Students

What job shortage? Firms go begging for high-tech talent

Outsourcing, offshoring and the dot-com meltdown have taken their toll: Students are avoiding information-systems careers. However, companies still need high-tech talent, and are facing increasing difficulty in filling positions. Experts at the W. P. Carey School of Business discuss the factors contributing to the shortage of IS workers and the misperceptions preventing students from pursuing these plentiful and high-paying careers.

2008-03-12

When Microsoft's Randy Guthrie clicks to the first meaty slide in his on-campus presentation, it reads, "13,000 — What does this number mean to Microsoft?" After pausing a second or two, Guthrie clicks to his next slide, which tells his audience that 13,000-plus is the number of jobs currently unfilled at Microsoft, a company that employs some 80,000 people worldwide. Guthrie is an academic relations manager, so he gives this slide presentation at colleges and universities across the United States. Through it, he aims to entice more students back into information systems careers. And, he's not alone in the quest to attract high-tech talent. Robert St. Louis, professor of information systems at the W. P. Carey School of Business, meets chief information officers and other IT executives often. They come to his school regularly to address students and share how IT supports their companies. "Every employer I've talked to says they can't find enough people to hire," St. Louis maintains. "There are internships that aren't getting filled new positions that aren't getting filled. Every employer says programs like ours are not turning out enough people." Running scared The W. P. Carey School's information systems department would love to change that, but it needs students enrolled in classes and graduate programs first. Back when dot-com businesses were young and booming, the school had 75 students enrolled in a dual master's program that covered both business and information systems. That program now has far fewer students. This year, there are five. A similar exodus was seen at Cal Poly Pomona, a school where Microsoft's Guthrie was a professor of information systems. "When I joined Cal Poly in 1999, it had 1,600 students in the major. When I left two years ago, it had 200," he says. Nationwide, Guthrie maintains, enrollments in college-level computer science programs have dropped as much as 70 percent compared to enrollments of 10 years ago. "Information systems are down a similar degree." The difference, he explains, is that computer science is more about creating technology through hardware and code, while information systems is about creating and implementing business solutions. Guthrie compares the two disciplines to chemistry versus medicine. Which area needs more students? "I would say information systems, because every company uses IS, but not every company needs a scientist," he notes. Along with a shortage of students in the pipeline, employers face aging workforce problems. Michael Goul, a W. P. Carey School professor of information systems, recalls hearing the CIO from a Schwab brokerage operation bemoan the number of his vital workers who are nearing retirement. According to Goul, the median age of this CIO's employees is somewhere in the late 40s. "That means half the people are older than that." Offshoring — the transfer of jobs from U.S. to overseas workers — is one reason students shun the IS field, say all of these experts. "I was listening to National Public Radio this morning, and someone was reporting on the number of jobs that have been offshored since the last presidential election," recalls Angelo Kinicki, a W. P. Carey school management professor. "It's doubled. And, guess what the number one area for offshoring jobs is? Information technology." "Workers think that if you get into this major, there are no jobs," Goul adds. "But you can't outsource the types of activities that run a power plant, for example. You may outsource an IT project, but keeping things running at home is still a priority." The changing landscape Along with fear of offshoring, there is another misperception surrounding high-tech jobs and the college majors that prepare students for them. "People think information systems means you'll end up programming," says Guy Groff, director of the W. P. Carey School's Graduate Career Management Center. Although he admits that people who move through the school's combined MBA and Master of Science in Information Management (MSIM) program will exit with an understanding of technology, he also says that's not what employers need or why they eagerly hire graduates. Employers, he maintains, need people who can handle "management of technology in business. It requires all the leadership skills, strategic vision and project management ability used in any management career." St. Louis adds: "The programming part is what you can outsource. What employers want are people who can be business analysts." That's because IT is a key to competitive advantage, he suggests. "Computer processing is getting less expensive, while human processing is getting more expensive," he says. "You have to figure out where you can substitute