We want Engineers But not Graduates

ki

Has any noticed the trend of companies saying "We have X number of positions to fill"?

When you go their careers page, the jobs are there but no opportunities for graduates.

A Company was on RTE news last night crying about not enough Engineers but they are not providing any jobs for grads to 2 less experience.

This is not a problem for me as I'm 6 year in industry. But when I started it was very hard to get a foot on the ladder.

Should the IDA/Enterprise Ireland/Etc. be helping these kinda companies?

Irish_Elect_Eng

Hi

In my experience there are several reasons that bigger companies rarely offer graduate positions.

(1) They participate in college co-op programs, so when they need a graduate they offer the position to the graduate that they had on co-op as they already have experience with the company systems and are easy to train up.

(2) Internal promotions, the basic positions that a graduate would be capable of filling are often given to internal candidates, either to experienced technicians or engineers already employed in other departments.

(3) Graduates take time and resources to train, they are not productive for the first 3-12 months and companies hire to fill a business need, an experienced candidate is up to speed and returning the companies investment quicker.

It is certainly tough, but there are many ways to get a foot in the door, but it is hard work, is different from company to company and requires some creativity.

Mr. Loverman

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

(3) Graduates take time and resources to train, they are not productive for the first 3-12 months and companies hire to fill a business need, an experienced candidate is up to speed and returning the companies investment quicker.

That would be the biggest one for me.

Also, hiring people is quite risky; you really don't know if you're getting a dud (references aren't always accurate). With graduates you have even less evidence to use when trying to decide if the person will be of any use.

Forest Master

Probably because graduates know pretty-much nothing practical when they graduate - same with most industries - they need to be trained in from scratch.

irishguy

ki wrote: »

Has any noticed the trend of companies saying "We have X number of positions to fill"?

When you go their careers page, the jobs are there but no opportunities for graduates.

A Company was on RTE news last night crying about not enough Engineers but they are not providing any jobs for grads to 2 less experience.

This is not a problem for me as I'm 6 year in industry. But when I started it was very hard to get a foot on the ladder.

Should the IDA/Enterprise Ireland/Etc. be helping these kinda companies?

Totally agree. I work in IT and asked my company a number of times to take on grads (we are on a big hiring spree right now). So we are taking on 2 soon and 15/20 next year if it goes well. Companies really have to do there bit and train people up not give out they cant get people with 5+ Years experience in J2EE or .net (the banks were great for this.)

MysticalRain

irishguy wrote: »

Totally agree. I work in IT and asked my company a number of times to take on grads (we are on a big hiring spree right now). So we are taking on 2 soon and 15/20 next year if it goes well. Companies really have to do there bit and train people up not give out they cant get people with 5+ Years experience in J2EE or .net (the banks were great for this.)

Exactly. I just love the cognitive dissonance that goes on when companies complain that the can't find enough IT people, but do as little as possible to help graduates into the industry. Employers can't have it both ways. Sure, hiring graduates costs money. But so does having to pay higher wages because there are fewer experienced people around these days.

Mr. Loverman

In fairness to employers, they are not charities, and they are under no obligation whatsoever to help graduates get experience and build a career.

If you realised how long it takes to train a graduate to a level where they are useful (and how likely it is that graduate will feck off before they are useful!) you would understand why no company wants to waste money on inexperienced staff.

MysticalRain

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

In fairness to employers, they are not charities, and they are under no obligation whatsoever to help graduates get experience and build a career.

If you realised how long it takes to train a graduate to a level where they are useful (and how likely it is that graduate will feck off before they are useful!) you would understand why no company wants to waste money on inexperienced staff.

Same could be said for other professions too, like law, medicine, accountancy or construction. Yet employers in those industries have no trouble taking on graduates.

The charity argument works both ways. Employers expect a lot of things for nothing these day. You get what you pay for in the end.

Mr. Loverman

MysticalRain wrote: »

Same could be said for other professions too, like law, medicine, accountancy or construction. Yet employers in those industries have no trouble taking on graduates.

The charity argument works both ways. Employers expect a lot of things for nothing these day. You get what you pay for in the end.

