Worried that going to university is wasting your time when you could already be working in IT? Be patient — there’s more demand for computer science graduates than any other area.
Graduate picture from Shutterstock
The latest survey by Graduate Careers Australia suggests that 41 per cent of employers are having trouble finding graduates, and computer science is the biggest problem area. Amongst those employers seeking to hire computer science graduates, 53.5 per cent had trouble doing so.
Competition for graduate positions remains tight: a typical position attracts 200 applicants, with 100 moving on to interview phases and nine being hired per vacancy. But your odds are going to be better with tech than in many other areas.
CHART: The 3 types of graduates Australian recruiters are desperate to find [Business Insider]
Comments
2 responses to “Computer Science Graduates Are In Short Supply For Australian Employers”
I would put the difficulties down to non-technical recruiters who can’t read a resume.
it is artificial.
“there are no good canditates….. I know… lets hire a 457”
Spot on here, when you create a broad list of requirements for job applicants that would take 20 years to amass, then list potential salary range at 50-60k you ain’t getting applicants.
Doesn’t quite make sense – ‘having trouble finding’ yet ‘competition for positions remains tight’… so basically employers aren’t getting the right applicants, are offering a poor package comparatively, or they’re failing at advertising it correctly (or a combo). I’ve seen plenty of ‘graduate’ job ads asking for years of experience and a lot of advanced knowledge before you’ll even pass the first round (which memeweaver mentions). The best graduates get taken well before they graduate too, so some employers need to start earlier!
Over the weekend, I looked at a number of job advertisments. No wonder they can’t find the people they want. Madwog was exactly right. It’s incompetent hirers and people looking to hire cheap labour from overseas.
Of the positions I looked at, the skill-sets were artificially narrowed for no benefit to the company or the task at hand. There was also no emphasis on personal qualities. People may argue that “working in a team” is an afterthought, but it’s relevant for some jobs and not for others.
From my personal experience in recruiting technical staff (and I’ve recruited quite a few over the years), i’m less concerned about a specific version of an SQL database or a specific C++ compiler. A person that knows several languages will understand most languages quite readily. If you’ve worked on one web based language, you will be familiar with many others.
I am fairly flulent in many different computer based languages across several platforms – and yet, I wouldn’t have met the essential criteria for — a single — job advertised. Granted, I’m not a graduate, I have a few decades experience… It was more an exercise of interest.
TL;DR If you’re hiring, you’re probably doing it wrong based on the position descriptions I saw over the weekend.
How can one position get 200 applications, interview 100, and then hire 9?