» uk-netmarketing: roundup: 23-06-2000

Students: all work and no play?
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - June 23, 2000

Despite the recent rollercoaster ride for new media companies, the clamouring for good staff is still deafening. This was clearly demonstrated by the almost frenzied activity of recruitment consultants chasing ex-Boo.com staff in the days after the company’s collapse.

Tim Hayward kicked things off with a quote from Fast Company magazine, "... KPMG did a poll of college seniors about their work expectations. Fully 74% of those students said that they expect to become millionaires..." He continued, "Hands up anyone who's interviewed a graduate in the last year who showed potential beyond listening for the beep of the timer on a deep fat fryer."

Manou Marzban responded, "A bit harsh Tim - I guess it depends what schools KPMG surveyed, I would expect Wharton, LSE, Thunderbird, INSEAD, Harvard etc grads to have ambition. And many think they can make it happen via dot.com. And if they surveyed a bunch of useless schools...well, yes, the grads may not know their beeper from an eggplant."

Lois Grayson emailed, "I'm a D&AD judge this year and the creative standards were pretty poor for the category I was looking at - corporate branding. V little freedom of spirit, v little creative confidence. And backed by some extremely woolly rationales." Lois also had some advice, "Heaven help us - asked to comment for the awards directory I wanted to say ' go out, get drunk, get high, get laid - please!' I know it's been a long time since I was a student but when did undergraduates get so hidebound? What should have been a pleasure was quite soul-destroying."

Tim Hayward rued the passing of student grants. He wrote, "I gave up lecturing at my old college when I found myself standing at the podium staring into the dead eyes of 200 soulless yuppie fucks. I could never work out how a hotbed of student radicalism had become a greenhouse for aspirational vampires. In reality, I suppose I was the last generation paid for with public funds, but the change was disorientatingly swift. Sometimes, though, I get the same feeling talking at industry functions. What I find exciting about this industry is its ability to sneak under the radar."

Richard Gale added, "...is it there fault, or are the theories that we teach them so outdated due to the fact that the majority of lectures have not ‘worked’ in any industry for over a decade! This industry in particular needs to play a more pro-active role in education, so that we stop getting people that still thing that a SWOT analysis and sticking the however many P’s you can remember will serve you good!"

Jonathan Peterson argued that the industry ought to look more closely at training, rather than expect universities to do it all. He emailed, "I don't really subscribe to this view. It is not the job of universities to provide industry with a nice supply of pre-formatted workers. It's the job of universities to improve the mental faculties of their students. No matter what you teach them, graduates will have a huge amount to learn when they start work. I look for people with the ability and _INTEREST_ in learning that they will need. The last thing I want is some 20 year old who did a 'Java Servlets in the Web Environment' module at university and will now attempt to start every customer job thinking he knows just how to go about this. I'd far rather have a student who was taught proper programming techniques ... is now keen to learn not only about PHP/Java/Vignette/Perl/etc but also about all the other stuff that goes with actually doing work for customers. What I _would_ like to see are more work placement options as part of University courses, so graduates have at least some experience of real work. The other thing the industry is sorely lacking is any concept of training staff. People will pay an agency thousands and thousands to find an employee with relevant experience, but won't even consider giving a junior employee money for a training course or even a weeks paid leave to let them teach themselves. Of course decent training courses are rather thin on the ground... there's a business opportunity for someone...."

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