[Article] 8,000 Graduate IT & Tech Jobs (Apparently)

ixoy

Found this humorous pack of fibs on RTE:

A survey has found that there are now more than 8,000 vacancies in Ireland for IT and technology graduates.

The research was conducted by Dublin City University.

It suggests that the shortage in supply has been caused by a significant downturn in the number of students opting for computer studies in the wake of the dot com collapse.

It also says the numbers graduating have not yet reached adequate levels, four years after the technology meltdown.

I've been scanning all the recruitment websites and you're lucky if you see one job desc. with the word "graduate" in a week. Where are these alleged jobs for grad level positions? Call centres? Anyone else, searching for such positions, find such articles extremely irritating?

WhiteWashMan

i was talking to an american who is a senior project manager for Merc Pharma, in denmark last week, and he said he had seen a huge amount of positions available in Ireland opening up over the last 6 months.

i was pretty sceptical about it, but he has been looking, and i havent, so...

pollyantic

Things are getting better for grads.
The company i am working for just hired 6 grads from DCU to start in a couple of months.
I heard it was hard to get them because there are a lot of companies with budgets for grads again.

IronMan

If this is the case, why don't our goverment who are so fond of setting up strategic groups/ state sponsered bodies etc, actually set one up of use, which would allow IT graduates to submit their CV, and be placed in one of these positions. Cause they sure as hell are not being advertised on Irishjobs etc.

K!LL!@N

The least they could do would be to compile a list of the companies who have these positions available.

I had the hardest time getting a decent job after graduation which was over 2 years ago.
I finally got a decent job last november.
So they'll have to forgive me for my skepticism when i hear about stuff like this.

Also, they seem to classify anything that even remotely involves a computer as being an IT job, so you may find call centre jobs etc being lumped into this.
"Oh eBay, they do stuff on the internet don't they? Throw them into the IT jobs pile."
Even the call centre jobs that are a little more relevent don't require degrees in CS or other IT related subjects, practically anyone with a bit of common sense and a couple weeks training could do them.
I've served my time in these kinds of "IT" jobs.
As i'm sure most of the other recent IT graduates have.

So if these jobs really exist let's see them.

Killian

tibor

What's that smell?

OH yes... the pungent stench of desperation from DCU to keep student enrolment levels up with a healthy pile of bullshit.

jank

Figures are exagerated alright but there has been a definate improvement over the last few months for graduates. Hopefully things will get even better for us.

Third_Echelon

My company has hired quite a few graduates over the past few months. If you seek you shall find.

compile a list of the companies that you would like to work for and cold call...

seamus

Graduates programmes traditionally target university lecturers/departments and graduate's papers rather than jobsites and newspapers, hence why the "recently graduated" tend to miss them.

AARRRGH

Most of the jobs are technical support.

Sure isn't this great news for Ireland.

Third_Echelon

dublindude wrote:

Most of the jobs are technical support.

Sure isn't this great news for Ireland.

That type of viewpoint wont find you a job....

K!LL!@N

Well i remember filling out a number of surveys and filling out a form for an appointment with the careers office in trinity and they never bothered to get back to me on a couple of occasions.

I also remember some ICT Ireland sponsored graduate programme which was aimed at graduates who would have been out of college at least a year but wouldn't have had a decent job yet.
I applied to them and never heard anything back either.
Which was fairly disheartening.

If they're really crying out for people to fill these rolls, then do something about it.
Put up a site advertising all these jobs, allow people to register and let the companies fill the positions that way.
Or at the very least publish a list of the jobs.

I'm happy where i am now, but it would really help people graduating this summer or others who are still trying to get started.

Killian

K!LL!@N

Third_Echelon wrote:

That type of viewpoint wont find you a job....

Until i see a list of these jobs, i'd suspect as much myself.
Search for IT jobs on any of the recruitment sites and most, that are willing to accept graduates, will be call centre/support jobs.

Killian

AARRRGH

Third_Echelon wrote:

That type of viewpoint wont find you a job....

I work for a very famous online recruitment company.

There are hardly any IT jobs outside of tech support.

These kind of BS articles in newpapers annoy me as they get peoples hopes up.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

AARRRGH

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

What kind of jobs?

Third_Echelon

dublindude wrote:

I work for a very famous online recruitment company.

There are hardly any IT jobs outside of tech support.

These kind of BS articles in newpapers annoy me as they get peoples hopes up.

