Are Most American Grads Unemployable?

I read this interesting post from the editor in chief at Information Week. It focuses on a comment made by the CEO of HCL Technologies, an Indian IT service vendor. He suggested that employees from developing countries are more focused on their careers and their American counterparts are more interested in getting “rich”.

The CEO suggested Americans are more expensive to train because they don’t focus on process methodologies like ITIL, Six Sigma, etc… So because they have to be trained after college in these methodologies it increases the burden of the organization to do what, (these are my words), should be done in college.

I think this CEO is right on in this area. Our institutions of higher learning need to establish greater partnerships with industry to improve the effectiveness and value of a college degree. There is no doubt in my mind that American workers are among the best in the world but it is mostly because of the freedom we have and the incentive of reward that drives competitiveness. The weak link in the chain is the actual educational experience received at the High School level right on into the college arena.

It has been too long since education and business have been close allies in developing trained students to the working world. Our curriculums have drifted away from the basic tenet of a college degree which is learning the skills needed to be successful in business.

Our industry (IT) is extremely competitive and global. It is so much different than say Healthcare. Healthcare facilities are harder to move because of the patient need but even in Healthcare there are functions that can be distributed anywhere. But IT overall is borderless due to advancements in, you guessed it, technology.

So what is the answer to this CEO? You’re right? You’re wrong? Or both? We still have to look at the wage disparity between workers in India, Malaysia, Costa Rico, etc… as part of the equation. But as long as we have an educational disparity argument, addressing wage issues will be mute.

We are in a global arena and must act accordingly. We can’t control wages but we can control our educational model to help Americans to meet the technical challenges this CEO has brought to the surface.

I would love to hear from you…

Rich Hand

Executive Director of Membership

Comments

[Bill Dixon]

I’ve had the opportunity to work in both academia and industry. Everywhere I have taught, both public and private, there have been industry advisory councils which were keenly interested in feedback on the preparedness of their graduates for the workforce. Our colleges and universities rely on feedback from industry to stay on track. If we feel our graduates are not prepared for the job market, we need to take action by providing such feedback to our Community Colleges, Colleges, and Universities. Better yet, team with them to improve IT programs.
A key mechanism for process improvement in higher education has to do with the accreditation process. Accreditation is an institutionalized mechanism for process improvement, involving revolving cycles of self-evaluation, peer review, and incremental improvement. In the United States, Colleges and universities (as a whole) are accredited by one of 19 recognized institutional accrediting organizations.
In contrast, programs are accredited by one of approximately 60 recognized programmatic accrediting organizations (http://www.chea.org/public_info/index.asp#what). Undergraduate programs in the fields of Information Technology, information systems, computer science, and software engineering are accredited by the Computing Accreditation Commission (CAC) of ABET (www.abet.org). CSAB (www.csab.org) is the lead professional society within ABET for accreditation of these programs. In this capacity, CSAB has responsibility for the development of accreditation criteria and for the selection and training of program evaluators.
The 2008 ABET Annual Report is titled “Going Global: Accreditation Takes off Worldwide”. If you are interested in impacting undergraduate programs in IT and learning more about how you can become a program evaluator, contribute to program accreditation criteria, please check out the CSAB and ABET websites.

bill.dixon@ey.com

[Rich G]

I think the comment only addresses one component of the overall value of a potential employee. It leaves out other areas such as communication skills, critical thinking and agility. These skills are often acquired over time or from a diverse educational background (i.e. liberal arts) that does not focus on a single area. I personally think it's easier to get an industry certification after the other skills have been learned. In the end I think different economies can do well by focusing on different areas. The developing countires have found an area to excel in.

[Eliz]

Even if we did study these methodologies in school, which ones should we focus on? Six Sigma, ITIL, etc... the list goes on and on, and is out-dated by the time the kid gets out of school.