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Job Market
"Essentially 100 percent of students who want jobs get them"

By Knight Ridder Newspapers and The Seattle Times staff

RICHARD MARSHALL / KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS University of Minnesota graduate Elliot Olds, 23, earned his degree in computer science, pursuing his interests in high-level programming. "Some of these same kinds of jobs are being sent to India," he says, but he still got several offers and accepted a job with Microsoft as a software design engineer.

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He is not worried about finding a job.

Despite all the hype about tech jobs flying overseas, soon he'll be moving from Minneapolis to Redmond to take a job programming Microsoft's search engine.

Microsoft was one of three interviews and two job offers Olds had upon graduating in December from the University of Minnesota. After he snared the interviews, he stopped looking.

Amid the hue and cry over the loss of white-collar tech jobs, this reality endures: While key prospects aren't being offered jobs by their sophomore year as they were during the dot-com boom, there still are tech jobs to be found.

The market for computer-science grads has been picking up over the last few months. And the long-term demand will remain, experts say.

"There is still enormous demand for our graduates," says David Notkin, chair of the computer science and engineering department at the University of Washington. "Our students are still extremely employable."

Says Pen-Chung Yew, head of the computer-science department at the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology: "The IT industry as a whole will continue to grow, I don't have any doubt about that — at least in the next five to 10 years."

Computer-software engineers and systems analysts are projected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to be among the fastest-growing occupations from 2002 to 2012.

Computer-science jobs Software engineers and systems analysts are projected to be among the fastest-growing occupations from 2002 to 2012. Here's a breakdown: Software-applications engineering jobs are expected to grow 46 percent — to 573,000 — in that period. Systems-analysts jobs will grow by 39 percent, to 653,000. Computer-specialist jobs (including programmers, software engineers and systems analysts) are projected to grow 35.8 percent. Bureau of Labor Statistics

So what about the plentiful reports trumpeting a more negative point of view? You see it in the headlines of all major business publications, on Web sites and in reports from research firms.

Eighteen months ago, Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass., predicted that over the next 15 years, 3.3 million U.S. service-industry jobs and $136 billion in wages will move offshore to low-wage countries such as India, Russia, China and the Philippines. The IT industry would lead this exodus, the research firm said, losing 600,000 computer-science jobs in the same period, or 108,991 by 2005.

"There is no question the downturn has reduced the number of job offers our students get," says the UW's Notkin. "Five years ago, students had eight or 10 offers when they graduated; they don't have as many today.

"But," he says, "their prospects are still strong."

Of 174 students who just got their bachelor's degrees in computer science this spring, Notkin says 48 responded to an internal survey about post-graduation plans. Of the 48, 38 report being hired by companies that include Microsoft, Amazon.com, Google, Boeing, Expedia, Lockheed Martin, Ford, Honeywell, IBM and startups Impinj and Marchex, as well as government organizations including the Forest Service.

Numerous others are going to graduate school, and some are traveling after graduation.

Notkin says the low response rate is common on their annual internal surveys and not an indication of a problem getting jobs.

"Jobs are out there," he says. "Essentially 100 percent of students who want jobs get them."

Graduate students are also faring well: Of the 40 graduate students in the UW's Professional Master Program, most already have jobs with technology companies. (The department also has research students pursuing doctorates.)

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"There's no question that UW computer-science and engineering students are going into jobs in which they are designing and building complex computer systems; they are still being aggressively pursued by a broad variety of companies and organizations in the U.S.," Notkin says of those who attend the school, considered one of the top 10 in the country.

Computer science is at the core of all organizations these days, he continues: You can't run a business, you can't do research and you can't run governments without appropriate computing support.

The one advantage of the dot.com bust is that students who previously looked to startups as the only possible career choice are now looking more broadly, Notkin says — to larger companies, to government organizations and to graduate school.

"That's healthy for the economy, and it's healthy for the students."

Taking a broader view

Matt Rasmussen is one who takes the broader view. The 21-year-old is heading to graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge to continue his studies in computer science. He is a spring graduate of the University of Minnesota.

At MIT, his emphasis will be on computational biology, or solving experimental problems through the use of computers.

When he looks down the road, he sees himself working in genetics, using computer-designed algorithms. Perhaps, he said, he'll work for a drug company deploying computers to simulate experiments. "With America still the No. 1 spot for research, there is still a lot of opportunity."

Elliot Olds centered his course work on a level of academic work that many companies don't find practical. Olds, 23, didn't care. He opted to pursue his interests in high-level programming and scored a perfect 4.0 average in the process. "I think that some of these same kind of jobs are being sent to India," he said. "Because of my academic background, I was just lucky enough to get some offers."

The classes he took were highly theoretical at a time when U.S. companies were mainly looking for graduates with experience in large databases.

Instead, Olds veered toward classes like computational complexity, working with abstract models of computers and mathematical proofs. "It is not well-suited to regular company needs," he said. However, he feels sure that he'll always have a job here. "I always have the option of working in a government laboratory. Those jobs can't be sent to India because of national security."

Meanwhile, Olds is heading to Microsoft, which was projecting it would fill 5,000 jobs in its fiscal year 2004 ending June 30 — 1,500 in the Puget Sound area. Of those hires, about 25 percent have come directly from college or graduate school.

The number of college hires is up from the previous two years: 600 in fiscal year 2002, 800 in 2003, 888 in 2004.

(Microsoft's hiring projections for the upcoming year are to be released in July. )

Business skills a plus

Much of the job growth in the U.S., say experts, will be at businesses seeking more on the résumé than just "bona fide geek."

Paul Cronin, chief executive of Techies.com, a company that matches techies with jobs, says business skills and strategic acumen are the added skills that chief executives are seeking. "Frankly if you are just providing the hard skills, I can get that elsewhere at a lower cost," Cronin says. "That's the attitude of the CEO today."

He cited one of his clients, an IT consulting firm, that has 114 jobs that need to be filled but is having troubling finding people. "The challenge is we're looking for business analysts and project managers — those people who communicate well, play well with others and understand the business strategy in addition to the technology."

At the UW's department of computer science and engineering, the emphasis is on teaching hands-on concepts.

"We're educating the future designers and leaders in the computer industry," Notkin says.

Plenty of students, apparently, are willing to bet on this, or at least try to:

Applications to the UW's graduate-level computer-science programs remain strong, with 1,034 received for 2004, down slightly from their peak of 1,211 in 2003. Of those 1,034 applicants, 87 were admitted to the school.

At the undergraduate level, enrollment remains strong each year, with 500 students applying for nearly 160 spots in the computer-science department. Students apply after their sophomore year.

Julie Forster of Saint Paul Pioneer Press and Levi J. Long of The Seattle Times contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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