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I've seen these threads numerous times, because the exact same effect has been seen in numerous western countries and studies keep popping up. Invariably commen

by anjc 11y ago

I've seen these threads numerous times, because the exact same effect has been seen in numerous western countries and studies keep popping up. Invariably commenters try to explain away the results, typically by blaming the people afflicted, and I can see it happening already in this thread. E.g. the popularity of CS in the media means that it attracts poor candidates; the quality of courses isn't good and people should choose carefully; people can't expect to get a job without spending all extracurricular time in quality internships and having x number of projects and OSS contributions under their belt and an active Github account; [insert country] is different because of [insert reason] (ignore that the same thing is occurring in many countries), etc etc. My question is, why should CS be different than any other subject in terms of foisting responsibility onto kids who just want to gain employment? I have a feeling that if you started telling medicine/architecture/engineering/science departments that they need to start teaching students about entrepreneurial skills, and that students need to spend their spare time working on projects and battling for internships or they'll likely remain unemployed, that you'd be laughed out of the building. I'm not sure why CS is a special case, and why practitioners perpetuate this situation via blame in threads like this. It makes intuitive sense that employers want the best candidates, and these are mechanisms by which candidates can demonstrate suitability, but every other area seems to cope without them, so...why CS?

viraptor 11y ago
I'm not sure I agree with the idea that you should be doing extra work just to get hired (there are cons and pros), but CS is a special case, along with a few other professions. These professions have a simple way to practice and extend your knowledge outside of work. You say medicine is different, but I'd say it's in between - you'd rather hire a more skilled doctor, right? Well, to get more skilled they pay for extra courses and exams with their own money, spend extra time and get more credentials. But they can't easily practice what they do in their free time. While junior doctor positions are not free internships, add course costs and they're not far off. How about translators then. You've got two translators with (officially) the same level of training. But one constantly reads specialist literature in foreign languages, while the other one doesn't. Would you not hire the first one? Would you still claim that's foisting responsibility?
- anjc 11y ago
  Like I say, intuitively it strikes me as an acceptable way to hire. If one grad contributes to 20 open source projects, and another one has never had an extracurricular project, you know who the better programmer is likely to be. But is this a factor in other careers? You're saying that you'd be more likely to hire a doctor who's paid for extra courses etc, well perhaps, but do doctors compete in this manner? And do graduate doctors compete in this manner or are they effectively assured of a stable career?
aianus 11y ago
> that students need to spend their spare time working on projects and battling for internships, or they'll likely remain unemployed, that you'd be laughed out of the building. Fighting over unpaid or underpaid internships and ass-kissing with professors so you don't wind up unemployed is standard operating procedure in every industry other than tech. I can't believe the things my high school classmates in law and medicine put up with and how little money they stand to make until they hit 30.
- arethuza 11y ago
  Medicine has great job security, good salary (with the potential of doing private work on the side) and is very high status, law is high status and if you manage to make partner at a decent sized law firm (which everyone think they will as they don't know about the "up or out" policies a lot of firms have) then you can be making pretty serious money.
  - aianus 11y ago
    You've literally wasted the entire first half of your life before you catch up to software engineers doing law or medicine. Not worth it. Finance, maybe.
    - anjc 11y ago
      Medicine and law, in my western European country at least, are vastly more reputable careers than software engineering. Perhaps you don't make as much money as a mid 20 year old, but in terms of reputation and social standing and so on, it's not even close. I'm sure that these intangible benefits have some sort of value, regardless of pay.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    The UK has a huge glut of lawyers. I hear similar things from the US. A lot of people go into it believing they'll make huge piles of money, but a lot of the money goes to the public school types who know someone/are related to someone in barrister's chambers. The rest goes to corporate street fighters - the kind of people who get involved in patent troll cases, and send out cease and desist letters to the owners of domains one or two letters away from a famous brand. High street laywers don't earn much, comparatively. They're also not particularly competent (IME). There's a basic problem here - when someone finds a piece of popular software is crap, they're not surprised. When someone discovers a doctor or a lawyer is incompetent, they are surprised. In fact I suspect these professions are a lot less competent than we'd all like to believe. The real difference in ability may be smaller than we think. But software is used by millions, so when there's a bug it can make the headlines, and it's always bad news for the public perception of the software industry. Doctors, lawyers, and accountants all work personally, case by case, so it's easy to hide pervasive incompetence.