To be honest, a graduate isn't really going to be finding a job on website such as monster or the likes...

You have to get in contact with the companies directly. Apply for their graduate programs, send in your CV and be proactive... its the only way.

AARRRGH

Third_Echelon wrote:

To be honest, a graduate isn't really going to be finding a job on website such as monster or the likes...

You have to get in contact with the companies directly. Apply for their graduate programs, send in your CV and be proactive... its the only way.

Yes, I would agree with that.

However, 8000 new jobs... can't be true.

kermit_ie

A graduate is not defined as someone who has finished their degree, and has little or no experience and looking for their first job. A graduate job as defined by the survey is one for which you need a IT degree to fill it, for example, a senior programmer would be a graduate job, but a Data Entry person would not.

skywalker_208

This is a load of Bo**ox!!! the only 'graduate IT positions' out there are either Customer Care or Tech Support... Ive been sending letters to random companies for the past year and havent had any luck with an 'IT position'

skywalker_208

Am i allowed say that word? hehe... had to add - 300 posts.. whohoo.. wheres my prize!

ixoy

Well that's an interesting take there then - if 'graduate' means someone who has graduated within the last few years. There does seem to be postions available on the web - but they're all for people with experience. So thus they're bemoaning the fact they can't get experienced people but are unwilling to let people gain the experience?

I've spent months looking for a decent way into programming, willing to go to a grad level. All the grad programs are finished but I never found anything related to the other 7,000 jobs (or so). I'm almost considering contacting DCU to get more information on the reality behind their statement, such is my ire.

[Edit]Gotta love those guys. They talk about how all their grads got jobs and then have this, for example, to say:

Jobs are available wherever computing technology is employed, and that is in every sector of the economy. In fact, almost half of our graduates actually work outside the IT industry in banks, insurance companies, the public sector, etc.

Umm if it's booming, and you claim in the release URL=http://www.dcu.ie/news/2005/may/NewsReleaseProjectDisplay1.doc]here[/URL that there's an insatiable need for graduates, why are only half working in the IT industry?

Oh wait a sec, they list how they got their figure:

An independent survey and analysis of published IT and technology job vacancies by DCU School of Computing indicates that there are more than 8000 vacancies now available in the sector. This confirms a recent Online Employment Index survey conducted on the five major online recruitment websites in Ireland also reflected the general upturn in the sector, with a 7% increase in IT recruitment in the three months from February to April this year which showed that there are8,420 IT jobs advertised on these five websites.

So they scanned five websites - many of which are listing the same job - and said that these were all graduate jobs? They failed to point out the pertinent fac that these aren't positions for new graduates and that many graduates, lacking experience, are still not getting in. Or is poor old DCU trying to get a bit more funding...

Trojan

Third_Echelon wrote:

That type of viewpoint wont find you a job....

Agreed! Realism will get you nowhere, fast.

Third_Echelon

skywalker_208 wrote:

This is a load of Bo**ox!!! the only 'graduate IT positions' out there are either Customer Care or Tech Support... Ive been sending letters to random companies for the past year and havent had any luck with an 'IT position'

we all have to start somewhere... do it for 6 months to a year. Get the experience. You just cant jump straight into a senior position. Just because you come out of college with a degree doesn't give you the right to expect a brilliant job straight away with everything handed to you on a plate...

What do you expect as a graduate coming out of college? 50 grand per year? A company car?

No.. in the real world:
-> €20k - €26k
-> support based role
-> bottom rung of the ladder

Do your time in the low paid jobs to get the experience you need to get the job you want in the future...

Who do you think the employer is going to choose for that dream job?

Person A who has worked in a tech support role for a year or two and has gained industry experience

or

Person B who has arsed about for 2 years because all they could get was a tech support role and thought it was beneath them, so decided to work in mc donalds for 2 years????

I know who McDonalds would pick for manager of their new branch....

K!LL!@N

Third_Echelon wrote:

we all have to start somewhere... do it for 6 months to a year. Get the experience. You just cant jump straight into a senior position. Just because you come out of college with a degree doesn't give you the right to expect a brilliant job straight away with everything handed to you on a plate...

What do you expect as a graduate coming out of college? 50 grand per year? A company car?

No.. in the real world:
-> €20k - €26k
-> support based role
-> bottom rung of the ladder

Do your time in the low paid jobs to get the experience you need to get the job you want in the future...

