Tip 6
Promote yourself to the next generation
"You may find it useful to develop direct links with schools and colleges. We find the best way to engage young people is to use our Modern Apprentices as role models. Old fogies talking about careers are no motivator, but to hear from enthusiastic young people they can relate to has created huge interest. You may also find it helpful to use standard job titles so that people wanting careers advice can understand the areas of skill and the roles that you are trying to find. SFIA (Skills Framework for the Information Age) has already done this for you."
Amanda Lacey, Business and Programme Development, Nortel Networks UK Ltd
IT employers that do the milk round of universities will know well that most under-graduates have very clear ideas about what it means to work in certain industries. It is a very difficult job to change minds at that age. Many of those with the interpersonal skills that IT employers need so badly will have already written off a career in IT as something only for their boring, geeky friends. Thousands of undergraduates told the e-skill NTO precisely this during a survey carried out early in the year. IT is changing the way we live and work, yet under-graduates and teenagers think it is a grey-white box programmed by grey-white people.
Turn the clock back and talk to a ten-year-old and you will find that they are generally fairly interested in IT. They do not have the negative image. It is something that forms in the minds of children (particularly girls) between the ages of 11 and 16. There are three factors that influence them. Firstly their IT lessons fail to inspire them. Secondly television gives them a caricature of an IT professional that is a long way from their idea of "cool". However, just as importantly, the confusing array of job titles makes IT look like a hidden industry, something too complicated to even consider.
The solution is to make sure that teenagers have a chance to see what it really means to work in IT before they take their GCSEs and that college students have contact with IT employers before they reach career decision making time. There is nothing like having the chance to speak informally to a "normal" young person who works in IT to change the perceptions of teenagers and there is nothing like having a good work experience to change the perception of under-graduates.
It is very difficult for teachers at colleges to keep pace with the changing nature of IT and the demands for IT professionals. By working with local colleges employers can help teachers overcome this problem and by offering work experience employers will have the chance to test out the next generation of employees as well as get their name known to next years potential employees.
Through the use of Skills for the Information Age Framework (SFIA) employers can effectively communicate to students what certain job roles entail. Students will then better understand IT and come to see it more in the professional light that they see Doctors and Lawyers. It will enable students to better understand the profession and overcome any pre-conceptions regarding the industry.
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