Law trainees work for free... accounting trainees work for peanuts... medicine trainees work for peanuts... construction, well, I don't think it's possible to get a job in construction even if you offer to work for free.

I've seen enough threads on boards.ie where IT graduates expect to earn around 30k in their first job. :rolleyes:

ki

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

Law trainees work for free... accounting trainees work for peanuts... medicine trainees work for peanuts... construction, well, I don't think it's possible to get a job in construction even if you offer to work for free.

I've seen enough threads on boards.ie where IT graduates expect to earn around 30k in their first job. :rolleyes:

True we need a system to take the risk out of hiring a graduate across alot more careers. My first job out of college, I earned 150 euros a week, so I guess that's a little less than peanuts. That is only 6 years ago.

But my point is that companies should not get air time/column inches saying we can't get workers with 5 years + exp. and not have positions available to graduates.

MysticalRain

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

Law trainees work for free... accounting trainees work for peanuts... medicine trainees work for peanuts... construction, well, I don't think it's possible to get a job in construction even if you offer to work for free.

I have family members who work in all those professions, and I can assure you they never worked for free.

I've seen enough threads on boards.ie where IT graduates expect to earn around 30k in their first job. :rolleyes:

I do sympathies with employers if they believe grads are asking for too much these days. I was happy to work for peanuts back in when I started. Of course many employers these days wouldn't take on IT graduates even if they were willing to work for free. Like I said, employers want to have it both ways. But that is never really going to work out.

Mr. Loverman

MysticalRain wrote: »

I have family members who work in all those professions, and I can assure you they never worked for free.

No one said all of those professions have to work for free. :rolleyes:

But none of them give graduates anything near a full salary.

MysticalRain wrote: »

Of course many employers these days wouldn't take on IT graduates even if they were willing to work for free.

My old employer tried hiring graduates for free to give them a chance, but it was such a disaster they stopped.

MysticalRain

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

No one said all of those professions have to work for free. :rolleyes:

But none of them give graduates anything near a full salary.

That depends on the profession. My sister didn't get paid a full salary when she did her law apprenticeship. My brother did get paid a full salary when he was a trainee accountant. Ditto for my cousins who are doctors.

My old employer tried hiring graduates for free to give them a chance, but it was such a disaster they stopped.

Well I don't hear too many solutions to the problem coming from employers these days, other than asking for more IT graduates who they don't want to employ anyway.

Mr. Loverman

The problem with most IT graduates is they clearly have no interest in IT and would rather be doing something else. They chose IT because it's where the jobs are...

If I see a CV from a graduate who contributed to an open source project, has his own website (which uses nice CSS and some sort of programming language), and in general shows a genuine interest in computing, I will hire him.

But these people are rare...

mickman

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

The problem with most IT graduates is they clearly have no interest in IT and would rather be doing something else. They chose IT because it's where the jobs are...

If I see a CV from a graduate who contributed to an open source project, has his own website (which uses nice CSS and some sort of programming language), and in general shows a genuine interest in computing, I will hire him.

But these people are rare...

groan - the people you are talking about are very technical . there are lots and lots of IT jobs that dont require any of that kind of technical knowledge. I have been working in IT over 10 yrs and have done very very well and i never did any of that stuff you mention.

the few people that contribute to open source projects are unfortunately usually hopeless when it comes to participating in meetings or dealing with customers . they have the knowledge but cant relay it.

if you are only hiring these kind of people then you wouldnt be wanting to sell anything !!

and its only in last 2 years we have had the start of the new IT boom - i would disagree that students entered into degree programmes 4 yrs ago because IT is where the jobs are - this was not true during the boom. yes there was work in IT but there was much more in accountancy and law etc (due to the construction boom)

Mr. Loverman

mickman wrote: »

I have been working in IT over 10 yrs and have done very very well and i never did any of that stuff you mention.

IT 10 years ago is a lot different than today. I knew a butcher (yes!) who walked into a software testing job 10 years ago.

mickman wrote: »

the few people that contribute to open source projects are unfortunately usually hopeless when it comes to participating in meetings or dealing with customers . they have the knowledge but cant relay it.

if you are only hiring these kind of people then you wouldnt be wanting to sell anything !!