Who do you think the employer is going to choose for that dream job?

Person A who has worked in a tech support role for a year or two and has gained industry experience

or

Person B who has arsed about for 2 years because all they could get was a tech support role and thought it was beneath them, so decided to work in mc donalds for 2 years????

I know who McDonalds would pick for manager of their new branch....

No one expects to come out of college and get 50k, a car and a cushy job, well ok some do but they're deluded.

The average graduate just wants to come out of college and get a job related to what they've spent the last 4 or so years studying.

If someone goes to college to study medicine, they don't come out of college and spend 6 months to a year answering phones on a VHI/BUPA helpline, do they?
I know it's a simplistic example, but you see my point.

Employers have been able to pick and choose who they want.
Even exploit the ones they get by paying them less than the going rate.
I went for a job not too long ago and after completing a couple of tests and two interviews, i was told that i'd made it to the last 4.
Then i'm told that there isn't much seperating the last 4 candidates and i was asked how low a wage i'd be willing to accept, because it was looking like it would come down to whoever would accept the lowest.
I'd been on 18-19k doing tech support, so i said something around the same would be fine, and that i may in fact accept something even lower if it would be reviewed after a few months.
I didn't get the job, so am i to assume that someone else said they'd work for less than 18k in a programming role in a reasonably large company?
And would i be wrong in calling that exploitation?

Tech support is soul destroying work, taking 60 calls a day from people that range from stupid to downright abusive, is not the kind of experience that a graduate needs.
It seems to have become a rite of passage for many IT graduates in recent years, that doesn't mean everyone should have to do it.
I spent 7 months doing tech support and you don't learn much after the initial training, and i knew 99% of the stuff taught in training as i'm sure most others did too.
It in no way helped for my current position.

All it did was act as filler for my CV in an "IT" related area and put a few quid in my pocket.

I was lucky, i was living at home when i worked there so when i'd had enough i was able to leave and not have to worry about paying rent while i looked for another job.
But a lot of my friends that worked there weren't so lucky and many of them have been forced to keep working there.
They don't have time to look for something better because they're working and if they don't work they can't pay the rent.
It's a vicious circle.

I've ranted on a little here, my apologies.

Something needs to be done to allow graduates gain some relevent experience whether that's during their time in college or shortly after graduation.
Most would happily work for enough to get by on while they worked their way up.
Let's sort out the problems for the graduates we have before we try and lure more people into the great "IT" industry.

Thankfully i've found a good job that's more rewarding than tech support and a bit more relevent to what i spent 4 years studying in college.
I'm being paid fairly and not being exploited and for that i'm greatful.

Killian

Imposter

K!LL!@N wrote:

No one expects to come out of college and get 50k, a car and a cushy job, well ok some do but they're deluded.

The average graduate just wants to come out of college and get a job related to what they've spent the last 4 or so years studying.

If someone goes to college to study medicine, they don't come out of college and spend 6 months to a year answering phones on a VHI/BUPA helpline, do they?
I know it's a simplistic example, but you see my point.

Employers have been able to pick and choose who they want.
Even exploit the ones they get by paying them less than the going rate.

What Killian said, especially the bit quoted.
My solution: Leave the country and get those entry positions elsewhere. People come out of college here and go straight into roles relevant ot their studies and NOT after X amount of years working as a trained monkey.

skywalker_208

Third_Echelon wrote:

What do you expect as a graduate coming out of college? 50 grand per year? A company car?

Nobody here expects to walk into a perfect job straight out of college... but that is not the issue here. This report claims that that a graduate cannot walk across the road without falling over an IT job. I would consider an IT Graduate positon to be Junior Progamming, Junior Systems Admin etc etc...

Tech Sup is not an IT position... but most grads just have to take up these positions in an attempt to get a real IT job....

pollyantic

I did some checking with HR to find out what the procedure was.

There were no new hires of grads for a couple of years. They only recently got the budget for this as experienced people are getting harder to find. Good news for experienced it people then

They don't go to agencies for grads. Too expensive and all grads are equal when looking for their first job, so no problem with looking for particular skillsets so no need to employ an agent.

They email everyone in the company and ask them do they know any good grads for this year who they would reccommend for a job in the company. Of course there is a finders fee for those who reccommend succesful people ( but only if the finders are not contractors ).