dublinclontarf 11y ago
In software, qualification and even experience does not correlate with ability. If you have a newly qualified accountant, doctor, architecture it is assumed they are at least competent to some basic standard (and it is expected there competence increases with age + experience). This is NOT the case with software, it's possible to be a software engineer with 10+ years experience and still be terrible. My own experience is that I don't test well, and this has made it terribly difficult for me to get jobs. I have two startups behind me yet it's made almost no difference.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  >This is NOT the case with software, it's possible to be a software engineer with 10+ years experience and still be terrible. Unfortunately most companies don't select for good software developers and neither do most software developers (ask people what their favorite kind of interview test/question is and you'll rarely actually get a good answer but you will often get a confident one). Most companies don't reward being a good software developer either. Management mostly just don't know what it is you do and have no idea how good you are. Thus they just default to pretending that you're a disposable cog even when that behavior is self-destructive. At best they'll make use of some poor proxies (degree class, university, popularity of the OSS project you contributed a one line fix to, their personal "gotcha" question, etc.). Is it any surprise that people don't improve? With some exceptions, there really is no point.
- anjc 11y ago
  > If you have a newly qualified accountant, doctor, architecture it is assumed they are at least competent to some basic standard... Agreed, and this just compounds my confusion. Why are 22 year old science grads treated differently to 22 year old computer science grads from the same university :S
- rjtavares 11y ago
  > In software, qualification and even experience does not correlate with ability. > If you have a newly qualified accountant, doctor, architecture it is assumed they are at least competent to some basic standard (and it is expected there competence increases with age + experience). > This is NOT the case with software, it's possible to be a software engineer with 10+ years experience and still be terrible. Having known my fair share of software engineers, accountants and doctors, I can guarantee you that they are not that different. In every case some less experienced people are better than some more experienced people, and in every case some people dedicate part of their free time to their area: while some software engineers spend time in OSS and blog posts, some accountants read all the new legislation and participate in conferences, and some doctors read a lot of scientific papers and give lectures. And yes, software engineers also read stuff and give lectures. But the amount of reading required by CS is a lot less intensive than accounting or medicine.
stegosaurus 11y ago
Medicine is a bit of a unique case in the UK. Otherwise I would absolutely think that the best jobs would go to those who start work early. Certainly bears out my experience. I know plenty of graduates who didn't really think about careers until leaving and suddenly found themselves at a disadvantage. Computer Science and tech are unique in that programming talent can be gauged to some extent and companies actually are interested in doing so. Consulting, accountancy, banking, law, etcetera all seem, superficially, to be based a lot more on the ability to put up with long hours and some sort of prestige test. If anything tech workers have it easier in my view. You don't just go and interview and get a job working in biology regardless of how special you are. (OK; I suppose if you had a cure for a cancer that may not hold).
crdoconnor 11y ago
>E.g. the popularity of CS in the media means that it attracts poor candidates Well, that's somewhat true, although it's probably more to do with middle class jobs drying up in other professions than the media. Increasingly it seems that Tube Drivers and Programmers are the only middle class jobs left. Tube drivers because they can still shut down London. Programmers because lots of people with more money than god still believe in unicorns and because they are willing to channel that belief into a fire-hose of capital financing.
slavik81 11y ago
> I have a feeling that if you started telling medicine/architecture/engineering/science departments that they need to start teaching students about entrepreneurial skills, and that students need to spend their spare time working on projects and battling for internships or they'll likely remain unemployed, that you'd be laughed out of the building. Do you know why engineering students join the Solar Car team, or EngSoc, or do internships? The fact that it looks good on a job application is almost always a component. It's not just a small thing either. At my current university, the engineering internship program has a 70-80% participation rate.
- anjc 11y ago
  I shouldn't have listed "internships" above because they're a normal aspect of career development at this stage, so you're making a fair point. But take distinct extracurricular projects. Would an environmental engineer, for example, be expected to have a list of their own non-job related projects which interviewers could examine? (not just for bonus points in an interview, but as an expectation)
sklogic 11y ago
Maybe because the graduates are trying to do something totally different from what they've been taught, therefore requiring a huge amount of self-education in parallel with their course? If 99.99% of physicists specialising in fluid dynamics went on to pursue careers in plumbing we'd see a similar unemployment pattern.