Well obviously we don't send the software engineers out to sell our software... we have sales people for that.

I agree though that in general the more technical someone is the more likely they are to have poor social skills... that's my experience over the past 15 years.

MysticalRain

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

The problem with most IT graduates is they clearly have no interest in IT and would rather be doing something else. They chose IT because it's where the jobs are...

I really have a hard time believing an IT grad can stick out a 4 year Comp Sci degree these days and doesn’t have much interest in IT to begin with. I met people like that when I graduated in 2002. But IT is a lot less in vogue nowadays. So you tend of have a higher proportion of people high have a genuine interest in IT.

If I see a CV from a graduate who contributed to an open source project, has his own website (which uses nice CSS and some sort of programming language), and in general shows a genuine interest in computing, I will hire him.

And if you were interviewing a civil engineer at a construction company, would you ask them if they built bridges and blogged about it in their spare time?

I think what you’re asking for is basically an IT geek with no life. Those will always be a tiny minority (even within IT), and come with their own set of problems – poor social skills, a huge sense of entitlement, and will probably demand a higher salary than you can afford anyway. They tend to be mostly male as well. So you’re probably putting off a lot of female candidates too (most women I know would laugh at the expectations some IT employers have. No surprises why they tend to avoid the industry these days).

But these people are rare...

Of course they are. Geeks who are that much of a genius at programming are probably more interested starting the next Facebook, or working at Google than some run of the mill dev shop in Ireland.

Shane L

Going into my second year of Engineering in College ( Chemical and Bioprocess ) What should I be doing now to make myself more employable when I leave and graduate? Internships last anywhere from a couple of months to a year but most employers are looking for several years of EXP in a VERY specific area/ skillset. Thanks for any info :pac:

Irish_Elect_Eng

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

...........

(3) Graduates take time and resources to train, they are not productive for the first 3-12 months and companies hire to fill a business need, an experienced candidate is up to speed and returning the companies investment quicker.

...........

I disagree with that, I have seen many companies hire fresh graduates and they were productive within a few months with some mentoring from the team, admittedly they had done a work placement as part of their degrees.

When I was on my own work placement I oversaw the change out of weigh transmitters on 23 production vessels in a pharmaceutical plant while my supervising engineer was on holidays, all graduates in all disciplines can't be painted with the f***tard brush.

Pembily

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

In fairness to employers, they are not charities, and they are under no obligation whatsoever to help graduates get experience and build a career.

If you realised how long it takes to train a graduate to a level where they are useful (and how likely it is that graduate will feck off before they are useful!) you would understand why no company wants to waste money on inexperienced staff.

So instead you think we should get staff from abroad?? I mean the companies sponsor people from foreign countries specifically for these vacant IT roles!!!

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

The problem with most IT graduates is they clearly have no interest in IT and would rather be doing something else. They chose IT because it's where the jobs are...

Really - IT courses have one of the highest drop out rates, I left Computer Sci in 2003 as I hated it, and that was during the first boom! IME people who stick any 4 year degree have more than a money interest in the subject, especially when it comes to maths subjects! I am now a Mech Eng graduate and thanks to your thinking I am unemployable - but as I know I am a pretty awesome employee I will get my break in engineering soon!

Some graduates, like some experienced hires have their new job picked up in minutes, others (including experienced hires) take months!

hjoeboy

So what advice would you give to a soon-to-be-graduate like myself in order to make myself stand out so I have every possible chance of getting some sort of employment when i do graduate next June?

At this stage I would gladly work for peanuts as jobs are so hard to get these days. I will be getting a 1.1 (I'm confident ) in mechanical engineering. I know there are companies that offer graduate placements but these are getting rarer by the day and those that do exist I can only imagine will have hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants.

Irish_Elect_Eng

RoverJames wrote: »

I disagree with that, I have seen many companies hire fresh graduates and they were productive within a few months with some mentoring from the team, admittedly they had done a work placement as part of their degrees.

