there tends to be minimum wage or a little over and I am under no illusion as to how intensive and difficult they will be, having seen how badly contract cleaners and caterers and the likes are treated in this country by their "superiors".
There was a time when low-paid jobs were at least easy to do and not that demanding but those days are long gone when you are competing with those people with no social welfare net to rely on and working flat out for the next meal........
Every area of work I can think of, taxi, bar work etc is heavily oversubscribed and very few are making a decent living out of it.
Construction, DIY, handyman etc are all dried up.
Pizza delivery hardly pays for the fuel and running costs of the car employed but the people doing it do not realise the true maintenance and running costs of their cars and get out of it when the repair bills and NCT test time comes around.
Also insurance is extra when using your car for business, do they know this and pay the extra? Does the Pizza company know or care?
I am looking at doing an apprenticeship in electrical trades at the moment as all the jobs I am looking at require this rather than diploma but there are very few chances out there for a man of fifty...................
People I have spoken to in the trade say you are lucky if the company you get the apprenticeship with keeps you on for the required 4 years and many have to repeat 1st and 2nd yr with a new company sevaral times and do not get the necessary OTJ training. Also I have heard that the FAS element can vary in quality but find this hard to reconcile with my own experience with FAS so far which has been excellent. My fear is without hearing both sides to the story there may have been contributing factors to the other peoples bad experiences with apprenticeships in not be able to do the job properly or learn effectively and they might be tending to blame the system etc....
At the moment I am in regular contact with fully trained electrician who is a FAS instructor doing the Industrial Automation course with me and he plans to teach it when he completes it soon.
I will have to see what opportunities are out there but I fear it will take a long time.

AARRRGH

MysticalRain wrote: »

Well if you're limiting yourself to those kinds graduates who fall into the "one in a million" category then of course you're always going to be short of people. Employers need to play their part as well. I think most newly minted graduates are not going to be decent programmers right out of the box without some kind of training and mentoring. Those that don't are very rare breed, and are probably more interested in starting their own business than becoming employees themselves. The trouble is most Irish employers want an awful lot in return for giving very little.

No, my point is those people shouldn't be one in a million. If you had a genuine interest in IT you would - at least every now and then - write a program for fun.

The fact of the matter is nearly every IT graduate has a passable interest in IT. They are not the type of people you want to hire. Do you know what I mean?

Regarding your comment that employers should 'mentor' or 'train' graduates. I totally disagree. Employers are businesses. It is not their place to help you get some skills you could probably teach yourself.

Also, IT employees are well paid. It's not as if new graduates start on pennies.

Webmonkey

Mena wrote: »

Ah now these exams are generally easy to pass what with all the "braindumps" on the net. Can't trust them anymore either. I need to see qualifications, years of experience and certifiable, reliable references before I let them through the door these days.

I don't know. The exam is full of lab simulations that require you to know what you doing. It isn't just questions. I wouldn't think it be the easiest exam to pass anyways.

hobochris

I think there needs to be a closer relationship between companies and colleges.. where companies can let the colleges know whats in demand more, get companies to suggest project idea's and see the results from students etc.. that way good grads Don't get tied down by this flawed system as companies will be able to see who is good etc.. and hire accordingly rather then assume every graduate knows nothing and wont hire without experience.

Boskowski

pwd wrote: »

The number of them who come out with high honours thanks to good memories devalues the degrees as a whole.

That seems to be a problem all round. Correct me if I'm wrong but by talking to the young people in the family (I'm not Irish myself so no first hand experience) I get the impression you can get a top notch leaving cert if you're very good at learning off or else if you're not you put in the hours and do the same. Same seems to be valid for some college/university courses. Thats not exactly a skill based education system.

Milkey Bar Kid

Its not about the I.T shortage. Its about IT people not having a second language . All the I.T support jobs are the jobs supporting other countries. I work in I.T and the company I work for are looking for people who Speak German. French . Dutch .Italian.

ucdperson

I think there needs to be a closer relationship between companies and colleges.. where companies can let the colleges know whats in demand more, get companies to suggest project idea's and see the results from students etc.. that way good grads

I fully agree. But as someone on the university end we don't find it easy to get companies to engage. The industry complains about a lack of IT skills and seems to expect that the education sector will sort it out. But there is a limited understanding among students of the exact structure of the vacancies and the skill set needed to fill them and the type of careers that would result. As you say each employer is a business and does their own thing to try and earn a crust, but there needs to be some overall picture of what is happening if universities are to provide courses that address skill needs and for students to understand why they should choose these courses.

Shzm

It's absolutely bollocks trying to find a job in IT at the moment, half the jobs seem to be fake as the same ones are being posted every day endlessly (even the ones marked as URGENT!!.. ), or as the poster above mentions, require another language just to do support work.

MysticalRain

No, my point is those people shouldn't be one in a million. If you had a genuine interest in IT you would - at least every now and then - write a program for fun.

The fact of the matter is nearly every IT graduate has a passable interest in IT. They are not the type of people you want to hire. Do you know what I mean?

