Industry experts agree students need to be made more aware of the range of possibilities in the software engineering field, writes KARLIN LILLINGTON

‘ALMOST ALL of my son’s year in computer science have either emigrated or plan to leave the country to find a job,” a friend indicated at the start of the year. “There are just no jobs.” Yet the industry itself – and anecdotal evidence over the past year – indicate that large swathes of technology industry jobs have been lying unfilled for months, in search of graduates with precisely such a degree.

Concern about finding the people to fill these jobs has escalated to the point that industry body ICT Ireland and Engineers Ireland jointly held an event to highlight the issue last week.

ICT Ireland director Paul Sweetman claims between 3,000 and 4,000 jobs within the information and communications technology sector currently remain open, noting that some 1,500 jobs were added this year alone.

So what, precisely, is going on?

While there is a global shortage of ICT graduates – the US, Britain, and many other countries have exactly the same issue – how can it be that those with qualifications are saying they must go abroad for work, while the industry is saying they have thousands of jobs awaiting just such graduates?

Are the students who are graduating with the skills that would fill some of these jobs just not interested? Or perhaps are they more interested in spending a few years abroad? Maybe they lack the skills or experience to compete for these jobs in the first place?

And if we have such a high number of jobs lying open, in what are considered choice, well-paying industries in high-growth areas of the economy, how do you encourage more young people into this career choice?

All of these questions trouble the people who run Irish indigenous technology companies as well as the big multinationals, and a failure to answer some of them, they fear, could compromise Ireland’s competitiveness in one of the areas of the economy that is currently experiencing major growth.

“It’s unanimously one of the first issues we spoke about this year,” says Gerry O’Connor, head of the Irish Software CEO Forum and chief executive of Irish software company Zarion.

He and other company heads say the issue is complex and multifaceted. To some degree, they say, graduates are emerging that do not have the skills or abilities demanded by some of the available jobs. Google Ireland, for example, has been vocal in expressing such a concern.

But others say it isn’t so much that there is a lack of skills within graduates with appropriate degrees, but a more general problem of volume. There are at least 75,000 working directly in IT in Ireland now, says Dermot O’Connell, general manager, Dell Ireland. When Dell first came to Ireland, and fewer companies were looking for graduates, it was easier to fill jobs.

“Now we have lots and lots of jobs for those people. I think if we had the graduates coming through, we could sort those highly skilled positions” – so he views it as a bit unfair to target the capabilities of Irish graduates.

“There are just not enough computer graduates,” says Gerry O’Connor.

“To get the talent, you need more people coming through.”

But, like many others in the industry, Dell’s O’Connell notes that the jobs that are going unfilled in his own company actually lie across many different areas of expertise, not just ICT.

Dell, he says, is currently looking for people “pretty much across the board, across every function” in the company, and needs people with IT qualifications in many of the positions, but in others, needs people strong in languages, sales, marketing and support as well as people with business and social media skills.

This again, raises the question of whether there is a disconnect between how the government and unions present an unemployment problem, and why graduates feel they need to go abroad, when there seem to be so many jobs available in the sector.

Part of the issue is perhaps low public and media awareness of job availability, say industry figures.

But there are still more jobs that can likely be filled from the Irish population alone. The sector needs more ICT graduates.

Seán Baker, director of Gridstore and a co-founder of Iona Technologies, says part of the problem in attracting students into areas like software engineering lies with the Irish education system, starting at primary and secondary level, where students have little exposure to IT in their daily classes. And the current points system discourages students from studying the honours maths they need to choose engineering as a career.

“The leaving cert maths course is 50 to 100 per cent more work than other courses. And we’ve been talking to the government about bonus points for maths for the previous seven years and it was like beating your head off a wall,” he says.

Still he says he would rather see “appropriate points” given for maths to reflect the level of effort, rather than bonus points. He fears many students aren’t doing honours maths at all, because they’d rather get more points for doing other, less intensive courses.

He also is critical of the universities dropping the points required to do engineering degrees when demand dropped for such courses over the past decade. He thinks too many students entering engineering are of a lower capability as a result and end up struggling with the coursework.

But more than anything, he would like to see a better recognition of the variety of careers that are possible with an engineering degree. Career guidance counsellors and parents have low awareness of the opportunities in the sector, he says, and students don’t get a clear picture of it as an option.

Zarion’s O’Connor agrees. “Everything is directed towards traditional careers. Computers and technology are just put on the edge.” In addition, there’s a misunderstanding after the dotcom crash of the last decade that careers in the sector are uncertain. “There are always careers there. That was a sectoral hiccup.”

The ICT sector offers “a very varied career,” says Baker. “Give us your geeks, we want them and we love them, but it’s not just about geeks. This is an area that pays well and has top management positions and a very powerful career path. It’s a launchpad and not in any way restrictive.”

He also notes that studies show that engineers are happiest in their careers, above doctors, dentists, accountants, and other professions.

So whose responsibility is it to make students better aware of the career possibilities?

“The Irish software industry needs to explain better what a career in engineering means,” Baker acknowledges. “And we need to explain that the real key to a career in software engineering is creativity.”

“There’s a hell of a lot of growth and innovation,” says O’Connell. “It’s an exciting place to be.”

But all argue that the huge number of available jobs should be seen as an opportunity, both to provide a range of jobs to Irish graduates and – if the very slow work visa system is addressed – attract in talented individuals from abroad who will in turn buy homes or rent, pay taxes and help the economy.

“It’s a huge opportunity for us all,” says O’Connor. “It’s only if we don’t do anything about it, that it’s a problem.”

Jobs announced in 2011

359

First Derivatives, Newry

300

Zagg, Shannon

200

Intel, Kildare (plus 850 construction jobs); Gilte Group, Limerick and Dublin

180

Version 1

150

PayPal, Dublin; Quest Software, Cork

100

LinkedIn, Dublin; Fidelity Technology Group, Dublin Galway

70

Avaya, Galway

50

NEI, Galway; HP Galway; HiberniaEvros, Dublin; Asset Control, Dublin

30

Murex, Dublin; McAfee, Cork; Teradata, Dublin

27

Esri Ireland, Dublin

20

EasyLink, Cork

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