When I was on my own work placement I oversaw the change out of weigh transmitters on 23 production vessels in a pharmaceutical plant while my supervising engineer was on holidays, all graduates in all disciplines can't be painted with the f***tard brush.

Admittedly, I have seen a couple of productive graduates in my day, but they are in the minority and normally have some work experience as you stated. However, working in the medical device industry as I do, even with the brightest graduates, it takes a significant amount of time to build the level of experience and trust required to make decisions that could impact patient safety.

In addition, there a some colleges that prepare their graduates for the work environment better than others and there are some disciplines where the students are more "ready to go" than others, so it is not just down to the student themselves.

Mr. Loverman

MysticalRain wrote: »

I really have a hard time believing an IT grad can stick out a 4 year Comp Sci degree these days and doesn’t have much interest in IT to begin with.

Haha, good one.

Pembily wrote: »

So instead you think we should get staff from abroad?? I mean the companies sponsor people from foreign countries specifically for these vacant IT roles!!!

Yes, all foreigners are evil. We should not allow them come to Ireland, nor should we allow Irish people work abroad...

Companies make decisions based on what's best for the company rather than any sort of emotional 'patriotic' argument.

hjoeboy wrote: »

So what advice would you give to a soon-to-be-graduate like myself in order to make myself stand out so I have every possible chance of getting some sort of employment when i do graduate next June?

You need to pack your CV.

1. Do small freelance programming/design/whatever jobs on Scriptlance.com.
2. Get involved in an open source project, e.g. become a tester for Mozilla.
3. Write a good cover letter and CV.

If you do the three items above you will have a huge advantage over the majority of IT graduates.

yawha

mickman wrote: »

groan - the people you are talking about are very technical . there are lots and lots of IT jobs that dont require any of that kind of technical knowledge. I have been working in IT over 10 yrs and have done very very well and i never did any of that stuff you mention.

the few people that contribute to open source projects are unfortunately usually hopeless when it comes to participating in meetings or dealing with customers . they have the knowledge but cant relay it.

This post irritated me. You seem to have a very narrow view of people who are actually interested in computers/programming, rather than something they just do for the sake of a job. To say that they all have crap social/people skills is complete and utter, generalizing bollocks. Yes, anyone who's been through a technical degree will have encountered the type of person who is very technical and lacking in social skills, but by no means are they they only, or even the majority of good programmers.

The whole idea that technical = no social skills is completely unfair, untrue and damaging to the image of Computer Science and other technical courses, which desperately need to attract more good students, not just people with it as their 5th or 6th CAO choice, with no real interest and who just do it for the sake of going to college.

</rant>

Btw, what constitutes "very, very well", out of curiousity?

mickman wrote: »

if you are only hiring these kind of people then you wouldnt be wanting to sell anything !!

Why would you be getting programmers to sell products? I wouldn't get someone with a business degree to write software...

yawha

MysticalRain wrote: »

I really have a hard time believing an IT grad can stick out a 4 year Comp Sci degree these days and doesn’t have much interest in IT to begin with. I met people like that when I graduated in 2002. But IT is a lot less in vogue nowadays. So you tend of have a higher proportion of people high have a genuine interest in IT.

Not really. People who go into CS courses these days tend to either be gamers who want to "make games", not knowing at all what that involves, or have CS as their 5th or 6th CAO choice, generally not be very hard workers and just going to college for the sake of it.

And then you get high failure rates, which unfortunately means class sizes begin to diminish, so you see the course material becoming easier and easier so as not to lose as many students. Then you get more graduates, but they're completely crap, conditioned to be lazy, and unemployable.

MysticalRain wrote: »

And if you were interviewing a civil engineer at a construction company, would you ask them if they built bridges and blogged about it in their spare time?

If building bridges was as accessible as writing some code as a hobby on a computer, then yes.

A much better comparison would be an artist or graphic designer. If you were hiring a graphics designer for your company, would you ask them if they had a portfolio of previous work, or would you hire them merely on the basis of them having a degree in Visual Arts?