by anjc 11y ago

viraptor 11y ago

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that you should be doing extra work just to get hired (there are cons and pros), but CS is a special case, along with a few other professions. These professions have a simple way to practice and extend your knowledge outside of work. You say medicine is different, but I'd say it's in between - you'd rather hire a more skilled doctor, right? Well, to get more skilled they pay for extra courses and exams with their own money, spend extra time and get more credentials. But they can't easily practice what they do in their free time. While junior doctor positions are not free internships, add course costs and they're not far off. How about translators then. You've got two translators with (officially) the same level of training. But one constantly reads specialist literature in foreign languages, while the other one doesn't. Would you not hire the first one? Would you still claim that's foisting responsibility?

anjc 11y ago
Like I say, intuitively it strikes me as an acceptable way to hire. If one grad contributes to 20 open source projects, and another one has never had an extracurricular project, you know who the better programmer is likely to be. But is this a factor in other careers? You're saying that you'd be more likely to hire a doctor who's paid for extra courses etc, well perhaps, but do doctors compete in this manner? And do graduate doctors compete in this manner or are they effectively assured of a stable career?

aianus 11y ago

> that students need to spend their spare time working on projects and battling for internships, or they'll likely remain unemployed, that you'd be laughed out of the building. Fighting over unpaid or underpaid internships and ass-kissing with professors so you don't wind up unemployed is standard operating procedure in every industry other than tech. I can't believe the things my high school classmates in law and medicine put up with and how little money they stand to make until they hit 30.

arethuza 11y ago
Medicine has great job security, good salary (with the potential of doing private work on the side) and is very high status, law is high status and if you manage to make partner at a decent sized law firm (which everyone think they will as they don't know about the "up or out" policies a lot of firms have) then you can be making pretty serious money.
- aianus 11y ago
  You've literally wasted the entire first half of your life before you catch up to software engineers doing law or medicine. Not worth it. Finance, maybe.
  - anjc 11y ago
    Medicine and law, in my western European country at least, are vastly more reputable careers than software engineering. Perhaps you don't make as much money as a mid 20 year old, but in terms of reputation and social standing and so on, it's not even close. I'm sure that these intangible benefits have some sort of value, regardless of pay.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  The UK has a huge glut of lawyers. I hear similar things from the US. A lot of people go into it believing they'll make huge piles of money, but a lot of the money goes to the public school types who know someone/are related to someone in barrister's chambers. The rest goes to corporate street fighters - the kind of people who get involved in patent troll cases, and send out cease and desist letters to the owners of domains one or two letters away from a famous brand. High street laywers don't earn much, comparatively. They're also not particularly competent (IME). There's a basic problem here - when someone finds a piece of popular software is crap, they're not surprised. When someone discovers a doctor or a lawyer is incompetent, they are surprised. In fact I suspect these professions are a lot less competent than we'd all like to believe. The real difference in ability may be smaller than we think. But software is used by millions, so when there's a bug it can make the headlines, and it's always bad news for the public perception of the software industry. Doctors, lawyers, and accountants all work personally, case by case, so it's easy to hide pervasive incompetence.

dublinclontarf 11y ago

In software, qualification and even experience does not correlate with ability. If you have a newly qualified accountant, doctor, architecture it is assumed they are at least competent to some basic standard (and it is expected there competence increases with age + experience). This is NOT the case with software, it's possible to be a software engineer with 10+ years experience and still be terrible. My own experience is that I don't test well, and this has made it terribly difficult for me to get jobs. I have two startups behind me yet it's made almost no difference.

