Entry Level Job Competition Has Just Gone Up The Ladder

With the Economy slowing recovering from the Recession, companies are looking to hire Staff with fewer budgets in their hands. Over qualified people continue to apply for jobs during these times even if the pay is less than expected. What is even more, surprising is the number of IT graduates who compete with professionals to get a foot into the IT job market.

During a BCS conference meeting, while chatting with one of the Presenters of the ceremony who just happened to be a Microsoft trainer, I was informed that many of the IT Graduates who got to the final stage of the interview with Microsoft were unable to answer basic questions like “What is DNS, DHCP, TCP IP?” and similar topics which are fundamental to the IT and Network Support positions in the job market. However there are companies that are ready to take on board Graduates instead of IT pros for the main purpose of cost cutting measures. This has become a difficulty for IT Pros with a few years experience in the Industry. In spite of what IT pros have to offer to the business, companies required It Graduates for the pure reason of saving money.

I blame recession for the main reason why IT professionals have a difficult time competing with graduates from IT as well as other disciplines. Other reasons would include the soft skills. Most IT professionals have a very strong IT background gained from IT training certifications, but do not have very strong business skills. Graduates, especially from business backgrounds can offer these soft skills and companies are ready to pay the price to train these graduates up to the level required to the job. This makes the competition for IT jobs even more fierce and IT professionals need to gain experience working in different sectors of the businesses and understand how the business works all together.