That a graduate of Computer Science should have done some kind of work outside their college course, be it a slick website, contribution to an open source project, work placement or an internship somewhere etc. is a perfectly valid and reasonable expectation for IT employers to have.

MysticalRain wrote: »

I think what you’re asking for is basically an IT geek with no life. Those will always be a tiny minority (even within IT), and come with their own set of problems – poor social skills, a huge sense of entitlement, and will probably demand a higher salary than you can afford anyway. They tend to be mostly male as well. So you’re probably putting off a lot of female candidates too (most women I know would laugh at the expectations some IT employers have. No surprises why they tend to avoid the industry these days).

Again, untrue generalisations. Give people a bit of due credit for having an actual interest in their vocation, no need to label them as geeks with no life and poor social skills. The reason females (and many males) stay away from IT is due to the perception that IT is like this, not the fact that it actually is.

mickman

yawha wrote: »

This post irritated me. You seem to have a very narrow view of people who are actually interested in computers/programming, rather than something they just do for the sake of a job. To say that they all have crap social/people skills is complete and utter, generalizing bollocks. Yes, anyone who's been through a technical degree will have encountered the type of person who is very technical and lacking in social skills, but by no means are they they only, or even the majority of good programmers.

The whole idea that technical = no social skills is completely unfair, untrue and damaging to the image of Computer Science and other technical courses, which desperately need to attract more good students, not just people with it as their 5th or 6th CAO choice, with no real interest and who just do it for the sake of going to college.

</rant>

Btw, what constitutes "very, very well", out of curiousity?


Why would you be getting programmers to sell products? I wouldn't get someone with a business degree to write software...

i never said it was the case with all technical people, i said "usually" and as loverman has also said he agrees and he has been involved in hiring.

i have been working in IT for 10 yrs as i have said already and i am only commentating on what i have seen.

its not meant as an offense to anyone - what i will tell you for 100% sure if that the people who do best in IT (besides people who start facebook etc) are the ones who have technical skills and business skills combined. The person that can cope in a comms room or a board room, who can relay technical stuff to non technical people - those people do very very well

yawha

I guess I reacted a bit strongly there, but I guess I just don't like that one would infer anything about a person's personality from the amount of interest they have in their vocation. I think that if we have a narrow view of such people as "geeks with no life" it can become a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy, giving a negative image to what should be considered admirable, and discouraging those who aren't "geeks" to take an interest in what they're studying beyond their college courses.

Of course, this isn't the only issue. The emphasis on rote learning rather than critical/logical thinking at LC level, and a lack of any grounding in the likes of CS before 3rd level is completely ridiculous if we're looking to fill these kinds of jobs.

Mr. Loverman

yawha wrote: »

And then you get high failure rates, which unfortunately means class sizes begin to diminish, so you see the course material becoming easier and easier so as not to lose as many students.

This is a real problem. When I studied computer science 15 years ago my course had a high maths content (at least a third of the course). The "same" course now has little maths.

My masters a few years back (2008) had no maths and in general was very easy. The masters topic I selected was considered too advanced for a masters. Which I find very odd, because it was a classic computer science topic!

The recent graduates I met were plain awful. They had no interest in IT and frankly knew very little. I would consider many of them unemployable in an IT role.

mickman

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

This is a real problem. When I studied computer science 15 years ago my course had a high maths content (at least a third of the course). The "same" course now has little maths.

My masters a few years back (2008) had no maths and in general was very easy. The masters topic I selected was considered too advanced for a masters. Which I find very odd, because it was a classic computer science topic!

The recent graduates I met were plain awful. They had no interest in IT and frankly knew very little. I would consider many of them unemployable in an IT role.

really? were they that bad? i havent met graduates in a while but the company i work for hire a lot of WPP and they are hungry for the subject matter

yawha - i was very careful in my post not to use the words nerds or geeks - that was another poster. I myself am technical and heavily certified but not to the extent of open source contribution etc. I love my work and increase my knowledge at the weekend. i love problem solving but i dont go home in the evening and start contributing to forums etc - i prefer to work out and refresh my brain for the following days problem solving. i dont see anything wrong with people that do that, its just not for me

I have been following this with interest because of something personal to me.