crdoconnor 11y ago
>This is NOT the case with software, it's possible to be a software engineer with 10+ years experience and still be terrible. Unfortunately most companies don't select for good software developers and neither do most software developers (ask people what their favorite kind of interview test/question is and you'll rarely actually get a good answer but you will often get a confident one). Most companies don't reward being a good software developer either. Management mostly just don't know what it is you do and have no idea how good you are. Thus they just default to pretending that you're a disposable cog even when that behavior is self-destructive. At best they'll make use of some poor proxies (degree class, university, popularity of the OSS project you contributed a one line fix to, their personal "gotcha" question, etc.). Is it any surprise that people don't improve? With some exceptions, there really is no point.
anjc 11y ago
> If you have a newly qualified accountant, doctor, architecture it is assumed they are at least competent to some basic standard... Agreed, and this just compounds my confusion. Why are 22 year old science grads treated differently to 22 year old computer science grads from the same university :S
rjtavares 11y ago
> In software, qualification and even experience does not correlate with ability. > If you have a newly qualified accountant, doctor, architecture it is assumed they are at least competent to some basic standard (and it is expected there competence increases with age + experience). > This is NOT the case with software, it's possible to be a software engineer with 10+ years experience and still be terrible. Having known my fair share of software engineers, accountants and doctors, I can guarantee you that they are not that different. In every case some less experienced people are better than some more experienced people, and in every case some people dedicate part of their free time to their area: while some software engineers spend time in OSS and blog posts, some accountants read all the new legislation and participate in conferences, and some doctors read a lot of scientific papers and give lectures. And yes, software engineers also read stuff and give lectures. But the amount of reading required by CS is a lot less intensive than accounting or medicine.

stegosaurus 11y ago

Medicine is a bit of a unique case in the UK. Otherwise I would absolutely think that the best jobs would go to those who start work early. Certainly bears out my experience. I know plenty of graduates who didn't really think about careers until leaving and suddenly found themselves at a disadvantage. Computer Science and tech are unique in that programming talent can be gauged to some extent and companies actually are interested in doing so. Consulting, accountancy, banking, law, etcetera all seem, superficially, to be based a lot more on the ability to put up with long hours and some sort of prestige test. If anything tech workers have it easier in my view. You don't just go and interview and get a job working in biology regardless of how special you are. (OK; I suppose if you had a cure for a cancer that may not hold).

crdoconnor 11y ago

>E.g. the popularity of CS in the media means that it attracts poor candidates Well, that's somewhat true, although it's probably more to do with middle class jobs drying up in other professions than the media. Increasingly it seems that Tube Drivers and Programmers are the only middle class jobs left. Tube drivers because they can still shut down London. Programmers because lots of people with more money than god still believe in unicorns and because they are willing to channel that belief into a fire-hose of capital financing.

slavik81 11y ago

> I have a feeling that if you started telling medicine/architecture/engineering/science departments that they need to start teaching students about entrepreneurial skills, and that students need to spend their spare time working on projects and battling for internships or they'll likely remain unemployed, that you'd be laughed out of the building. Do you know why engineering students join the Solar Car team, or EngSoc, or do internships? The fact that it looks good on a job application is almost always a component. It's not just a small thing either. At my current university, the engineering internship program has a 70-80% participation rate.

anjc 11y ago
I shouldn't have listed "internships" above because they're a normal aspect of career development at this stage, so you're making a fair point. But take distinct extracurricular projects. Would an environmental engineer, for example, be expected to have a list of their own non-job related projects which interviewers could examine? (not just for bonus points in an interview, but as an expectation)

sklogic 11y ago

Maybe because the graduates are trying to do something totally different from what they've been taught, therefore requiring a huge amount of self-education in parallel with their course? If 99.99% of physicists specialising in fluid dynamics went on to pursue careers in plumbing we'd see a similar unemployment pattern.