These recent hires are all for programming jobs. None of them have left college yet so have not started just yet. I'm not allowed to say how much they will get paid but its not half bad for a greenhorn.

Also i'm told that there is a lot of this happening in other companies too. So things are looking up for grads at long last.

Hope this helps you guys.

Oh yeah - I'm a bit surprised at the pesimistic attitude of some people. Jobs don't come and land on your lap anymore. You either have to work at finding one (being lazy and complaining there are no jobs won't help you) or you have to know someone who can get you one.

WhiteWashMan

K!LL!@N wrote:

No one expects to come out of college and get 50k, a car and a cushy job, well ok some do but they're deluded.

The average graduate just wants to come out of college and get a job related to what they've spent the last 4 or so years studying.

If someone goes to college to study medicine, they don't come out of college and spend 6 months to a year answering phones on a VHI/BUPA helpline, do they?
I know it's a simplistic example, but you see my point.

Employers have been able to pick and choose who they want.
Even exploit the ones they get by paying them less than the going rate.
I went for a job not too long ago and after completing a couple of tests and two interviews, i was told that i'd made it to the last 4.
Then i'm told that there isn't much seperating the last 4 candidates and i was asked how low a wage i'd be willing to accept, because it was looking like it would come down to whoever would accept the lowest.
I'd been on 18-19k doing tech support, so i said something around the same would be fine, and that i may in fact accept something even lower if it would be reviewed after a few months.
I didn't get the job, so am i to assume that someone else said they'd work for less than 18k in a programming role in a reasonably large company?
And would i be wrong in calling that exploitation?

Tech support is soul destroying work, taking 60 calls a day from people that range from stupid to downright abusive, is not the kind of experience that a graduate needs.
It seems to have become a rite of passage for many IT graduates in recent years, that doesn't mean everyone should have to do it.
I spent 7 months doing tech support and you don't learn much after the initial training, and i knew 99% of the stuff taught in training as i'm sure most others did too.
It in no way helped for my current position.

All it did was act as filler for my CV in an "IT" related area and put a few quid in my pocket.

I was lucky, i was living at home when i worked there so when i'd had enough i was able to leave and not have to worry about paying rent while i looked for another job.
But a lot of my friends that worked there weren't so lucky and many of them have been forced to keep working there.
They don't have time to look for something better because they're working and if they don't work they can't pay the rent.
It's a vicious circle.

I've ranted on a little here, my apologies.

Something needs to be done to allow graduates gain some relevent experience whether that's during their time in college or shortly after graduation.
Most would happily work for enough to get by on while they worked their way up.
Let's sort out the problems for the graduates we have before we try and lure more people into the great "IT" industry.

Thankfully i've found a good job that's more rewarding than tech support and a bit more relevent to what i spent 4 years studying in college.
I'm being paid fairly and not being exploited and for that i'm greatful.

Killian

and yet most people will not end up doing a job relatede to the subject they studied in university.

and while i agree tha not everyone expects to walk into the perfect job, i think there are more people out there than you think who feel they are owed a great job for sitting on their arse in uni for 4 yers.
and these are the people who generally get stuck after exams asking 'what happens next'

the bright people already see they need to start working on their career while they are in college.

me, i didnt start working on a carrer until i was 28, and i certainly wondered where my job on 100k a year went after i flunked out of college.
hell, i was opened to offers! i would have taken 50k!

by the way, IT support is IT. dont make a mistake and think it isnt.
what exactly is it that people think IT is?
IS/IT departments are part of the IT ecosystem. its not just all about being a design engineer.
just the same way that being in sales does not always mean being on a phone. but telesales is still sales.

AARRRGH

WhiteWashMan wrote:

by the way, IT support is IT. dont make a mistake and think it isnt.
what exactly is it that people think IT is?

OK, but there is a BIG difference between "IT Support" and "Technical Support". Being in charge of a cluster of Linux servers etc./monitoring the network/maintaining everything on the network is a nice "IT Support" job.

Working for eircom, as Technical Support, with colleagues who know less about IT than my Grand Father, is "Technical Support".

Also, one thing which a lot of people don't know -

IT jobs from recuitment agencies on recruitment websites generally don't exist, or there are 20+ adverts for the same job. Taking into account that this "8000" jobs is based on "figures" from recruitment websites, it's fair to divide 8000/20 = 400.

This figure, 400, is probably accurate.

pollyantic

I think some people here need to adjust thier expectations of what they will be doing after they graduate.