How come the same graduate would have a different experience in the uk?.

They will experience a huge amount of graduate programs and an attitude of you are an asset to the company. but here the attitude seems to be you should be grateful we took you on at all as your a drain on the company until we train you up.

It can't all be explained by the bigger economy in the uk

folan

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

In fairness to employers, they are not charities, and they are under no obligation whatsoever to help graduates get experience and build a career.

If you realised how long it takes to train a graduate to a level where they are useful (and how likely it is that graduate will feck off before they are useful!) you would understand why no company wants to waste money on inexperienced staff.

In fairness, employees are not volunteers, and are under no obligation to stay with a company who has no interest training up staff, giving them a career path, and so on.

Training in every career is essential. Where do employers expect staff, graduate or not, to gain specific skill sets up if not in training.

Step 1 for alot of this is more specialisation of training from college courses. More active industry knowledge and input really is necessary. Its just not fortcoming.

For those coming out of college, contracting is about as good a start as you can get. I worked on contracts for my first year and added to skill sets I had, gained industry experience and got a perminant job out of it. I was the youngest, most recently graduated hire in my company until I finally left it due to a lack of opportunities and training.

Mr. Loverman

folan wrote: »

In fairness, employees are not volunteers

I know, that's why employees get paid. (WPP is another topic altogether.)

Graduates need to stop waiting for handouts and make things happen. As I stated, an IT graduate who runs her own website, contributes to open source projects, etc., would find it easy to get a job. Sitting on your ass waiting for employers to hand you a career makes no sense.

mickman

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

I know, that's why employees get paid. (WPP is another topic altogether.)

Graduates need to stop waiting for handouts and make things happen. As I stated, an IT graduate who runs her own website, contributes to open source projects, etc., would find it easy to get a job. Sitting on your ass waiting for employers to hand you a career makes no sense.

well thats true alright - even if an unemployed grad said they contributed to forums and had subscriptions to blogs etc then it would help

Irish_Elect_Eng

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

......... However, working in the medical device industry as I do, even with the brightest graduates, it takes a significant amount of time to build the level of experience and trust required to make decisions that could impact patient safety......................

That's where I work and that's where I have seen graduates perform well within a short time. There is plenty of work to be done along the way before they are put in a position where their decisions could impact patient safety. Also with a functioning quality system, ie change control, non conformance system etc etc etc with appropriate approval levels required anyone making a decision that could impact patient safety without documented consultation and approval from a team from cross functional roles is quite difficult to imagine. Unless the graduate was working in line support or product release and didn't follow procedure, realistically they won't be put in a position to make that decision until they are experienced.

As you say though it's often the course is the problem, when I was on my work placement I shared an office with a student from a different course in a different college, they had never heard of lock out tag out, intrinsic safety etc. They were asked to do a survey of one of the switch rooms and they wanted the keys to remove all the padlocks. 'twas an elec eng degree they were 3/4s through.

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

......

You need to pack your CV.



1. Do small freelance programming/design/whatever jobs on Scriptlance.com.

2. Get involved in an open source project, e.g. become a tester for Mozilla.

3. Write a good cover letter and CV.



If you do the three items above you will have a huge advantage over the majority of IT graduates.

'tis mech eng the chap / chappette is studying

folan

Just so I understand,

a new grad should be trained to a high level, expect low pay, no training or skillsdevelopment and no career path development from a company.

If a new grad is not trained to a sufficent level, they should train themselves up by writing websites, involving themselves in open projects (im not sure how a civil/mechanical/chemical engineer does this) and so on.

Anyone who wants a result has to work and invest themselves in the process to succeed. This goes for both employees and employeers.

ki

folan wrote: »

Just so I understand,

a new grad should be trained to a high level, expect low pay, no training or skillsdevelopment and no career path development from a company.

If a new grad is not trained to a sufficent level, they should train themselves up by writing websites, involving themselves in open projects (im not sure how a civil/mechanical/chemical engineer does this) and so on.

Anyone who wants a result has to work and invest themselves in the process to succeed. This goes for both employees and employeers.

