There are so many IT graduates each year. There should be a surplus in the industry in terms of hiring, surprisingly the IT industry is still facing the manpower shortage in Malaysia. Why is it so? After years of interviewing fresh graduates and internships we come into a conclusion is that most of the IT graduate students can’t really code.
One of the most common questions during the interview “Why do you choose this course?”, usually get the most common answer, “Because im interested in programming”. As such I will usually ask them the following 3 questions to really make sure they are really interested in programming.
What is your final year project title?
The most common answer i will get is “e-Commerce”. I’ve heard of this title for like 3 years more. And in 2020 there are still interviewees telling me their final year project is building a “e-Commerce” project. Most students choose the subject by making sure they will not fail during the assessment, which is the biggest wrong move they have made. When you decide to go for the easiest subject is either you sucks at programming or you don’t have passion in what you are learning.
What do you do during your free time?
While most of the answers are pretty similar but different in details, most of them have the same pattern, those activities have nothing related to programming or other IT stuff. IT industry can be exciting and tiring both due to its advancement in terms of new technologies and skills to be introduced to the public. Take the frontend framework as an example during the 10 years time, how many of them has been invented and introduced to the public. Most of the Uni doesn’t have the capabilities to teach their students with these new languages, most of the graduates are only able to write basic code in C++, Java, Javascript, and PHP.
Do you do any programming related projects aside from those assigned from your Uni?
“No. I only did projects assigned by my Uni.”, this is most of the answer i will get during the interview. It’s not fair to say that those who don’t have their own projects consider they are not interested in what they are studying. Ask yourself a question, you went to Uni and got to learn the skill of programmer just for the sake of getting a better pay job, is this considered as you are interested in programming? Most teenagers have the same dilemma when choosing the right course to pursue their Uni life, the fact is that the majority of the people don’t really have a career that is related to what they are studying. Why in the first place they will choose IT as their first preference? There are many reasons for this question, but the most common would be the herding effect. Everyone is talking about IT, your family and your friends and even the media, how will your decision not be affected by these influences?
Conclusion
Programming is not some routine job. I do believe everyone can code, but not everyone can write a good code. If what you are doing right now is just instruction from the documentation basically your work can be replace by anyone. Linus Torvalds — ‘Talk is cheap. Show me the code.’