Not good for kids in the IT industry
This indirectly concerns the IT security industry but in the UK, there are less jobs going around for computer science graduates as 10% are unemployed after graduation. This seems a little bit strange considering in there is a skills shortage and university intake numbers are dropping.
So why aren’t companies hiring IT graduates? That’s a good question! Rightly or wrongly, companies are generally looking for guys to hit the floor running and be as productive as soon as possible. Training is expensive. I was just flicking through the SANS institute site and it’s not unheard of for a 5-day course to cost 3000 pounds. Training is also time-consuming and some companies may not have the luxury of time of having someone in-house train the kids up to speed.
The ideal solution is to introduce more industry-supported degrees. But once again that involved costs and these days with the credit crunch, cutbacks and job security worries, I wouldn’t be surprised that there is a major reluctance.
Which is exactly why I’m not doing the GPEN course, at 4,245 USD. I have a degree in network security, though I believe it needs an overhaul to take into account web applications and current software development practices.
It was nice getting picked up right out of college though :)