<p>You’d think so, but in CS, “employment” does not always mean employment of domestic workers, and the US stock market is very international in nature. And the Nasdaq still hasn’t recovered to its pre-2001 levels (still down 50%, despite years of inflation). </p>
<p>For a lot of people in tech, the crash meant that they not only lost most of their retirement, but they also lost their jobs. Which meant a lot of competition for positions that ordinarly would have been filled with new grads over the past decade.</p>
<p>In certain sub-groups, such as networking, despite Internet demand and traffic being higher than ever, deflation has ravaged the selling price of equipment, and destroyed the stocks. Look at the Cisco chart, for instance. Nortel is gone – a company that utterly dominated the market in the 1990s. Even Intel can barely sell their top-end CPU’s for more than $300. No pricing power whatsoever in the industry.</p>
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<p>Of course, yours has grown, but plenty have dissappeared, or moved a substantial chunk of their footprint to Asia.</p>
Where’s your source that says unemployment is high? It’s easy to take sources - like the ones ucbalumnus and I have provided, which are surely only a few of the ones which exist - and argue that they’re not particularly strong evidence. It’s another to provide any evidence for your argument, which you have failed to do. While I grant that your situation sounds plausible for a 2002 EE/CS grad, I have no reason to believe that current graduates are experiencing this same phenomenon, when I see CS grads being snatched up by all manner of software companies.</p>
<p>In a sense, looking for real data on this might be a fool’s errand. Does anybody compare the number of CS graduates to the number of CS-related jobs those graduates are getting? It would be great to see some data on this (you know, the kind that don’t come from optional response questionnaires), but there are probably real difficulties associated with this.</p>
<p>Look, I’m not trying to start anything personal. My point is that students reading your posts should recognize that you have not shared any data supporting your claims. If you present some data, I’d be happy to take a look.</p>
<p>True, regarding employment. However, the Nasdaq may never rise to those dot-com bubble levels. There may never again be a time when companies literally pull people off of the streets to come work for them just because they’re able to code up enough javascript to put up simple websites that can be floated on the Nasdaq.</p>
<p>My argument about bringing in people to work on visas is that if the program was created to offset short-term shortages in qualified workers (where qualified means possessing the education and/or experience to do certain types of work), it should not be necessary in a time of (relatively) high unemployment of tech workers, such as now. Others disagree, and say that they can’t find qualified people, and so they must bring people in on visas. I think they are using the visa program to satisfy their needs for the “five pound butterfly”, whereas they could hire people who already have the legal right to work in the US (and this includes current green card and even H-1B holders) and allow them to learn on the job, at a possibly lower salary, on a probational period.</p>
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<p>I apply for plenty of networking jobs. Sites such as LinkedIn are filled with open positions looking for people to work at “MNCs” (and we all know who those companies are) mostly located in India. It used to be the case that these “MNCs” hired domestically – Cisco, Juniper, and some of the others used to have job listings with many openings for software engineers, test engineers, QA engineers, etc. at their Silicon Valley offices.</p>
<p>Some people think that networking is no longer a growth (sub)field, and that’s why the jobs have moved to India for the most part. But switching to a new (sub)field carries its own risks. One is that as a late entry to something like mobility or cloud computing, you’re competing with people who’ve been doing it for a while, so you may be overlooked, either as a new hire, or as someone looking for their idea to be funded. Another is if for some reason the networking jobs come back, you may miss the wave, because you’re doing something else while the people who’ve patiently waited and kept up with developments in the networking field are chosen to do those jobs.</p>
<p>If all non-responses were actually unemployed, then there would be no point in getting any bachelor’s degree in any subject, if around 50% (the typical non-response rate for career surveys) or more of the graduates are unemployed. Of course, this is clearly not the case, since such an unemployment rate is high even for unskilled workers.</p>
<p>Intel’s top end CPUs are a lot higher than $300.</p>
<p>There’s a Dell building near where I work and they’ve been rapidly hiring to build their cloud infrastructure and products. My son got an interview over there because I had a friend that had a friend that worked there. He didn’t have the communications background to get through the interview for the entry-level position which is understandable as he hadn’t taken a course in that yet.</p>
