Students needed

CEGEPS and tech colleges have employers calling to court graduates but job offers go unfilled because there are not enough students

Every week, John Popovitch receives between 25 and 30 job postings for full-time positions in the information technology sector. But as the employment development officer in vanier college's student employment centre, Popovitch is frustrated at not having enough candidates to fill those jobs. This year, Vanier will graduate only about eight students from its three-year computer technology program.

"We've suffered from the Nortel effect for the past few years," Popovitch said. "Young people have been hesitant about entering the IT sector and their parents are cautious about their children's college program choices."

He is referring, of course, to the shrinking workforce in the information technology sector since the bursting of the so-called "dot-com bubble."

In the wake of that bust, enrolments in college and university IT programs plummeted and have never regained strength. The problem, say observers in the industry and educational institutions that train IT workers, is that the jobs are back in force but the candidates are not.

"There simply are not enough people going into these programs," said Louise gauthier, co-ordinator of Vanier's computer science program, a three-year course of study that makes students job-market-ready.

"We used to get 300 applicants in the late 1990s for 100 places in the program."

By contrast, she added, about 20 students now enroll, but by the end of the program, fewer than half graduate.

"Companies are starting to get worried," gauthier said. "They're not connected with the schools, so they don't know what's happening with declining enrolments. There are more jobs than people to fill them. We're going to high schools to tell students this is a good career."

Positions in the IT sector run the gamut and include technical support, database management, programming, Web design, e-commerce, software development and Web administration among others, she said.

The jobs are also in a broad spectrum of companies, said Lina Perrotta, career services director at Herzing College.

"Find me one field that doesn't use computers," she said. "Find me one company that doesn't have an IT department."

Perrotta says she routinely places students in jobs in the aerospace industry or in law firms.

"It's not just at computer companies where you can find work," she said. "The retail industry, railways, import and export. Every kind of company needs IT specialists."

Perrotta says she has about three times the number of job offers as students to place.

"I can't meet the demand."

Neither can Nick Giurleo. As a supervisor on a technical support desk at the Bank of Montreal's head office, Giurleo is looking to hire as many as 10 new employees. He's sought candidates at colleges, through online recruitment and through the bank's human resources department.

"I want people with a three-year collegial diploma or an attestation. We've also had university grads."

But it's tough to find candidates.

"In the past year, we tried to hire a couple of people and it took a couple of months to find them."

Popovitch said he would like to see more students enroll in programs that will lead them to careers in high tech.

"There are tremendous opportunities out there," Popovitch said. "And you can pick and choose what you want to do - from game testing to working for the space agency."

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Tuesday, October 07, 2008 |

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