You're not going to walk into a good job. you have to work your way into it.
Even grad programmers will not be programming for at least 18 months. If your lucky you'll be fixing small bugs for 18 months and then maybe you'll get to do the brain dead programming jobs that everyone else is bored of.

You WILL end up doing support or even making the coffee. Its all part of growing and developing your career.
The world owes you nothing. In fact you owe hard work and sweat back.

I know everyone who graduates thinks they know enough to compete with the people already out there.
Any guy who did a FAS course and is in his job 6 months is light years ahead of a grad with a degree. He's got experience and working knowledge. The grad hasn't. And to be completely honest with you - anyone looking for a job with JAVA --- The market is flooded with Java developers. Since about 2001 everyone wants to be a java developer. Its the hardest area to get into by virtue of the amount of people looking for jobs with it. Therefore your price will will lowered accordingly.

Third_Echelon

K!LL!@N wrote:

The average graduate just wants to come out of college and get a job related to what they've spent the last 4 or so years studying.

You will find that you wont always get a job exactly related to your qualification.

K!LL!@N wrote:

If someone goes to college to study medicine, they don't come out of college and spend 6 months to a year answering phones on a VHI/BUPA helpline, do they?
I know it's a simplistic example, but you see my point.

A Medicine degree is very different to an IT degree so your comparison here isn't applicable. They spend 7 years and probably a lot more studying before they are qualified... then they work cr@p hours for the rest of their life and dont get paid that well when they first start out. No matter what career you decide to take you must start at the bottom....

K!LL!@N wrote:

Employers have been able to pick and choose who they want.
Even exploit the ones they get by paying them less than the going rate.
I went for a job not too long ago and after completing a couple of tests and two interviews, i was told that i'd made it to the last 4.
Then i'm told that there isn't much seperating the last 4 candidates and i was asked how low a wage i'd be willing to accept, because it was looking like it would come down to whoever would accept the lowest.

Sounds like a sh1t company to be honest and you are better of staying well clear, but this had been the situation where companies weren't hiring a lot of staff and when they needed to the most cost effective option was always chosen... thats business.

K!LL!@N wrote:

I'd been on 18-19k doing tech support, so i said something around the same would be fine, and that i may in fact accept something even lower if it would be reviewed after a few months.
I didn't get the job, so am i to assume that someone else said they'd work for less than 18k in a programming role in a reasonably large company?
And would i be wrong in calling that exploitation?

Exploitation? Perhaps. This was more than likely when the job market wasn't great... so it was an employers market. They held the cards.

K!LL!@N wrote:

Tech support is soul destroying work, taking 60 calls a day from people that range from stupid to downright abusive, is not the kind of experience that a graduate needs.

I'm not saying its not boring etc, we all know that it can be...
You would be surprised how much experience you have gained and how that will stand by you in the future.. You have been working in an IT environment, you have been dealing with a lot of people every day. You would be surprised how much people skills will stand by you in future roles...
I work with some people who are 'afraid' to make a phone call to a customer... These are grown people, but they dont have 'telephone confidence'..

I've done this type of work starting out. Not quite taking calls, but I was the Junior Network Administrator/Troubleshooter/'Whatever the hell you are told to do' person.

K!LL!@N wrote:

It seems to have become a rite of passage for many IT graduates in recent years, that doesn't mean everyone should have to do it.

True it doesn't mean that you should have to do it... but its one of the most readily available jobs out there for graduates. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

K!LL!@N wrote:

I spent 7 months doing tech support and you don't learn much after the initial training, and i knew 99% of the stuff taught in training as i'm sure most others did too.
It in no way helped for my current position.

How wrong could you be????
It doesn't matter what the hell you were doing. On your CV is says that you have worked somewhere for 1 year or 2 years or whatever amount of time. An employer can see that you are able to hold down a job and stay with a company for a reasonsable period of time. It is in an area related to your qualification. This is what they want to see...

K!LL!@N wrote:

All it did was act as filler for my CV in an "IT" related area and put a few quid in my pocket.

see my last comment...

K!LL!@N wrote:

I was lucky, i was living at home when i worked there so when i'd had enough i was able to leave and not have to worry about paying rent while i looked for another job.

Most people dont have the living conditions that'd they'd like when they start work. You still basically live like a student for a few years.. with your mates at home. Its difficult, I know, but you just have to keep on plugging away at it.