computer processing for human processing." He points to views he heard from workers at Google as an example. According to him, if Googlers can't figure out a way to automate a process, "they try to figure out a how to get rid of it." Plus, he says, companies understand the price of customer churn, so they're increasingly focused on customer-relationship management, which means figuring out what customers value and giving it to them. Harrah's, the gaming and hotel giant, is one company he sees analyzing those data and applying the lessons wisely. For instance, executives there used to think that out-of-towners were their big money makers in a casino hotel, but research showed that the most profitable customers were local professionals who visited on weekends or evenings. "For them, getting a free room didn't mean anything. Giving them a bonus — free poker chips — meant a lot," St. Louis notes. Business intelligence applications gave Harrah's the insights it needed to target locals and raise loyalty among those bread-and-butter customers. And, business intelligence takes IS savvy. Bringing workers along Therein lies yet another challenge for companies and the IS people they're chasing. Jobs have changed. Chances are, people haven't. "Research shows that people gravitate toward careers that are consistent with who they are," says the W. P. Carey School's Kinicki. "Historically, IT people are introverted, analytical, logical " Now, he maintains, businesses need these introverts to transform themselves from detail-oriented doers to highly flexible people managers. "If companies are outsourcing, what does that mean for executives?" he asks. "Not only do managers need to know IT and the business, now they have to manage diversity, understand cultural differences and develop interpersonal skills" associated with handling personnel virtually. Such managers need to be adaptable, he says. As it turns out, adaptability is an area of research for Kinicki, and he has a constellation of personality traits that companies can seek to find employees capable of weathering the gusts of business change. Those traits include openness to change, resilience, proactive behavior, motivation and the degree to which someone identifies with work. "You'll have to find people with these traits, develop them, and then try to keep them," he says. Meanwhile, schools will need to train them, and Michael Goul says they are starting to rise to that challenge. "There used to be just a handful of master's programs for the working professional," he says. "Now, when you search for a master of science in information systems program, you can find a couple dozen." He also sees more businesses paying for the master of information systems, and he says that businesses generally only footed the bill for MBAs in the past. Ahead, though, he feels more businesses should open their doors to internships. Such opportunities went away with the dot-com bust and haven't been resumed to the degree they're needed. Cashing in with IT Speaking of opportunities, Microsoft's Guthrie hopes people will start to recognize how many of them IS careers offer. Citing statistics compiled last year by the American Electronics Association, he points out that the high-tech industry ended 2006 with a net addition of 150,000 jobs to the U.S. economy, up from 87,400 in 2005. These figures, he notes, come from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and are collected directly from businesses in compliance with state laws. The American Electronics Association study also projects a 36 percent growth rate for computer engineers and MIS professionals over the next 10 years, making these two of the fastest growing occupations around. They're ones with high pay, too. Guthrie notes an average annual salary of $75,000, which is 86 percent more than average private-sector wages overall in the U.S., he maintains. The pay advantage starts as soon as students leave college. A 2007 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found starting salaries of $54,600 for mechanical engineering graduates, $51,700 for those who studied computer science, $46,500 for entry-level accountants and $32,500 for liberal arts students. At the W. P. Carey School, last year's MBA students who majored in information management had a 100 percent placement record. Those graduates earned an average yearly salary of $92,000, versus $81,938 for the folks who specialized in Marketing and Services Leadership. And, according to placement-guru Groff, such graduates have enjoyed a 100-percent placement record for the past 10 years. "After Y2K, the Internet bust and the financial crisis that followed, people thought IT was not the career to choose," he says. "But it is. It's still very strong. Don't shy away from technology." Bottom line

• Outsourcing, offshoring and the dot-com meltdown have taken their toll: Students are avoiding IS careers.
• Companies still need IS experts, and now there is a huge shortage of them.
• Schools need to raise IS-department enrollments. Companies should open more doors via internships.
• Students should recognize that IS careers are plentiful and stable.

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