<p>There are good entry positions but it really helps to have contacts that know about positions that aren’t advertised.</p>
<p>I had a look at MIT’s numbers and I think that their number was around 90% had found jobs that were looking for them with 10% in the “other” category (not going to grad school). I saw nothing on the response rate in the article that I saw so can’t comment there.</p>
<p>CS is a high demand major. There’s really only one explanation for being unemployed for ten years and that’s staring Mark77 in the mirror. Why? I haven’t a clue. It seems like Mark77 is looking for external explanations (Nasdaq crash, technological innovation, immigration, international operations etc) instead of looking inward. Sorry for being so harsh Mark but you have to face facts and deal with the real issues.</p>
<p>After ten years, your education is stale without substantive experience. You should consider taking some CC colleges to freshen up and take any remotely CS job that will take you. Once you are in your abilities should become evident to the organization and you’ll be able to get other positions more commensurate with your skills.</p>
<p>The 30-40% employment rate from UCB and Cornell (once you adjust for the response rate) is surprisingly similar to the broader employment rate of STEM professionals.</p>
<p>PDF page 35 (table 3) paints a frightening story. </p>
<p>I’m not saying this stuff to be negative, and I know I’m talking on a forum that is primarily undergrad students who aren’t exposed to the realities of the employment market, but there’s a real problem out there. </p>
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<p>In the 1990s, it wasn’t uncommon to have a consumer-focussed CPU sitting in the $1000-$1200 price point, and the Professional/“workstation” level products at even more expensive levels. Its pretty hard to deny that the hardware builders have suffered massive reductions on the unit prices, which has directly translated into fewer employment opportunities, less growth, big depression in stock prices (firms like Intel, Cisco, etc., still down >70% – not exactly indicative of a vibrant industry, that’s for sure!).</p>
<p>The Xeon E7-4807 through E7-4870 Server/Workstation CPUs range
from $890 to $4,394.</p>
<p>The Xeon processor 7500 Server/Workstation CPUs run from $856 to
$3,692.</p>
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<p>Really? Do you consider the prices above to be cheap?</p>
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<p>Intel has been reporting mostly record revenues and profits for the
last several years. Go check out their annual reports.</p>
<p>In a bubble, stock prices can greatly overshoot rational values. Intel has
been executing quite well since they got the beatdown from AMD in 2004.</p>
<p>This (to me) falls in line with the adage…“A CS major can also do I.S. jobs but and I.S. major cannot do CS work.”</p>
<p>Knowing how to create/analyze algorithms, different types of data structures, how code is parsed/linked/loaded (generally) and how an operating system interacts with all of it will give more value if all of those concepts are known to a single employee. I am not knocking I.S./I.T. majors at all but one can get all of that crucial CS knowledge in just 7 or 8 CS courses. Add on the to MOST important acts that corporations do on data…distributing it (networks) and storage/retrieval (databases) and one has some pretty marketable skills.</p>
<p>DS is currently in a hot field, user experience/interface (UX/UI) with multi-platform app experience in iOS/itunes/android, 5 years demostrated experience. …</p>
<p>the hurdle is that iOS/itunes/android, smartphone apps, UX/UI hasn’t been around for 5 years.</p>
<p>No its not. If there was high demand, then firms like Google wouldn’t be receiving 1M+ resumes for 1,000-4,000 software eng jobs a year. Microsoft wouldn’t be in a position where they can toss out 99% of the resume submissions without bothering to call people up for interviews, aptitude testing, coding tests, etc. Etc., etc.</p>
<p>I most certainly have looked inward, but I’ve also looked outward, and most of my classmates have experienced the same, or even worse struggles (as at least I have been able to create a source of money for myself.). </p>
<p>Tell me, where are all these entry-level jobs if CS is such a ‘high demand major’? Why is it a struggle to find any online job posting that says, “new grads welcome”, or “0-2 years of experience”? Why is 5-10 years of ‘experience’ seemingly the new entry-level qualification? Why is entry to most firms practically impossible without iron-clad insider connections or a previous internship? </p>
<p>If CS is in such high demand, wouldn’t CS interns be earning a lot more than police officer interns in San Jose? The entry-level, after-internship, without overtime salary of a San Jose police officer is $72k/year and a good number of officers are at $180k/year with overtime. Do you really think an occupation is ‘in demand’ when the pay on offer, in the same community, working for some of the hottest tech firms in the world, usually would only equal that of a police officer?</p>
