Students

Recruiting 2.0: IS Department's new, tech-savvy efforts dispel myths, recruit CIS majors

Misperceptions about the IT and information systems field abound among today’s high school and college students. As a result, enrollment in technology majors has dropped off at colleges and universities around the country. To combat this trend, the Department of Information Systems is launching a variety of new recruiting efforts to educate high school students, current W. P. Carey students and transfer students about the true nature—and available opportunities—of a technology-focused business degree.

2011-10-12

IT is boring. An IT job means sitting in a cubicle writing code for eight hours a day. And all the IT jobs are outsourced overseas, anyway. Unfortunately, these misperceptions about the information technology and information systems field abound among today’s high school and college students. As a result, enrollment in technology majors has dropped off at colleges and universities around the country. To combat this trend, the W. P. Carey School’s Department of Information Systems is launching a variety of new recruiting efforts aimed at educating high school students, current W.P. Carey students, and transfer students from local community colleges about the true nature — and available opportunities — of a technology-focused business degree. What’s got students so wary of technology careers? Michael Goul, professor and chair of the department of information systems, points to the off-shoring of IT jobs as well as the lingering aftertaste of the dot-com bust. In addition, he says, publicity about the role that IS plays in corporations is scarce when compared with other business disciplines. “Students understand the power of marketing, and they can read stories about the key niche that supply chain management plays. But examples of the exciting things going on in IT and IS are hard to come by because companies view IT as such a competitive weapon, they don’t want to talk about it,” he explains. Explaining the CIS niche But the biggest challenge in luring current and future ASU students to select a Computer Information Systems (CIS) major is getting them to understand what the degree is truly about. “First and foremost, our students are not programmers writing code,” Goul explains. “Our students learn to translate business needs into the design of the algorithms that go in that code.” That niche can be complicated for students to wrap their heads around, Goul admits. As an example of the role trained IS professionals can play, Goul points to the 2010 U.S. stock market ‘Flash Crash,’ when, in a span of 20 minutes, the Dow Jones lost and regained nearly 600 points. An SEC investigation revealed that flaws in the algorithms underlying automated stock-trading programs were to blame for the rapid crash. “The code was developed and put in this real-time environment of stock trading without the proper business knowledge,” Goul explains. “These algorithms are extremely powerful when they are implemented, so organizations need a person who has general knowledge in business and technology to make sure that translation goes right. That’s the gap that our CIS students are trained to fill.” In order to dispel these myths and get students to understand the vast potential career opportunities that come with a CIS degree, the department is embracing a new approach to student recruitment, centered largely on social media. Instead of the traditional route — mailing out informational packets — the idea is to go where the potential students are: online. “We stood back and asked ourselves, ‘How do the students that we have now engage and work with each other?’ Of course, they go right to Facebook,” Goul explains. So the department created a new Facebook page aimed at prospective students as well as career counselors, high school principals, and parents. The page will contain department and student videos; information on how to apply to the program; facts about the IS department; graduation and job statistics; links to the student organization, DISC and its events; as well as articles that contain pertinent industry information. “We hope this page will help students and career counselors to better understand our major,” explains Emily Galindo-Elvira, student services specialist for the department. A personal approach “Facebook is a more personal way for us to connect with incoming students,” says Chas Tinker, ’13, a junior CIS major who helped develop the Facebook page and will serve as its administrator. “Interested students can post questions on the page and receive answers directly from our undergraduate advisors. That’s a far cry from the typical experience, where students sit through a prepared speech at an orientation and try to figure out if the major is a good fit for them.” “CIS is the only major in the business school where you can get a wide variety of jobs. If you study accounting or finance, for instance, you have to find a job really closely related to that, but with this major, you can end up in all kinds of positions,” Saperstein says. In addition, Saperstein credits the IS department’s tactic of bringing in younger alumni to talk to students about the immediate impact a CIS degree can have with sparking her interest. “I remember being at ASU and hearing presentations from senior people in the IT industry, and a lot of what they said went right over my head. But when they brought back alumni that were fresh out of school, I listened more closely,” explains Saperstein, who today has come full circle, returning to ASU on behalf of Intel to attend career fairs, DISC meetings and events, and IS department events like a recent CIS mixer. “I hope, by speaking to current students, that I can explain why CIS is a great pick for a major and show them what you can do right away with this degree,” she says. Saperstein is also proof that the misperceptions about CIS are just that. She quickly found a solid position as part of a business intelligence team in Intel’s supply chain department and does not, as she puts it, “sit by myself writing code all day.” “We work as a team nearly all the time. We get data from various sources and clean it up or make changes to it, and figure out ways to present that data to our internal customers using tools like analysis cubes or data charts,” she explains. “So it’s exactly like the degree — we have to know the business sites, understand the customers’ problems, and then figure out the best solutions.” Saperstein’s experience as a young graduate is fairly typical. Currently, there are more jobs for IS professionals than there are IS professionals to fill them, as technology experts are increasingly in demand at a wide variety of companies. According to the BLS, employment of computer and information systems managers is expected to grow 17 percent over the 2008-18 decade, which is faster than the average for all occupations. “Accounting and consulting firms now need people to manage information networks. Not programmers, but people who are prepared to do knowledge management, who understand how to integrate information from marketing and finance,” said Kevin Burns, director of the W.P. Carey undergraduate career center, in a recent article on Monster.com. Goul confirms this, pointing out that companies looking to recruit W.P. Carey grads are anxious to help spread the word about the benefits of a CIS degree because they need students trained in this discipline. “And,” he explains, “these companies are not coming into hire someone for that one shot of technical skills. They are looking for well-trained workers they can retain for the long haul.” The IS department’s new tech-savvy, social media-focused efforts to recruit students to the CIS major should help to fill that demand.  

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