Oh I definitely know the kind of people you're referring to. I think programming is more of a vocation than "just a job". If you don't have a genuine love of it, then you're not going to be good at it. But like I said, those people are always going to be a rare breed. It's like asking for a civil engineer who enjoys building bridges or tunnels in his spare time. Or a teacher who enjoys teaching kids for free in his spare time.

Of course there is more to IT than programming. You don't have to be a genius to fix desktop PCs or servers. I can't really understand why employers are bleating about not being able to find enough people to do those jobs.

Regarding your comment that employers should 'mentor' or 'train' graduates. I totally disagree. Employers are businesses. It is not their place to help you get some skills you could probably teach yourself.

Also, IT employees are well paid. It's not as if new graduates start on pennies.

Well you get what you pay for. If you don't invest much resources in an employee, then you're not going to get as much out of them.

I knew plenty of people who started on pennies. I think IT used to be well-paid up until the dotcom bubble. But salaries have been dropping since then, and job security is precarious to say the least in a climate where your high-tech programming job can easily be outsourced to India. It's no wonder school leavers abandoned IT as a career choice. Although supposedly "safe" careers like architecture and the legal profession proved to be equally insecure.

Sea08

I have worked in Microsoft and passed the interview technique "admittedly it was only for a intern role" but I found it pretty eye opening compared to other interviews I've been too. They asked my to solve algorithms and tried different ways of determining if I was suitable to the role, it was pretty in depth and they then had a second HR type interview which was way harder.

I find most listing for jobs to be ridiculous in the requirements listed, they consistently list 3 to 4 programming languages and 3+ years of experience, and then have some new fashionable software development process and if you don't meet them all they don't even give you a call. Like I have your main programming language and have the experience, I'm sure I can pick up bloody Agile development as I go.

Webmonkey

Sea08 wrote: »

I have worked in Microsoft and passed the interview technique "admittedly it was only for a intern role" but I found it pretty eye opening compared to other interviews I've been too. They asked my to solve algorithms and tried different ways of determining if I was suitable to the role, it was pretty in depth and they then had a second HR type interview which was way harder.

I find most listing for jobs to be ridiculous in the requirements listed, they consistently list 3 to 4 programming languages and 3+ years of experience, and then have some new fashionable software development process and if you don't meet them all they don't even give you a call. Like I have your main programming language and have the experience, I'm sure I can pick up bloody Agile development as I go.

Yeah these agile process's should be learned manually in experience. Useful to know what they all about first before going in but most computer courses cover this.

I had a friend that applied for a job, then they replied back with a nasty comment saying "Please read the experience section in future".

Disgrace

Sea08

AARRRGH wrote: »

No, my point is those people shouldn't be one in a million. If you had a genuine interest in IT you would - at least every now and then - write a program for fun.

The fact of the matter is nearly every IT graduate has a passable interest in IT. They are not the type of people you want to hire. Do you know what I mean?

Regarding your comment that employers should 'mentor' or 'train' graduates. I totally disagree. Employers are businesses. It is not their place to help you get some skills you could probably teach yourself.

Also, IT employees are well paid. It's not as if new graduates start on pennies.

I would rather instead say if you have a genuine interest in programming you should write a program or two in your spare time.

IT is more than just programming, but I do agree with your point.

gnxx

AARRRGH wrote: »

No, my point is those people shouldn't be one in a million. If you had a genuine interest in IT you would - at least every now and then - write a program for fun.

The fact of the matter is nearly every IT graduate has a passable interest in IT. They are not the type of people you want to hire. Do you know what I mean?

Regarding your comment that employers should 'mentor' or 'train' graduates. I totally disagree. Employers are businesses. It is not their place to help you get some skills you could probably teach yourself.

Also, IT employees are well paid. It's not as if new graduates start on pennies.

You are spot on here.

From a small company perspective, I like to hire these people. The people that you need to throw out of the office at 9:00PM because they are trying to get something complex to work and have lost all track of time. The people that given a screwdriver will build their own machine. The people that can figure out a firewall that has chinese set as the default language. Very very rare these days. I think that you start learning this stuff from childhood rather than at college.

On the downside, trying to get these people to work in a structured environment can be a nightmare.

Qualifications are meaningful for large companies. Personally, I have no idea what any of our employees are qualified in.

I disagree with you though on training employees. Certainly the low-level details can be found on the Internet or in a book. However, acting as a mentor to a young employee allows them to see the bigger picture. How else will they learn the company song

Webmonkey

gnxx wrote: »

You are spot on here.

From a small company perspective, I like to hire these people. The people that you need to throw out of the office at 9:00PM because they are trying to get something complex to work and have lost all track of time. The people that given a screwdriver will build their own machine. The people that can figure out a firewall that has chinese set as the default language. Very very rare these days. I think that you start learning this stuff from childhood rather than at college.

On the downside, trying to get these people to work in a structured environment can be a nightmare.

Qualifications are meaningful for large companies. Personally, I have no idea what any of our employees are qualified in.

I disagree with you though on training employees. Certainly the low-level details can be found on the Internet or in a book. However, acting as a mentor to a young employee allows them to see the bigger picture. How else will they learn the company song

I'm one of those people, employ me! :pac: