Degrees and Skills

Today companies have many open jobs but cannot find skilled applicants and colleges have many graduates but cannot find jobs because they do not have the skills that companies need. There are arguments about who is at fault and who must fix this problem as companies blame colleges, and colleges blames the government but regardless who is at fault or who must fix it, the victims are the students.

To avoid this dilemma, students must realize that today a degree is no longer a guarantee for job but having the right skills is. They should NOT wait for something to be fixed but must plan their careers by selecting the right fields of study and develop skills based on market trends. Beside of looking at what skills are needed today, they must also look at what will be needed in the next few years so when graduate, they will have the right skills.

Today most companies are hiring college graduates with degrees in science and technology. Among technology fields, Information Technology (Computer Science, Software Engineering, and Information Systems Management) has the highest demand and offers the best salary. However their skill requirements are much broader than the ability to code in Java or build a website. Programming languages and algorithms are the basics but there are more, including working experience and soft-skills. Since technology is changing fast, companies must adjust to these changes so beside technical skills, they also need workers with a “lifelong learning” attitude and will pay more for people with both the right skills and the right attitude.

Students must understand that graduating from college is NOT the end of learning but only the beginning. What you have learned in school is knowledge but when you apply that knowledge to works, you are developing skills and skills are the most important. What you have learned in school is the foundation where you build your skills on top of it. Without a strong foundation, you cannot develop skills. Just like a house without a strong foundation cannot withstand the winds of a hurricane. Students who do not take their learning seriously, or who only learn enough to pass tests may not have a strong foundation to develop skills. Without skills, they will not be able to get jobs and even if they get jobs, they will always live in fears as they do not know what will happen if company finds out that they cannot do the work.

Since technology changes very quickly, school trainings are often behind as it takes time to keep up with changes. As students, you must put extra efforts to learn new things on your own. That means you must read more and follow the industry trends to know what skills are needed and learn them. What you have learned in school may not be enough as you must continue to learn more about new technologies, new methods and new things. There are many tutorial websites and online classes that will help you to learn them and you should take advantage of it, else you will be behind. According to the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) report, each day there are over three million people are taking classes in variety of topics. It means more people are learning new things and they all want the same thing that you want: Better jobs, better opportunities and better salaries. In this globalized world, competition will be fierce and you must be prepared because it is your future and it is your life. You cannot depend on your schools to help you, you cannot depend on the society to support you but you must depend on yourself by having the right skills to build your careers.

For many years, society respects “educated people” and often associated them with people who have degree but this is no longer valid. There are many people who have degree but NOT skills. Their knowledge is limited to books that they memorized in schools to pass exams but they do NOT know how to apply them. They never learn anything beyond what the school taught them and often forget most things after they leave the school, and they depend on the “degree” to get jobs instead of on their own skills. These people are victims of an “obsolete education system” where memorization and passing exams are the goals but most will not survive in the current competitive market and newspapers are full of stories about these unemployed graduates.

Today there is a severed skilled workers shortage everywhere. Most global companies are beginning to look outside of their border for skilled workers. Countries such as the U.S, UK, and Germany etc. are changing their immigration laws to allow more skilled workers to come and work. It is estimated that each country will hire fifty thousand to two hundred thousand workers each year and the most needed skills are Information Technology, Healthcare, and Engineering. If your local market is still stagnated, you do have an opportunity to work elsewhere but the question is do you have the skills that they need?

Sources

  • Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University