Cecilia wrote: > But lets bring in another argument - what type of CS graduate is the market > wanting? Are they wanting a more practical, market ready graduate from > Polytech, or a more academic driven student from University?
Hmmm. I'd say the above issues are not the key decision points for most employers, so here's my 5c worth. When WE look, we're searching for people with: * initiative -- are they clearly setting out to create opportunities and advancement for themselves (and by corollary, others associated with themselves including their colleagues and employerss) * aptitude -- the more evidence of actual talent and ability in the required areas, as opposed to "we were able to pass these courses", the better. It's really important to us, but often notoriously hard to judge. * application -- no amount of aptitude will save someone who doesn't realise that customers require and pay for working, delivered systems and services, not promises * experience in sufficiently-similar scale and types of tasks and systems that they will not be struggling from the word go (this need *not* be work experience, but of course it helps) * communication skills, especially written -- because they are hugely important in what we do The trouble is, none of these can be judged reliably from a CV, and some are also quite hard to elicit from interviews. That is why personal contact, word of mouth networks and often extended "testing" (e.g. short-term contracts initially, etc.) are far more important to a business like us than looking at random CVs, including those which might come in from a job ad. We've found that written references are also not that useful but, if very supportive and from an authoritative source, we'd follow them up verbally. After being disappointed a few times when hiring people we didn't already know well, these days we always include a testing phase of some kind for developer-level positions, unless we know the candidate well already. Let me give you an example of three people who went through that process in recent years. (I'm sorry that what follows is fairly long, but the lessons might be useful to job seekers, those in the education industry, and employers alike). NB: All were from overseas, and had previously held jobs in their home countries 1. Person A send a CV blind at a time when we happened to be looking for someone with a roughly similar skill match. They had some work experience in NZ after completing retraining here. After exchanging a couple of emails (to test communication skills as much as anything), and one interview, we asked to be emailed examples of their recent work. We were sent a zipped miscellany of HTML and source-code files with no explanation of how to get them deployed into testable form. While I eventually worked them out enough to assess the quality of the work (adequate, but not great), that communication lapse in particular was enough to decide against them. We didn't proceed to a "next" stage. 2. Person B contacted us saying they were in Auckland short-term and were looking for a job in our business area. We exchanged emails for a while, arranged an initial interview with an associate of ours up there, and after that proposed some formal programming tests (still handled via email). They were keen and remained so until the end. But from this point on, all kinds of unusual obstacles intervened -- inablility to get access to a computer for long enough, inability to install the necessary software on a computer offered on loan to them etc. etc. So they didn't get a job with us. 3. Person C was introduced to us by an overseas contact as being pretty dynamic and capable, and wishing to come to NZ. They didn't have much experience with our development environment (more hardware, actually). We started out emailing them to learn their overall situation and intentions about NZ, with the idea of looking for other opportunities for them here, even if not with us. We eventually progressed to formal development tests as per Person B. These tested their initiative, responsiveness, communication skills, understanding of problems, programming techniques and quality, and overall "finish". The results were good. The final step was a time- based test to see if their productivity was roughly on a par with quality. It was, and we ended up with a very good employee as a result, in spite of the whole process taking place via email at long range (we first spoke to each other at Christchurch airport when they arrived to take up the position...). Two non-hires, one hire. Academic vs. Polytech didn't enter into it at all, and the CVs were NO MORE than stepping stones to what really mattered. I think you can see what that was, and how we tried to assess it. > Also, I study with some very clever, mature, work experienced people - > but we are all scared of one thing, that because of our age we may > just be left on the pile - and these much desired and scarce jobs will > be taken by younger and commercially less experienced students. I hope its not my own prejudice only, but I think most employers these days would rather have what you describe above than someone with similar skills but but raw and inexperienced. BUT, the fundamentals for us and perhaps for most are what I listed above -- initiative, aptitude, application, relevant experience and communication skills. Seek always to impress with those, not maturity or youth, nor long lists of subjects on CVs. > I say, develop the CSF job website fully! So long as you recognise that it is a point of contact only, and can't possibly convey what (I think) matters <g>. With that caveat in mind, in what directions would people here like to see it developed? cheers, peter =========================================== Peter Hyde, SPIS Ltd, Christchurch, New Zealand * TCompress/TCompLHA component sets for Delphi/Kylix/C++ * TurboNote+: http://TurboNote.com -- top-rated onscreen sticky notes Find all the above and MORE at http://spis.co.nz --> via Canterbury Software email forum: Success through Connections Email your messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Searchable list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] Leave or rejoin the list: http://canterburysoftware.org.nz/forum.htm