Truth is a company needs to invest in graduates/lower level employees.

Not go on RTE News complaining they can't get highly experienced engineers.
When they are doing nothing to help develop starting out engineers.
If they paid enough for high grade Engineers, we would be queuing at the door for a job.

Companies will either pay at the bottom or at the top.

folan

ki wrote: »

Truth is a company needs to invest in graduates/lower level employees.

Not go on RTE News complaining they can't get highly experienced engineers.
When they are doing nothing to help develop starting out engineers.
If they paid enough for high grade Engineers, we would be queuing at the door for a job.

Companies will either pay at the bottom or at the top.

Id actually be more for it being an issue on both sides. Employers need to get more involved in skills development for employees, but alot of what Mr.L says is true too, and alot of grads seem to think that companies should be banging on their door from day one. Grads shouldnt be as picky as many of them seem to be.

Unless youve proven from before day one, you willl have to work hard to find an employer who needs your skills, and prove that if they do invest in you, the roi will be worthwhile. And that doesnt end once your in the company either.

Thank god im already in a good job. And with a great employeer. It didnt exactly happen overnight though!

mickman

folan wrote: »

Just so I understand,

a new grad should be trained to a high level, expect low pay, no training or skillsdevelopment and no career path development from a company.

If a new grad is not trained to a sufficent level, they should train themselves up by writing websites, involving themselves in open projects (im not sure how a civil/mechanical/chemical engineer does this) and so on.

Anyone who wants a result has to work and invest themselves in the process to succeed. This goes for both employees and employeers.

where are you geting this?

folan

mickman wrote: »

where are you geting this?

From the thread.

Yahew

mickman wrote: »

its not meant as an offense to anyone - what i will tell you for 100% sure if that the people who do best in IT (besides people who start facebook etc) are the ones who have technical skills and business skills combined. The person that can cope in a comms room or a board room, who can relay technical stuff to non technical people - those people do very very well

Like 100% of Google employees? the real question for other companies is what people in boardrooms of technical companies need to be hand held, technically. Despite what Lord Sugar said recently on the Apprentice the world's best businessmen are technically trained - look at the Fortune 500.

No doubt very few engineers can be good salesmen. The answer that I expect of a salesman to the question - "Is this a problem", is "No. Its not a problem for us", or "We will get to that in the next release" - the engineer needs to say "That is not possible", or "not trivial", or "not worth doing".

Engineers need to be honest, and salesmen need to exagerate. This does not mean that engineers are lacking social skills - in general I find people who survive in IT to be normal - but they might be lacking sales skills. But sales skills are not normal - ever hang around with a good salesman in real life, you would be quickly bored, and unable to get much of a word in.

Pembily

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

Yes, all foreigners are evil. We should not allow them come to Ireland, nor should we allow Irish people work abroad...

Companies make decisions based on what's best for the company rather than any sort of emotional 'patriotic' argument.

It was not a patriotic argument it was an point wondering why we are bringing in people when we have a high unemployment rate

ki

folan wrote: »

Id actually be more for it being an issue on both sides. Employers need to get more involved in skills development for employees, but alot of what Mr.L says is true too, and alot of grads seem to think that companies should be banging on their door from day one. Grads shouldnt be as picky as many of them seem to be.

Unless youve proven from before day one, you willl have to work hard to find an employer who needs your skills, and prove that if they do invest in you, the roi will be worthwhile. And that doesnt end once your in the company either.

Thank god im already in a good job. And with a great employeer. It didnt exactly happen overnight though!

I'd agree with you, grads need to do what they can to get there foot into the career they want.

I said before, my first job out of college paid 150 euro a week in 05/06. It was very low paid I know.
I knew I needed the training and thankfully got someone who was willing to spend the time with me, and it wasn't a big company(3 people).

I don't see any IT grad worth more than 20K in there first year, and that's being generous. Maybe the bigger companies like Microsoft/Dell/HP etc can afford more.

Year one out of college is about getting your foot in the door some where and proving yourself, and maybe after the initial 6 months you boss will give you a pay rise.

yawha

Pembily wrote: »

It was a patriotic agrument it was an point wondering why we are brining in people when we have a high unemployment rate

Because so many of our grads are astoundingly crap.