<p>I think there is still a high demand for talented developers.</p>
<p>My company recruits interns from universities all over the country (and even abroad) to try to get the best talent that they can find. And most of my coworkers in my work division are not California natives – we moved them here because we wanted them.</p>
<p>Most software companies have learned that the key to success isn’t by hiring the cheapest (offshore) developers, but finding and keeping the best. Why do you think the top tech firms go through so much trouble and spend so much money on their interviewing and hiring process? Why do you think Google succeeded while its competitors (like Yahoo) fell by the wayside?</p>
<p>Your classmates are in the same unlucky position that you were, graduating during a deep career-destroying industry downturn, so your sample is skewed. But the situation is not the same for those who graduated at other times – indeed, you might not like the fact that some rather marginal 1998-2000 graduates got jobs even though they would not have under ordinary conditions.</p>
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<p>Because those job postings are in campus career centers.</p>
<p>It is plainly obvious that you had bad luck to graduate at the wrong time. But just because you got unlucky does not mean that that everyone else shares your misery.</p>
<p>If anything, your overexaggerated pessimism obscures the real lesson that others may learn: labor markets can change over the four years that it takes to complete a bachelor’s degree. Don’t assume that a good or bad market in a field when you enter college as a freshman will be the same when you graduate. All of the freshmen who piled into CS in 1997-1999 ended up graduating in the depths of the tech crash in 2001-2003. Meanwhile, the few freshmen who went into CS in 2001-2003 graduated into much better job opportunities in 2005-2007.</p>
<p>What does it mean for freshmen now? Since no one can accurately predict the future, it is anyone’s guess as to what it will be like when you graduate. But hedge your bets in senior year by applying to both jobs and graduate school.</p>
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<p>Why don’t you go to police academy and become a police officer, then?</p>
<p>Of course, being a good police officer requires a decent amount of skill to catch suspects without endangering bystanders and minimizing harm to the suspects, and a willingness to take risks to do so. So the implication from your post that police officers are somehow unworthy of being paid well seems like an insult to those who do their jobs well. (Of course, some places pay their police officers poorly, and get officers who are corrupt and ineffective. And some places pay their police officers well, but do not select them carefully enough so they get officers who are corrupt and ineffective. But that does not mean that a good police officer is not worth good pay.)</p>
<p>Not seeing them, and I’m signed up to the CS grad mailing lists of a number of universities. </p>
<p>If they’re not throwing them up on their websites, along with those of the highly experienced people they need to/want to hire – then that doesn’t indicate great demand either.</p>
<p>Professions that are in demand don’t generally pursue such closed-doors policy. Mortgage brokers were in demand in the USA circa 2003-2005, to the extent that anyone with sales qualifications (and weak ethics) could walk into a brokering outfit and at least receive an interview. Know of any outfits in this apparently ‘in demand’ CS profession who grant walk-up interviews? Name some names, send me some PM’s – I can fly practically anywhere in the United States (or Canada), at my expense, within the next week for such an interview.</p>
<p>If I came across a great resume from a great school from someone with a posting
history, I would certainly pass it to managers looking for engineers. We require a
particular specialty area though.</p>
<p>For me to recommend someone, I would need to know them for a while which could
happen through a forum. Technical and research abilities matter a lot but so does
attitude.</p>
<p>Have there been any changes in the CS field since you graduated that you would benefit from updating your skills/ academics to make your resume more “shiney” or appealing to employers? Or have you seen any positions with particular specialties that you would be more marketable for if you had additional training? I am not takling about years of school, rather some refresher courses or official new technology courses that would look good on your resume?</p>
<p>Even during the tech bubble, candidates’ resumes were evaluated and interviews had to be scheduled (typically with multiple people); one didn’t just “walk up” and immediately get interviews.</p>
<p>I have seen some very rare cases where resumes and interviews weren’t needed; basically someone at a high enough level really wanted someone and just made it happen. This was for senior management or walk-on-water technical types.</p>