K!LL!@N wrote:

But a lot of my friends that worked there weren't so lucky and many of them have been forced to keep working there.
They don't have time to look for something better because they're working and if they don't work they can't pay the rent.
It's a vicious circle.

There is always time to look for something else. Make time. Take a day off work and sit on monster, irish jobs looking for companies to call. Go the websites of industrial estates and look at the tenants. If you see a company you think you'd like to work for.. call them. Send a CV.

K!LL!@N wrote:

Something needs to be done to allow graduates gain some relevent experience whether that's during their time in college or shortly after graduation.
Most would happily work for enough to get by on while they worked their way up.

Is this not what you did if im not mistaken?

K!LL!@N wrote:

Let's sort out the problems for the graduates we have before we try and lure more people into the great "IT" industry.

The job market for IT has always gone in cycles. There's isn't a lot that can be done about that. If companies have money they will hire more graduates. If they don't they won't. Its like this for most industries, but IT does seem to be more volatile

K!LL!@N wrote:

Thankfully i've found a good job that's more rewarding than tech support and a bit more relevent to what i spent 4 years studying in college.
I'm being paid fairly and not being exploited and for that i'm greatful.

Killian

You see... your time in IT support stood by you... you got a better job... It was your 'right of passage' as you called it.

Its tough. Everyone has to do it. Thats life. Hopefully it will get better for grads, but its not all doom and gloom...

seamus

pollyantic wrote:

Any guy who did a FAS course and is in his job 6 months is light years ahead of a grad with a degree. He's got experience and working knowledge. The grad hasn't.

Experience is always the key in this industry. There are very few courses that teach you the stuff that you will use in Support. OK, you get a grounding, you get the nitty-gritty, which comes into its own when you get down to proper troubleshooting. You'll find many experienced support people having trouble when something falls outside of their area of expertise, while a graduate (or anyone with a degree) will adapt much quicker and learn much quicker.

There's also the general things that work experience gives you - team skills, people skills, etc etc. Few people in college take the opportunity that ****ty part-time jobs give them, and instead use them as a means to make money. They're an invaluable source of a foundation in customer service and team skills. These are the things that stand to graduates. IT in general is no longer an industry where you can keep your head down, do your work, and you'll keep being promoted. It's as much about bull****ting your way along as any other.

I think for anyone looking for a proper career in IT, the most productive environments are IT companies or small internal IT departments. Large places like eircom (for example), have a lot of people. Some are better than you, some are not. Career advancement is limited. If a TL job comes up, everyone's going for it, and from there, the movement possibilities are even less. You won't receive any more training than you need.

My own place, for example, is small IT dept in a large financial company. I started a year ago as internal tech support on a small helpdesk. That's still my job, but over the past year, I've been given this duty here, the odd project there. Loose-end admin jobs that become free are assigned to me to look after it. It's dribs and drabs, but its all experience. On top of that, I'll be trained, as much as I want. At the moment they're paying for an MCSA. It's more than I actually need to do my job - in fact it's what I would need to do the job of the support team above me. As time goes on, *everyone* gets given these extra little duties. There's constant development and experience being dished on everyone, instead of doing the same old thing, day-in-day-out.

WhiteWashMan

dublindude wrote:

OK, but there is a BIG difference between "IT Support" and "Technical Support". Being in charge of a cluster of Linux servers etc./monitoring the network/maintaining everything on the network is a nice "IT Support" job.

if im correct, then i think what you are saying is that there is a difference between IT support, and external helpdesk support.
as in with one you do IT in house, and withthe other you sit ona phone and tell people how to fix something?

i would agree if that is what you are saying. helpdesk support for me has always been around customer support. and as always, everyone in the world should have 6 months on a helpdesk job.
that would make sure everyone is nice

RuggieBear

WhiteWashMan wrote:

, everyone in the world should have 6 months on a helpdesk job.
that would make sure everyone is nice

...and the suicide rate would go thru the roof

K!LL!@N

Everyone's making valid points on both sides of the argument.

But let's get back to the original topic.

We're being told that there are 8,000 graduate jobs out there.
Companies are crying out for graduates.
Quick everyone put down IT courses on your CAO because you're going to walk into a job when you're done in 4-5 years time.
We've all confirmed that it's a myth.

If they've found these 8,000 jobs, let them publish the details.
Tell everyone where they are.

