Agree with this. I told my kids they should focus on industries and companies where their skills help bring in the revenue, rather than be a cost center that helps support the business. Depending upon the company, CS jobs could be primarily in one camp or the other.
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Not sure this is accurate. Large companies tend to over-correct with their hiring targets (figuring it’s easier to lay off fewer, experienced folks if it comes to that rather than retract offers from newbies which is very painful reputationally…) I think the class of 2023 will find it tough going if the goal is CS plus Tech company plus “desirable location” (Austin, SV, Seattle, Boston).
Students who are ready to be flexible- Hartford CT, Tampa FL, Cincinnati OH-- and have the right mindset (hey, history majors don’t look for jobs as “historians” and math majors don’t look for jobs as “mathematicians”) will be in good shape. It’s the ones who are slow to recognize the new normal who will find it frustrating.
It depends on the severity of the decline. The NACE regularly surveys employers about changes in expected hiring for new grads. In the recent report for 2023, computer/tech employers as a whole projected improvements in the job market for new grads, as summarized below. Note that the are not just surveying FAANG type companies. It’s a wide variety of different types of tech companies, most of which probably are rarely mentioned on the forum.
- +24% Increase in number of hires over 2022 (larger increase in hiring than any other reported industry except chemical)
- 48% of surveyed computer/tech say they plan to increase hiring / negligible portion say they plan to decrease hiring
- 56% say they plan to increase starting salaries for new hires / negligible portion say they plan to decrease
Similarly the few class of 2022 post grad outcome reports I have seen do not show a decline. Instead they show an increase in starting salary over 2021 and few unemployed. While I don’t doubt that the cherry picked names of tech companies in the article may reduce hiring, there are also others that may increase hiring. It’s not clear to me that a large portion of CS new grads are going to struggle to find quality work, like occurred in the early 2000s dot com bust.
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Given the huge numbers of recruiting staff which has been let go in the last three weeks-- across the board, not just the fancy names in tech- I suspect that the NACE estimates are quite rosy given recent events. And it’s not just the folks who recruit tech talent-- it’s the recruiters who focus on strategy, finance, marketing, customer support, business development…
So in every cutback- watch to see who is getting laid off. A company which is slashing the number of recruiters (ones who focus on campus, ones who focus on executive level hiring, ones who focus on onboarding…) is a company which has just gotten a reality jolt.
What’s the date of the NACE survey you are looking at?
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October 2022 projections for 2023
Musk kicked off the most recent round of layoffs with his Twitterfest… so last three weeks…
Your disdain for this kid’s situation is strange. He should be commended for sticking to a tough major that doesn’t come naturally to him – the grit, perseverance, and resilience he’s shown by sticking to CS even if it’s not his major strength is admirable. Many software engineers will tell you that they were B/C students as CS majors but found lots of success in their careers.
His immense effort in completing a CS degree is a testament to his work ethic and growth mindset – even if something doesn’t come naturally to him, he clearly is able to stick to it. And that’s a trait that will serve him well in any software engineering career, innate math ability be damned. Girls in particular are really hampered by the “fixed mindset” you seem to be describing in your post; lots of girls drop the CS major at the sight of their first B or C (or god forbid, a D), whereas guys are more likely to stick to these difficult challenges even at the sight of low grades.
BTW, I don’t think being a pastry chef is exactly “liberating.” And “excelling at something he loves” – like being a pastry chef – is almost certainly going to bring this kid less financial security (the number 1 reason why most kids go to college!) than being an even average programmer.
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I have no disdain for the kid- I love the kid. And the notion that he should struggle so much to fulfill a parental fantasy about studying CS-- vs. fulfilling his OWN fantasy about culinary school-- how is that respectful of a teenager’s agency, direction, interests, path?
I can respect the work ethic and still hope that this kid will “find his bliss” professionally. I know lots of people who make lots of money and hate what they do. I am not a therapist, but can’t help notice that the “I make too much to quit” syndrome seems to correlate with a ton of self-medicating, dysfunctional relationships, depression and anxiety. Not causal for sure- but they aren’t called “Golden Handcuffs” because they gently remind you of how much you love your high paid job. They are called handcuffs because it’s hard to get off that merry-go-round even if you are miserable.
