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How exactly does this square with the UK CS grad unemployment crisis? https://www.studyinternational.com/news/uk-computer-science-has-the-highest-rate-of-unemp

How exactly does this square with the UK CS grad unemployment crisis? https://www.studyinternational.com/news/uk-computer-science-has-the-highest-rate-of-unemployed-graduates https://www.studyinternational.com/news/uk-computer-science-... http://blog.hefce.ac.uk/2015/07/08/unemployment-among-computer-science-graduates-what-does-the-data-say/ http://blog.hefce.ac.uk/2015/07/08/unemployment-among-comput... “For a long time we wondered why more people didn’t major in computer science,” Alex Aiken, chair of Stanford University’s Computer Science Department, told Times Higher Education. “Everyone in the field believed it was the future and that [it] represented an important way of thinking. Now the world believes us, and we have an overwhelming number of students.”

ropiku 10y ago
Simply because you have a CS degree doesn't mean you're qualified enough to be hired. Companies don't just hire based on a degree, they want demonstrable skills. I've seen 3rd year students unable to fix a basic java compilation error in their own program. No reasonable CS graduate I know is unemployed.
- pvaldes 10y ago
  Demonstrable skills? Of course, here you are the results of my 100 exams, that I passed sucessfully. In an officially certified document, easy to authenticate. Its called curriculum, and is comfortably standardized for all students so you can find the best easily. Otherwise you would need to compare among random arbitrary sets of skills, different for each one of your candidates and this would be for companies basically like playing blind chicken to hire a candidate. You need still to show demonstrable skills is often a way to say "I expect you to work for free until you realize that this is the real game here. I will replace you with the next hungry guy in the queue". Is just a mean to obtain the same cheaper, or free.
  - rahimnathwani 10y ago
    A CS degree isn't 'comfortably standardised'. Each university has its own curriculum, its own exams, and its own standards. If I could prove to you that I was awarded a CS degree from a UK university, would that be sufficient for you to agree to employ me?
    - pvaldes 10y ago
      If your scores were high, probably yes. Recruitment should be put in the right context. The best recruiter have an evening, or a few hours to figure out if you are a good fit or if you have any skills. If you have a bad day, your recruiter don't liked your face or he/she wants to remain the big fish in a small pond; you fall under the radar. Your teachers instead had four years for "recruit you". They have see you performing in solitary and in group; know if you have any real skills or not or if you have problems with the other studens. They understand you much better that any recruiter; is their job. The job of a recruiter is having the position filled at the lowest price possible. They need the psychological tricks to make the process random again and put pressure on the candidate. To be able to cheat the tests or to seduce your recruiter is not a skill that the company needs. Is just smoke. Unsusprisingly a lot of those swans turn into ugly ducklings just after being hired.
      - rahimnathwani 10y ago
        ropiku: Simply because you have a CS degree doesn't mean you're qualified enough to be hired. pvaldes: here you are the results of my 100 exams, that I passed sucessfully. In an officially certified document, easy to authenticate. me: If I could prove to you that I was awarded a CS degree from a UK university, would that be sufficient for you to agree to employ me? pvaldes: If your scores were high, probably yes. So it seems that you and ropiku _agree_ that a CS degree _isn't_ enough. Where you differ is that you want to see scores above some threshold (although I can't imagine how you'd standardise those across 100+ UK universities), and ropiku wants to see someone write some Java code. Both seem reasonable approaches, but the latter seems a little easier and more reliable.
        10y ago

ropiku 10y ago

Simply because you have a CS degree doesn't mean you're qualified enough to be hired. Companies don't just hire based on a degree, they want demonstrable skills. I've seen 3rd year students unable to fix a basic java compilation error in their own program. No reasonable CS graduate I know is unemployed.

pvaldes 10y ago
Demonstrable skills? Of course, here you are the results of my 100 exams, that I passed sucessfully. In an officially certified document, easy to authenticate. Its called curriculum, and is comfortably standardized for all students so you can find the best easily. Otherwise you would need to compare among random arbitrary sets of skills, different for each one of your candidates and this would be for companies basically like playing blind chicken to hire a candidate. You need still to show demonstrable skills is often a way to say "I expect you to work for free until you realize that this is the real game here. I will replace you with the next hungry guy in the queue". Is just a mean to obtain the same cheaper, or free.
- rahimnathwani 10y ago
  A CS degree isn't 'comfortably standardised'. Each university has its own curriculum, its own exams, and its own standards. If I could prove to you that I was awarded a CS degree from a UK university, would that be sufficient for you to agree to employ me?
  - pvaldes 10y ago
    If your scores were high, probably yes. Recruitment should be put in the right context. The best recruiter have an evening, or a few hours to figure out if you are a good fit or if you have any skills. If you have a bad day, your recruiter don't liked your face or he/she wants to remain the big fish in a small pond; you fall under the radar. Your teachers instead had four years for "recruit you". They have see you performing in solitary and in group; know if you have any real skills or not or if you have problems with the other studens. They understand you much better that any recruiter; is their job. The job of a recruiter is having the position filled at the lowest price possible. They need the psychological tricks to make the process random again and put pressure on the candidate. To be able to cheat the tests or to seduce your recruiter is not a skill that the company needs. Is just smoke. Unsusprisingly a lot of those swans turn into ugly ducklings just after being hired.
    - rahimnathwani 10y ago
      ropiku: Simply because you have a CS degree doesn't mean you're qualified enough to be hired. pvaldes: here you are the results of my 100 exams, that I passed sucessfully. In an officially certified document, easy to authenticate. me: If I could prove to you that I was awarded a CS degree from a UK university, would that be sufficient for you to agree to employ me? pvaldes: If your scores were high, probably yes. So it seems that you and ropiku _agree_ that a CS degree _isn't_ enough. Where you differ is that you want to see scores above some threshold (although I can't imagine how you'd standardise those across 100+ UK universities), and ropiku wants to see someone write some Java code. Both seem reasonable approaches, but the latter seems a little easier and more reliable.
      - 10y ago