So what does an IT Skills Shortage mean to you?

| December 8, 2008

Principles and process can be taught, but industry wants and expects experienced practitioners, and this is best obtained by working on large and complex projects.

We hear a lot about the ICT "skills crisis", but what does this mean to you? 

The graduating student who is struggling to find their first job, or the 20 year industry veteran who following retrenchment is told they are no longer relevant to the industry, may well ask;  "what skills shortage ? If there’s a shortage why am I having this much difficulty finding a job?"

Taking the economic view of supply and demand whereby the Universities and TAFEs generate the supply, and Industry (in the widest sense) represents the demand; it does appear that there is a disjoint.  Industry commentators suggest they are not getting the skilled people they require and the educational institutions maintain that they are providing the courses that their students (albeit fewer of them these days) want to take.  I think this disjoint is far too multi-dimensional for a single dimensional root cause to be identified and a "solution" to be found – the truth is there are numerous initiatives that can help bridge the supply / demand dilemma but the scary thing is that some of these may be in conflict with each other.   We need also to be mindful of the dynamic change the industry as a whole endures – where the skills in hot demand this "week" are old and out of date the next.

A common understanding within stakeholder groups of what is meant by "skills" is required before any attempt is made to try and fix the problem.  Essentially education institutions, and to some extent students, focus on the qualification while industry is primarily interested in capability and competency.  And it’s not just technical capability and competency industry is looking for, it’s the business and soft skills as well.  At a UTS forum on student intake for IT courses I attended a couple of weeks ago, when project management as a competency was mentioned, a student from the floor asked "how would a university teach that?"   This is exactly the point!  Principles and process can be taught, but industry wants and expects experienced practitioners and this is best obtained by working on large and complex projects.  Another way of looking at this is that industry is interested in a "job ready" workforce that is available when needed.  As a generalisation Universities and TAFE colleges focus more on producing (as they should) a rounded thinking graduate who can go out and conquer the world by growing into it.  Some of our education institutions provide work experience or work placement as part of their course and there are public and private enterprises who have very active and successful intern programs, but I would argue that this represents a very small percentage of the total number of graduates and typically only caters for the top quartile – those who probably wouldn’t have a problem securing a job anyway.

So how do we produce and maintain "job ready" talented individuals for our industry when it is in a constant state of change?  I suggest that the "demand side" needs to be more engaged in the "supply side" in ways other than influencing the curriculum or course structure.   Industry also should be providing the funds and opportunities to develop our new or latent talent into "job ready" individuals.  Sure government can help, through policy and some funding etc. but the initiative needs to come from industry.  Yes, I agree, this is all very simplistic and in these tight economic times can industry afford it?  The days where companies could be altruistic are well gone and usually requests for investment that doesn’t promote brand or product won’t get a guernsey.    And what about small business I hear you say?   Well quite frankly I see as much and, in some sectors more, small businesses taking on young graduates as a proportion of their total workforce than the large IT companies or large consumers of IT.

Now’s the time for industry to accept more ownership of developing the supply and allocate more effort and money into ensuring there are capable ICT people in Australia with the competencies THEY need to be competitive and profitable.  This won’t be easy for industry as our competitive environment does not lend itself well to collaboration – but there are ways…… perhaps this could be the subject of another blog?

Patrick Wilson is a 30 year plus veteran of the ICT industry and still practices his craft in Sydney.  He serves on the NSW Board of the Australian Computer Society and has the responsibility for the ICT skills portfolio.

www.acs.org.au

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0 Comments

  1. Raj.Bunta

    December 10, 2008 at 6:49 am

    My story – early nineties I
    My story – early nineties I left school and did a double degree in pure maths and computer science – then went on to get 1st class honours in computer science specialising in C++ programming. 2 sick elderly parents, a few extended trips overseas and 5 years out of the industry whilst I took care of the family businesses and my studies were useless. Since then I've worked in various business roles, mostly sales and project management, but never as an IT specialist. I would have loved a career in programming, but once I got off that train it was just too hard to get back on, and depressing considering all the work I'd put in.

  2. olgabodrova

    December 11, 2008 at 3:25 am

    Two examples of an opposite kind

    I know at least two people whose story is the exact opposite of yours, ironically both related to C++. A friend of mine, an engineer by training, came to Australia in late 1990s and started working for an engineering company, with a 30K salary. After a few years he's got enough of it and decided to move into IT. He self-educated himself in C++ and as a result of smart self-promotion was able to land an IT job with a much better pay.

