What’s the future for IT graduates?
GF: If we look at the graduate side of things, I know in your space in particular, a lot of graduates gravitate towards the busier areas like cyber-security and sometimes their first foray into that is through support. What does it look like now for IT graduates and have colleges done enough to prepare them?
SMN: I suppose, firstly how it’s going to look for IT graduates, a lot of companies are still planning to recruit which is great. It is going to be a little more challenging this year. There’s about 20% unemployment at the moment so it is going to be a challenging market for graduates. It does depend on their area of specialism, for example, software development, there’s still a huge demand at graduate level and graduates in this area will have their pick of a selection of opportunities. In general, 2021 is going to be a challenging market.
In terms of what the universities are doing to equip young IT professionals with what’s needed by employers, there’s a mixed view on that. Firstly, young people in Ireland have among the highest levels of education in the world, we’re known for our robust education system. Our education system is revered world-wide and it has contributed to a lot of our growth and foreign investment in Ireland. Anecdotally, clients give us certain feedback about candidates, perhaps not selling themselves enough, maybe their CVs aren’t written to best illustrate their experience. Often their CV needs more work, they need more work on interview preparation, interview technique. That’s often where we as recruiters come in to help on the softer skill side of things. The soft skills that have become more important since the start of the pandemic have been communication, interpersonal skills, your teamwork skills, your work ethic. People are self-managing, they’re left to their own devices. People are joining teams that they’ve never met before which is very difficult. They’re having to learn company culture remotely so it’s definitely brought challenges for everyone particularly graduates.
GF: Yes, I think that’s a really important point. As technical recruiters, we look for the technical skills that people have first. But if last year proved anything, they are still important but softer skills within IT, which was not something we ever really looked for, are becoming so important now! I think even for graduates, they’ve had to learn and study in such a difficult way, that they’ll have learned those softer skills earlier on in their careers. I think if we look at some areas of IT that wouldn’t necessarily have needed those softer skills, they need them now.