A fixed mindset would suggest that a kid who isn’t good at (fill in the blank) will never be good at it, so it’s time to go find something else. That’s not the same thing as shoe-boxing a kid with a strong passion in an area that parents find “shameful” (although it’s honest labor, nobody is making crystal meth in the garage) and forcing him into the “least objectionable option”, i.e. not medicine which takes a long time and requires familiarity with body fluids.
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The “grit, perseverance, and resilience”, etc. are commendable and often necessary, but wouldn’t such character traits help him more in a field that he is more talented and more interested in?
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Editing because I am not supposed to be sharing the Financial Times article. Basically, Amazon is delaying the start dates of some college grads from May to end of 2023 and also offering a one-off $13K payment to those affected.
The article did not say how many grads would be affected.
At the risk of diverting the thread, I note that many chefs are also deeply unhappy, and that it is a very physically and emotionally demanding and often unstable career. It is not a recipe for happiness for all, and perhaps the parents know the student would not adapt well to it.
There is some merit to the idea that kids do not always accurately assess their relative strengths in pursuing a career choice. While ultimately they may end up quitting, there is value in avoiding wasted time and effort following a path unsuitable for them. I know shy introverts who majored in public relations who would have been far better off in accounting, and the opposite.
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Of course, sometimes neither the kids nor the parents guess correctly what future directions are most suitable for the kid, and sometimes parent based situations (location, money) can prevent some otherwise suitable directions from being available to the kid.
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Agreed. And the opposite is equally true.
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Agree with the premise of both roycroft and UCB’s posts but need to push back- there are gajillions of successful PR professionals who are shy introverts and an equal number of extroverts who are successful CPA’s.
Don’t promulgate this “career planning via Myer Briggs type” myth! One of the reasons that companies continue to USE Myer Briggs as a management tool is that it’s useful in teaching the Senior VP of PR/Corporate Communications who may be a shy introvert how to work well and to manage the extroverted members of the team (and vice versa). Being shy doesn’t preclude you from being successful as an actor, symphony conductor, advertising exec, politician, etc. It means that you will have different professional challenges than someone who is extroverted— but the extrovert also has challenges in these arenas (I won’t bother to list the number of actors and politicians who have gotten into trouble due to their extreme extroversion).
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I started as a CS major in college because according to my family, I was good with computers, as in I could copy and move files using DOS. I was a stud that could format Wordstar and use Lotus. Then I got to college and took compilers and re-took it. I thought that was a minor hiccup. Then I took C+ and got a C-. More than that, I realized that I was not destined to be a good programmer. YMMV.
Good luck to your neighbor’s kid @blossom!
Back to OP’s original question. I think the answer is yes, and it will take time. No one has a crystal ball, but if I have to guess, the chance of a recession next year is high and tech will be especially hard hit. Unless there is a major breakthrough in tech (e.g. autonomous vehicles), recovery will take time. If the prospect of tech hiring doesn’t improve quickly, some less-than-fully-interested students will likely choose something else to study in college.
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I’m kind of thinking that most risk is for current college frosh, sophomore, junior, and yo some extent seniors. Students starting college in fall 2023 should be fine. If not we’re in big trouble.
There is no reason to think the recession will be limited to tech. Wall St bonuses are expected to be down 30-40%. Other industries will be impacted as well. Historically during recessions students flock to more “safe” majors such as nursing, accounting, and yes, IT/CS majors. The market for Cybersecurity experts will continue to grow.
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Wall Street is notorious for its cyclicality (which some of us may have forgotten because of the long bull market since '08). Other industries are less accustomed to a feast-or-famine culture. A recession will clearly affect nearly every industry. But tech will be particularly hard hit because it constantly needs fresh new and speculative capital, which will be much harder to come by in a recession. The overstaffing issues in some subsectors of tech will also take time to resolve. Not all tech subsectors will be equally affected either. AI, for example, will be very well funded from public money. DoD, and the Congress, are allocating more resources to that sector for national security and geopolitical reasons.
However, different recessions will affect different sectors differently. The 2001 recession hit the computer industry the hardest, while the 2008 recession hit the real estate, construction, and finance industries the hardest, with relatively less detriment to the computer industry.
The 2001 recession noticeably resulted in a decrease in the number of CS majors among college students starting then or shortly after, but the 2008 recession did not really have that effect.