IT hires need more training: Study

A new study, Closing the IT Skills Gap reveals that IT graduates need to be well-trained in order to perform in workplaces.

Closing the IT Skills Gap is a partnered study by IBM, Unisphere Research and the SHARE member database.

Respondents consisted of 400 employers in the SHARE member database. The employers overwhelmingly agree that colleges and universities need to provide their students with the essential skills required to run IT departments, yet only eight percent of hiring managers would rate IT graduates hired as “well trained, ready to go.”

Additionally, nearly four out of 10 respondents report that their IT hires are not sufficiently prepared to perform jobs within their companies, and another 44% say, at a minimum, that there are noticeable gaps in their skills.

The survey also found that nearly half of companies responding to the survey hire new IT employees straight out of school. Two-thirds of organisations do require at least some college intern experience among their hires.

The report indicates that organisations are ready to hire, with employers reporting they are seeking the certain set of skills to be taught by educational institutions. About 77% of the respondents want schools to provide programming skills while 76% would like schools to provide analysis and architectural skills.