If our college courses (and education system in general, the rot begins to set in at second level) were of a high enough standard, employers wouldn't need to train grads before they could trust them with anything.

ki wrote: »

I don't see any IT grad worth more than 20K in there first year, and that's being generous. Maybe the bigger companies like Microsoft/Dell/HP etc can afford more.

MS's starting grad salary is 33K, and while you'd want to good, you don't need to be a super genius to get a job there. 20K seems incredibly low to me, personally.

HerbSimpson

I know businesses are not a charity but if all companies decided they weren't going to take on graduates then eventually there would be nothing BUT graduates left.

I also don't agree that most graduates would be useless, there is plenty of IT grunt work that could be done while they slowly gain experience.

seraphimvc

funny to know this topic is brought up again and i see Mr.Loverman again lol

the question is simple, how did all these people start their career back then? Maybe the situation is different now but how would it be huge different? You needed practical experience in the industry ie you needed training, a chance to get a step into the door. All the posters talking about 'Get some skills before you ask for a job, fresh graduates!' simply forget how they begged for a chance back then too (even during economic booming). It is a very tough time in ireland atm = no job for graduates. It is simple as that.

mickman

well most teachers start on 35k if they get an honours degree ( does that make u a btter teacher, i dont think so) -

why should a teacher who did a 3 yr degree get 35k and a computer science degree holder get 20k ?

i personally think that 35 k is crazy to start on . i started on 21k and have climbed hugely since then after working hard and continued study.

i lived in dublin on that 21k and did fine for myself.

by the way i have no personal issue with teachers - but i think they should start on lower salaries and then get bigger increases along the way

gubbie

mickman wrote: »

why should a teacher who did a 3 yr degree get 35k and a computer science degree holder get 20k ?

i personally think that 35 k is crazy to start on . i started on 21k and have climbed hugely since then after working hard and continued study.

i lived in dublin on that 21k and did fine for myself.

by the way i have no personal issue with teachers - but i think they should start on lower salaries and then get bigger increases along the way

Don't drag teachers into this. Starting teachers earn no where near €35k a year. Don't spread what you don't know. A better question should be why do the ESB need to pay their graduates in the region of €35k - €38k a year?

Pembily

gubbie wrote: »

Don't drag teachers into this. Starting teachers earn no where near €35k a year. Don't spread what you don't know. A better question should be why do the ESB need to pay their graduates in the region of €35k - €38k a year?

Cause they can - they are operating at a profit!

mickman

gubbie wrote: »

Don't drag teachers into this. Starting teachers earn no where near €35k a year. Don't spread what you don't know. A better question should be why do the ESB need to pay their graduates in the region of €35k - €38k a year?

no where near 35k? check your facts pal

http://www.tui.ie/Salary_Scales/Default.286.html

30,094 is first point of scale plus 4918 for honour degree every year. now im not as smart as you obviously but according to my calculator that is 35012.

Shane L

So many people I know of are going for teaching and if my son/daughter was in their school I'd be better off teaching them myself. Some are going for the profession... a lot more are going for the holidays the wage packet and the comfy job :pac: and I say fair play thats my plan B :P.........back on topic!

how many years of experience do you need in a specific area I browse through jobs ( still an under-grad) and the experience required can be 5 years plus for a very particular set of skills....is it any wonder some companies have a hard time employing with such criteria?

yawha

It's pretty damn hard for a graduate to get a job as a teacher right now. Much harder than it is for a CS graduate to get a job.

Anyway, a point I'd like to make is that the big companies hire lots of graduates - MS, Google, IBM, Intel etc. They don't really appear to have a limit on how many they hire either.

Is it fair to say that due to the higher salaries and better perks they offer, that these guys will snap up most of the competent graduates, leaving a pool of less able graduates applying for positions in smaller companies? And is it possible that because of this, such companies are being put off by their encounters with graduates with low abilities and don't want to waste their time with them?

Again, it all comes down to colleges not producing enough good grads.