Student’s question

After a visit to recruit students, a hiring manager told me: “Most Asian students have very good technical knowledge but they only know what are taught in school. Very few know about things outside of their field of study. It seems that many do not follow global trends. That is a major weakness because today, company expects more from workers than just technical knowledge.” He suggested that I encourage students to pay more attention to global trends.

Another manager told me about a job interview when he asked an Asian student to comment on the “flat world”. The student thought it was a trick question. She said: “The world is round, not flat”. When he explained that what he meant was the term “Flat world” as it is used in globalization. The student answered: “I never heard of the term “Flat world” or “Globalization”. They are not taught in our class.” The hiring manager was shocked.

When I mentioned about this situation to Asian students, one of them explained: “Our parents told us to focus only on school works and do not pay attention to anything else. We are here to study; our parents will take care of other things.” Another student said: “We are told to not worry about the economy or what happen somewhere else until we graduate. Our focus is strictly on school work.”

I explained: “What your parents advised you was not to let “unnecessary things” distract you from your study. They did not mean that you should ignore events that may impact your future. Today, technical knowledge is not enough; you need to have knowledge about the world around you. You need to understand the economy trends that will impact you. You need to know about globalization and how it operates since you are part of it. You need to know about industry trend as it influences your career. Today there is much information available on the internet. There are so many books, articles, and websites that you should read. You should not wait until graduate to learn about them. It will be too late. College is the time to learn; to develop skills and expand knowledge and to build your character. Only by having proper knowledge then you can make the right decision. Only by having broad knowledge than you can set the right direction for your career.”

A student asked: “Why do we need to know about globalization? We are information technology (IT) students, not economic or business students.

I explained: “There are two things that change our world dramatically in the past 30 years: globalization and technology. The 21st century is dominated by globalization. But few people understand that globalization is rooted in Information Technology (IT). Without understand IT, you may not understand globalization and how technology enables the movement of ideas and products all over the world. IT is changing the way companies do business. As IT students, you need to know about this phenomenon so you can take advantage of it.”

“In past hundred years, economists often advocated that the best way to grow the economy is to create more products, sell more things, and export more products. To do that a country needs more factories, more products, and more people or growing more jobs. So job creation is the symbol of a strong economy. Most developed countries were following this advice. From the U.S., UK, France, to Germany, Japan, S. Korea etc. Many factories were built, many products were developed to export and many jobs were created. When people have jobs, they want to buy more things so the economy is depending on the “Consuming of things” also. Export to outside market and consume in internal market are the main drivers for growing a strong economy.”

With globalization, the basic principle does not change but there is a subtle change that not many people notice. To continue growing, companies must expand their business because the world is a big market but it also leads to more competition among companies. To compete they have to lower costs and many companies outsource to overseas factories where cost is lower. In that case, companies are creating jobs in another country while reducing jobs at home. To grow the business, companies must invest in technology such as robotics, process automation that enabling efficient production of products and services. Efficiency also reduces number of labor jobs. Since speed is important as most business transactions are done by computer, companies must streamline all operations, using information technology to automate the flow of data for faster processing and decision making. This also reduces a lot of office jobs. Basically the fundamental principles of create more, sell more, export more to increase profits are still the same but it is no longer focusing on creating jobs anymore. Today, we are experiencing the unemployment of labor workers all over the world, especially in developed country but it began to spread to others as well.”

“The transition from the industrial age, where factory and labor workers dominate the business, to the information age, where information technology and automation replace labor workers already began. Globalization is about competition across borders. When people buy two similar products, most choose the one with the lower price. The company that has efficient solutions leading to lower priced products will succeed. The essence of this new business is not about job growth but efficiency. The question is where efficiency comes from? It came from information technology. Today companies are increasingly looking for workers who have, in addition to technical skills, solid business knowledge and soft skills such as communication and listening abilities. IT students must understand this need.”

“Communication skills are a requisite for all IT workers. Since companies are expanding all over the world, a strong skill in English language is necessary. Workers must understand business process, how it operates and how data flow across functional areas. Workers must also understand accounting and finance to build a deep knowledge of how the business is managed. Because technology is complex, it requires team of experts to work together so teamwork is another skill that every worker must have. IT Students must understand these requirements.”

Today, most companies cannot find enough skilled people to meet their needs. In every newspaper, there are often two different headlines: “High unemployment” and “Supply is not keeping up with demand for skilled workers”. If you look at the latest employment statistics, you will find that the number of demand for IT workers is growing at a faster rate than the overall workforce. That has pushed the salary for IT employment to an all time high, with no signs of slowdown anytime soon. Currently the U.S. has approximately 4 million IT workers but the demand is estimated at 5 million in 2010 and 8 million in 2015. Where do they find these people? IT outsourcing is only one possible solution. Another solution is changing immigration law to bring in skilled IT workers from another country. Last month both Canada and the U.S passed new laws to allow highly skilled workers to immigrate and work in their countries. Last year, the U.S alone spent over $200 billion dollars on IT outsourcing. It is predicted that it could go to $400 billion dollars in the next five years if the IT skilled workers could not be solved. However, in this election year, outsourcing is consider a “bad policy” as it means taking jobs away from its citizens so the U.S government stated that they prefer to have more skilled workers to come and work (and pay taxes) rather than to outsource. Among the list of critical IT occupations that are in high demand includes: Software project managers; Computer scientists (Architect); Software engineers; Business systems analysts; Information System Manager; Computer support specialists (SQA, CM, Security etc.); Database administrators, Network systems administrators; Data communications analysts; and computer programmers/Testers. As IT students, you need to know about this trend too.”

With globalization, many IT workers may not work in their country or in local market. Some will work for global companies and probably being relocated to wherever there are demands. In that case, they must be prepared and ready when job opportunity come. My question is: “Are you ready for this opportunity?” If not then “When will you be ready?”.

Prof John Vu 

Carnegie Mellon University
Original source:http://johnvublog.com/?p=247