Global Opportunities

I have received number questions regarding the job situation due to the financial crisis and the prospect to work for global companies. One student asked: “I would like to work for a global company and travel to many countries, is it possible? Another asked: “I am graduating from university in computer science this year. I would like to work in foreign countries. Can you give me some advises?”

Here are some trends in the industry for both graduating students and students who are enrolling in university regarding their career in the software area.

As the financial crisis started, many jobs disappeared from companies worldwide, especially in the finance, business, banking, and global trading. It will be a while for these jobs to return to normal because currently the market is saturated with so many people in these fields that could not find employment. In the past few years, number of students enrolled in Finance, Banking and international trading has increased about 35% in U.S alone and now many are graduating in this “bad situation” so they are looking for jobs or moving into another study fields. In this crisis, many IT workers also lost their jobs because companies are reducing spending and outsource jobs to other countries. Today media press are full of stories about jobs going offshore, and many U.S universities also watched their enrollments in Computer and software fields drop significantly.

The low enrollment actually started few years ago, because young students in U.S and Europe are enrolling in banking, finance, global trading where they think that they could make a lot of money. As a result, there was a 40% drop in students taking the computer science or related fields. According to several studies, Students have been given bad advice. Counselors and parents are advising them that most software jobs are outsourcing overseas, which is impacting the enrollment in software related majors. In addition, software is incorrectly perceived as area for "Nerd and Geek" and many students avoid it as they do not want to be considered as "Geek". Hollywood also like to portrait computer scientists as “Mad scientists” in many of their films and created “bad image” for people in computer fields.

As the “baby boomers generation” (People born from 1945 to 1965) are retiring, they are taking their specialized knowledge with them, raising knowledge gap issues in many companies. The impact will be felt the most are government jobs, hospital, healthcare, and public utilities, that for years unable to replace their systems with more modern technologies. The recent 2006 study stated, "Banks, Hospital, and government agencies which depend on transaction-intensive systems will be especially hard hit." "There are so many systems managed by people in their late 50s or 60s but there are no young people in those areas because people who work in government and healthcare usually work there for a long time and do not change jobs. So when they retire, who will maintain those applications? The only option is to outsource more to other countries or hire workers from others to come in and maintain them. With strong opposition to outsource government jobs to foreign country from both U.S senate and congress, many predict that U.S government will have to bring workers from oversea to maintain these systems. According to some sources, U.S government will need several hundred thousands software people to maintain these systems alone and healthcare and other agencies would probably have similar demand. This situation is not unique in the U.S because Europe (Germany, France, England, and Italy) is also facing the same problem with so many people retiring and not enough skilled workers to replace them.

Today, many industries are also facing similar dilemma with more automations, more computer systems but not enough skilled workers to do the work. Most CIOs worry that without an increase in the software workers, this narrow talent pool of will spark an IT crisis in the near future and put many organizations in serious risks. Some think that outsourcing will protect them against future shortages but not all the works can be outsourced and eventually they will have to bring workers to work for them. There are several proposal to change immigration laws to allow “Higher skilled workers, especially in medical, nursing and software fields” to enter and work in the U.S and Europe, as legal immigrant.

Recent research forecasts that IT spending on outsourcing will increase to $168 billion, up from $64 billion in the next 5 years because the shortage of workers. Competitive pressure is not only focus on the search for lower-cost countries to outsource, but also on a strategy that future shortages can be mitigated by outsourcing whatever skills are required from a global pool. 80% CIO interviewed agreed that they will outsource more, not less. One CIO said: "The IT skills shortage already happened in North America, I will have to hire workers from anywhere. I will go to many colleges, but not necessarily colleges in the US." Several studies already pointed out that many programming jobs will be outsourced to markets with lower-cost labor, but to hire workers from other countries to come and work in the U.S, IT executives are relying on workers who have command of the English language and people who already have knowledge on business processes, who can help design new and better ways to use technology. Several senior managers stated that: "There is so much investment in bringing people from foreign countries to work in the U.S so companies can choose skill sets that add a lot of value to the business such as software engineering, architects, designers and information system management. Most programming and testing will be outsourced to offshore providers".

However, recent studies in capabilities of several countries found that the knowledge and skills of students in most developing countries have not kept up with the demand of developed countries. Most universities in developing countries are only producing programmers and testers that can serve the outsourcing business well but not the software engineer or information system management skills that the software industry needed to import into U.S and Europe.

Today's most companies are looking for people with these high level technical skills with the ability to communicate well in English. Many senior managers confirmed that the majority of these jobs require constant interacting with other staff, business partners, and management. Therefore they require people with strong verbal and written communication skills, analytical skills, software process skills, and business knowledge. Many students complained that their undergraduate programs don't emphasize these skills enough. Donald Ingram, a senior manager in Google said: "Students need to graduate right out of university with verbal, negotiating and process skills. If they did, they'd have more opportunities, and they'd get paid more on the way in." Another senior manager also said:” Information technology is not a finish line; it's a gateway into other roles in the business. While employees were once able to join at the technical area and stay through a career, IT positions are no longer an end point for them. Process knowledge and diverse educational backgrounds enable these higher skilled workers to move on to other functions in the global company because the business is no longer in one country but the world. We find that technical people with business skills are highly sought after in other functions. Our management likes to use them to manage more effectively. Our operations people like them because they understand what is going on in our operations better than the people in operations do."

I have summarized the current trend in the industry so you know what is happening. I believe that with globalization everything is possible and future jobs would be everywhere if you have the knowledge and the skills. My advice to you is to select the best university and training program to invest your time and efforts. Focus on both technical skills and communication skills then you will have the opportunities that you want.

By the way, my view of opportunity is NOT “something happens by chance” or “something happens by luck” but “Something only happens when you are ready”.

Sources

  • Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University

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