A report by the IT&T Skills Task Force in June 1999 indicated a strong growth in most areas in the ICT industry, and an anticipated difficulty in finding enough suitably qualified graduates in the future [D.04]. As such, there has been many government initiatives aimed at producing enough graduates to satisfy the demands of the industry. However, despite a dramatic increase in the number of ICT graduates in recent years, employers continue to complain of skill shortages. The Australian Computer Society’s 2003 Remuneration Survey shows a continuing decline for ICT skills, with many ICT professionals losing their jobs [D.04].

Why has the increased number of ICT graduates Report of the Discipline Review of Computing Studies and Information Sciences Educationnot satisfy the demands of the industry? Have the skills of ICT professionals become obsolete? Are there other highly sought after skills that employers look for, but cannot find in recent ICT graduates? In other words, are university courses providing the necessary set of skills that employers seek in graduates?

Generally, employers do not complain about the lack of technical skills. This means the universities have done an excellent job in that respect. However, employers do point out some non-technical attributes that they wished were available in graduates. These attributes are:

Oral communication skills

Employers mentioned oral communication skills first and foremost. The myth of the lone programmer is long gone. ICT professionals need to communicate with management, co-workers and clients. Real world jobs require professionals to apply specialized leading-edge technology to solve problems as well as the ability to work as a member of a team [JJ03]. Studies have shown that software development is not an isolated activity. ICT professionals spend more than half their time in the workplace interacting in various ways with co-workers and clients [PDEG94].

Professional technical writing

Most projects in the industry require extensive documentation throughout the entire software development life cycle. These documents need to be clear, professional, and easily understood by different stakeholders. Hoewever, professional technical writing is a rare skill that is highly sought after in the industry [JJ03].

Project Managements skills

Employers are constantly on the look out for future leaders. Most of the time, the first step into a management position is being a project manager. Also, considering that a large portion of real world projects either fail, go over-budget, or extend over-time, sound project management skills could contribute greatly to a company’s bottom-line.

Concern for users

In an increasingly competitive industry, companies have become customer-focused. This means that being an user support personnel not only requires technical skills, but also a genuine concern for users. Unfortunately, ICT professionals are not renowned for their helpful attitudes and they have been accused of being rude, not caring about user problems, and making users look stupid [J.98].

Work experience

Employers often complain that graduates lack the ability to learn from on-the-job training and understanding of their business processes [D.04]. In an industry where technology advancements become obsolete very quickly and average company sizes are less than 10, employers do not have the time and resource to train graduates for a long period of time. Most graduates are expected to have transferable skills and completed industry placements [D.04].