Killian

damnyanks

I'm a software engineering student. I had been seeking a job for next year (Year out) and was applying for essentially what are grad positions (except less pay for undergrads only)

I think it's a case of people not looking hard enough. I spent hours a week searching for jobs that I wanted to get into. My plan is too start in development and once I have enough experience move onto designing systems etc. so I was searching for a development role.

I was offered about 8 development jobs this year. Of course I got turned down for a lot of jobs (But not if I got to the interview stage ) but you just keep working at it. I wanted a job that I felt I could learn a lot in through out my time there and not in the first 2 months. Some of the companies were large multi nationals some were smaller development houses.

p.s I've been using a re-work of the boards cv

WhiteWashMan

K!LL!@N wrote:

Everyone's making valid points on both sides of the argument.

But let's get back to the original topic.

We're being told that there are 8,000 graduate jobs out there.
Companies are crying out for graduates.
Quick everyone put down IT courses on your CAO because you're going to walk into a job when you're done in 4-5 years time.
We've all confirmed that it's a myth.

If they've found these 8,000 jobs, let them publish the details.
Tell everyone where they are.

Killian

with that i agree.

information without back up, is speculation and conjunture at best (i watch a lot of law and order, they say things like that all the time)

Sposs

Here's more on the shortage , grads starting on 30k rising to 100k ????

http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9609433.html

who? where?

0utshined

That's quite an open-ended statement in that report. I'd imagine there are a number of graduates whose salary will rise to €100k over the course of their career.

seamus

Sposs wrote:

Here's more on the shortage , grads starting on 30k rising to 100k ????

Lol?

K!LL!@N

Sposs wrote:

Here's more on the shortage , grads starting on 30k rising to 100k ????

http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9609433.html

who? where?

I'd laugh at that if i didn't think some people will believe it.
Do these people have no conscience?
Give us the real starting salaries and i think you'll find it's closer to 18k.
And stop kidding us, there are few IT jobs that will pay 100k.

It's crap like this that gets people into college courses they have no real interest in, and they either drop out or finish the course but end up doing something completely different.

Killian

WhiteWashMan

K!LL!@N wrote:

And stop kidding us, there are few IT jobs that will pay 100k.

there aint that many that pay 100k anyway...

daveirl

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chump

It's a sham that graduates should be hired for tech support jobs, I was doing internet phone support from 16, did it with IOL, Eircom and BtOpenworld... all with no computer training or related education.
Now for people to spend four years studying anything and to have to step into a job like that, bad luck - what a waste of a degree. But so many degrees are a waste these days... it's more for having a good time and growing up than for what you actually get from it...

K!LL!@N

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

That's great.
But these people are saying they've found all these jobs, so let's see them.
I went back to trinity's website to have a quick look at vacancies they had and there weren't a huge amount considering the number of graduates they're going to have this year alone.

Also, most of the companies that come recruiting in colleges will only take those with I's or 2.I's, and even then they wouldn't have enough places to satisfy the numbers with those kind of results.

Killian

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

K!LL!@N

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Yes, the original article.
Which has also been mentioned on radio and tv over the last week.

Killian

ixoy

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

From the original article:

At present the demand is strong - here in DCU, of the 145 B.Sc in Computer Applications graduates in 2003, just 2 were seeking employment in April 2004, and they may have simply been between jobs when the survey was done.

In DCU this year, there was excess demand from companies who wished to take Computer Applications students on the University’s paid six-month work placement programme.

Of course, as I said earlier, only about half went into actualy IT, belying the original point somewhat.

As to starting in an alternate line and not walking into a lucrative job - I did all that. I worked in an area, like some people would do when they take up a tech. support job, and hoped to gain the relavent experience to move into something I was genuinely interested in. Didn't happen - no opportunities arose. All the experience I gained was in no way relavent to where I wanted to go (programming). As a result, I still can't get that work (although I do have a job) and companies still aren't interested...

Sarunas

ixoy wrote:

All the experience I gained was in no way relavent to where I wanted to go (programming). As a result, I still can't get that work (although I do have a job) and companies still aren't interested...

This might be a bit OT, but does getting involved in OSS project counts as programming experience from employers point of view?

K!LL!@N

Sarunas wrote:

This might be a bit OT, but does getting involved in OSS project counts as programming experience from employers point of view?

It would depend on the employer i suppose.

Killian