    Another story is about a Russian woman, who was struggling to keep the ends meet, being recently divorced, with a teenage son in tow, with no skills or any job experience whatsoever. Welfare, housing commission, low paid, unskilled jobs – she's been through it all, until she decided to enrol into a TAFE C++ course. She was the oldest student there (also the most diligent one) and later was able to find an IT position with a decent remuneration package. Her personal life also improved along the way.

    I've heard many similar success stories from Russian immigrants here in Australia – about people leaving their profession for IT, retraining, self-educating, starting at a junior tester level and climbing up the ladder. At one point, I was considering a similar move myself, but was lucky enough to find a position with a variety of skills and learning opportunities, including those in IT.

  3. Dorotea Baljevic

    December 17, 2008 at 12:24 am

    View from an 09 Grad
    I had to go through the recruitment process early this year to gain a graduate position for 2009.

    I have to say I found that there were a lot of positions available for a young IT person, and if you had any IT experience in the industry and were passionate about it you were a highly desired candidate. My friends and I found that we were constantly being bombarded with propaganda about each of these companies in order for them to secure us as potential employees.

    I have had two years experience in the IT industry (full time/part time) and have found that while companies are looking for skilled workers, they primarily look for ones that can learn quickly and adapt well. While one project can be developed in Java, very easily the next can be done in VB. Its important to have foundational knowledge and be able to translate it across.

    I believe internships, summer vacational experiences, and graduate jobs allow students to develop necessary IT and business skills ready for the industry. They both help the student get the job and for the company to fill many junior roles others don’t want to take. UTS encourages all their IT degrees to complete some form of IT experience before they graduate, which really helps the student getting a foot in the industry.

    If someone has the urge to learn and develop I believe there is always a place for them in IT.

  4. ranerio

    December 17, 2008 at 8:17 am

    Strange processes

    It's strange to hear that there is a shortage of IT skills in Australia. I have 7+ years experience in IT, overseas, and it has been difficult to look for a simple position here in australia. So far it has taken longer than it would take me to find a position in a "country in development" .

     Also I wonder if they have this IT skill shortage, the ACS taking longer than 4 months to make a skills assessment (mine is coming to 4 months and no sign of completion so far),  it seems that Australia has got no interest in taking IT personnel. And who knows how long else it will take DIAC for the onshore 175 application, six months or so at least.

    When I first came here I was seriously thinking of the possibility of staying here as a PR later, but I am not too sure that it is a good idea. Things may take long to develop and I might as well just return to my original country, where it has been always easy to find jobs for skilled professionals, never been out of work for long, and there is no bureaucratic regulations for IT professionals such as ACS does.

    It doesn't seem that there is any shortage of skills. Many people here published their views and indeed it is seems like Australia is not in need of any IT skills.

  5. SamD

    December 18, 2008 at 8:06 pm

    Narrow experience required – Why?
    I operate a small business – was once a teacher – I now write HSC computer texts and custom software for schools and small business using a variety of software tools. I'll admit to being rather naive about the bigger IT employment picture. However I do notice the number of IT job adverts that require 2-5 years experience in sharepoint/.NET/Java/C#/MySQL/PHP or whatever. Reading such adds always makes me squirm – these are the tools of our trade. In my experience, it's no big deal to pick up a new tool and become proficient once you possess the underlying background knowledge. Clearly there is a learning curve, but for those with the underlying knowledge it occurs rapidly – the more tools in your tool bag the easier it gets. It seems (based on job adds) many employers seek employees who are instantly productive with their particualr tool set. The industry (whatever that is) appears to see specialisation in terms of the tools people use, rather than the underlying knowledge they possess. Is this just a function of short term/single project/contracts? I suspect not. Most full time positions also require "tool" experience. I have no doubt that experience is an indicator of future performance, however in my view, experience with some particular set of tools is a relatively minor indicator.

  6. Julian.Wee

    December 19, 2008 at 3:17 am

    Why the contradiction?

    As I followed the posts here and in other threads…. it struck me that some have found there are rich employment opportunities, but others experienced quite the opposite.  The simple thought is, and to Patrick's point about Industry needing to be more engaged and proactive… I wonder if the industry can create a "co-op" with academia about graduate placements.  A kind of AIIA-ACS-College "Employment Social network".

    No doubt campus interview programs etc already exit, how do we do it better?  Ideas?