Lack Of Skills Burdens It Sector

IT skills Shortage

Everybody complians about IT skills shortage, because I am a WAM (White Afrikaner Male) I can not get permanent job, even with 25 years experience, only contracts from 2 to 6 months is avaliable.

No wonder so many of my friends are living abroard.

The perennial attempt by industry to undermine and subvert education, attempting to turn it into training.

universities should include internships

Modern day slave labour? Are they going to get paid a proper salary or are they basically expected to work for free?

ensure universities and other tertiary institutions produce “work-ready” graduates

This is not the job of universities. Their role is to provide an environment where people get an education, and learn to learn, not learn specific niche skills of the day demanded by industry.

BigMac said:

Everybody complians about IT skills shortage, because I am a WAM (White Afrikaner Male) I can not get permanent job, even with 25 years experience, only contracts from 2 to 6 months is avaliable.

No wonder so many of my friends are living abroard.

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This is why quota-based affirmative action, while well-intentioned, was guaranteed to be a disaster in a country like South Africa. There are valid arguments for having quotas. but it doesn't work if the skilled people simply don't exist. Instead we have a situation where companies either hire incompetent unskilled people or they offload the extra work onto the current employees. The latter usually without any added compensation for those employees. That's the American way.

Another reason for living overseas is simply better pay relative to the cost of living.

I think it depends very much on the field of IT you work in.
My last company had +- 30 developers. 25 where WAM 1 Pom and 4 Black SA's.

My new company has about 15 developers 7 WAM, 2 Pom, 5 SA Indians and 1 Indian (from India naturally ..)

I know networking and technical IT guys are struggling.....

Companies should be much more interested in acquiring employees who have the skills and ability to learn, rather than someone who has simply memorised the skill of the day.

My last company was doing well with hiring learners (AA).

We would invite CV's from everyone but then all respondents had to take a Psych test, personal interview and then a technical test.

It was never about how well they did in the tech test, it was about how they went about solving the problems. Some guys just gave up. Other people would make a plan and others would get stuck on one question for the entire 4 hours...

I personally like the people who try make a plan but then stop before wasting all their efforts on something they clearly do not understand.

Learnerships are a great way of getting AA talent....
However out of every 5 learners only 1 would make it to the end of the year without either bombing or looking for greener pastures.

Greed kills..

GavinMannion said:

We would invite CV's from everyone but then all respondents had to take a Psych test, personal interview and then a technical test.

It was never about how well they did in the tech test, it was about how they went about solving the problems. Some guys just gave up. Other people would make a plan and others would get stuck on one question for the entire 4 hours...

I personally like the people who try make a plan but then stop before wasting all their efforts on something they clearly do not understand.

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Often people are afraid to admit they're not sure how to proceed or what exactly you're asking because then they would not appear competent and knowledgeable. Recruiters can be to blame too. In the past I've had recruiters tell me not to admit I don't know the answer. If someone isn't going to hire me because I don't keep all knowledge in my head, then I don't want to work with them.

Psych tests? Could be interesting, especially the applicant knows how to manipulate them.

People job hop in technical fields because it is the only way to get decent pay increases. Otherwise you get so-called cost of living increases - in other words a slap in the face for your time and effort. Then when you leave the company ends up paying the next guy what they should have been paying you. Add to that the extra cost of having to bring a new employee up to speed; there is no way around this as each company has their specific products and internal processes.

Yeah but job hopping in less than a year is just terrible. Especially if you are on a fully paid learnership.

Some guy with no experience is netting R8 000 and all his studies are paid for. He can't get fired because it is a year course and if he passes at the end he gets a R6 000 net increase.... Not worth running from...

We actually had people fail the Psych test ....

WEM's

Well I was offered a dream job lately - except there had to be board level approval to hire a WEM (White English Male) - basically the guy hiring would still get his bonus because he had a quota for a whitey, but the director above him would need to approve it because his bonus would also be affected.

**** that. For the rest of my career this is going to be an issue for me.

I am currently applying for my HSMP http://www.workingintheuk.gov.uk because though I was born in a violent and racist country I chose not to die in one.

With a bit of luck I will be there and have a decent broadband connection before the useless ****s at telkom get around to me (I applied in February!)

Heres my experience..

I have worked for a large international firm in South Africa for the past 10 years upgrading their systems to an acceptable level. Our branch/Plant is the only one in the world successfully utilizing Cisco switches and marrying the Industrial and Data network into one. Proud to say that the Japanese told me that it isn't possible as they tried to do this with their plant in China but failed and then went back to the old seperated networking structure and I made it work here.

Well so this company decided to appoint a new network and server specialist a new position in the company to manage the whole infrastructure and upgrading of their systems from Novell to MS AD which I have already completed alone at my plant. SO obviously I decided to apply and all of a sudden I am not good enough to fill this position because they decided they want somebody with broader experience outside of this company and appointed a smacktard fresh from the UK well needless to say I quit my job started my own IT company with great success I must add and this monkey lasted for 3 months after already been givin a final warning for mucking up. And now they are going the AA route WHAHAHAHA in this industry I Worked in you need to know the systems from start and the people aswell it will take any newcomer at least a year to just catch up the basics of the system like what happened with the junior tech appointed to assist me 3 years ago and he now took over my position and I still answer calls daily to help him out.

My view is plainly this why would any WAM work for company or in the SA industry when this is what happens in any case no matter what your experience or knowledge they have bean counters and managers that has no idea of even what an IP address is to appoint IT personnel..... need I say more.

I will drive my own business until I get the opportunity to overseas and this country will loose another IT proffessional due to their idiocy and blind sided thinking.

Getting into the IT sector

Iam a student in final year studying Bsc. Computer Science & IT, at university.
The most difficult problem with the IT industry (as I see it), is that to gain experience... you need experience.

Most companies will not employ a Junior IT worker, as education on its own means nothing without experience.
Therefore most students rather become programmers or sales reps, than spending their time trying to get into the IT business world.

Once a solution to the recursive loop of getting new blood into the IT sector is found, the gap in the market will start to diminish.

I'm in the same boat as thestudent, 6 months of applying for junior IT roles in the UK. Every interview or application it's at least 1 to 2 years experience. Last week I had a interview in London ( Hammersmith) interviewer chatted about the IT infrastructure they intend to implent, showing me around the various offices and it all came to nothing. They just can't make up there minds, same goes for most student looking for their first break into IT. Loads of work, decent money but just the work experience they all seem to want.

I was seriously contemplating coming home to try and get a 6 month to one year contract in SA next year after I finish CCNA and come back home afterwards, but reading the post seems it's the same scenario back in SA.

Bloody work experience!!!!!

What to do next!!!

:/ thats why i wanna try and get some experience before leaving. Problem is most want to tie you to a yr contract or something.. mebbe i shoulda tried for a bursary when i could since it seems those ppl atleast have a job when finished although tied down.

luckily i don't mind doing trivial things heck even techie stuff so i've learned alot