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- Amy Edwards
Amy Edwards looks at why so few careers advisors and parents recommend the digital sector to students
As recruiters in the digital space will attest, business is booming at the moment. Companies of all shapes and sizes, including household names like Virgin Media, Bupa, AgeUK and House of Fraser, are really starting to invest in digital talent – and digital recruitment spend and budget is increasing on a weekly basis across the whole industry.
The roles on offer range from more traditional digital jobs like web development and graphic design to much newer roles such as social media and content management – and of course, with such a range of roles available, it makes sense that a range of skills and experience are needed to fill these vacancies.
With the digital sector on an upward curve and a recent prediction that around 750,000 “digitally-skilled workers” will be needed by 2017 to fill Britain’s digital potential you’d think parents would be steering their children towards the booming sector – but a recent study found that that couldn’t be further from the truth.
In June, O2 released research that suggests parents are less than enthusiastic about the digital sector, with one in 10 of the 2,000 parents they surveyed saying they would “actively discourage” their children from entering into the digital jobs market. Even more worryingly, the survey found that 23% of parents thought that digital skills such as web design and computer programming were “irrelevant”, while more than one in three said they would urge their children to go into a more traditional sector such as law or medicine.
The survey demonstrates just how much of a gap there is between parents’ knowledge of digital careers and their potential, and reality – and from our research we know they’re not the only ones.
We talk to higher education careers advisors on a regular basis – and we’re constantly hearing the same feedback – they’re not sure what jobs are involved in the digital sector (“Isn’t it just web development?”) and how their graduates can best enter the industry. With this lack of knowledge, they’re scared to urge students and graduates to enter the sector – and instead direct them to careers which they’re much more familiar with.
With such a lack of understanding from both careers advisors and parents, it’s no wonder that many entry-level candidates have no clue how their skills and experience fit into the sector and what a career in the digital industry could look like – how could they when the people they trust to give them help and advice are just as much in the dark?
Who’s to blame for this lack of knowledge?
It’s a tricky one. When we look at it from a parent’s point of view, unless they already work in the sector, the digital industry can seem a bit overwhelming. It’s fast-paced, it’s dynamic and there are buzzwords being thrown around left, right and centre. What’s more, apart from the fact that it can be hard to keep pace with the sector, I think another major issue lies in the fact that a lot of parents still see the sector as a bit of a fad – a bubble which is sure to pop at any second – and send millions running for their nearest job board.
Of course, the fact that they don’t necessarily understand the ins and outs of the sector isn’t an excuse for pushing their children away from the industry – but I think it is a major part of the problem – and it’s something the Government probably needs to address.
In terms of careers advisors, I know first-hand that the careers education they receive is sporadic and limited – so it’s no wonder they don’t have time to keep up with the digital industry when they’re trying to dish out advice to hundreds of students across multiple disciplines at any one time. That said; in terms of fixing this issue, I think it’s something that the digital industry needs to take into its own hands.
What the industry can do
One such initiative which is currently being run to address the issue is the European Commission Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs. This initiative was launched in 2013 and has been set up to try and address the predicted shortage of up to 900,000 skilled IT and digital workers across Europe by 2020 – and has been joined by major names such as Google, Samsung and Intel.
Now, while major names like this can commit to a promise of creating hundreds of jobs across Europe, there’s still a place in the coalition for smaller digital brands and companies.
For example, Bubble Jobs recently held its first pilot digital careers workshop with careers advisors from Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Salford, spending a morning sharing our industry knowledge and our advice, which they could then pass on to their students and fellow team members. The idea behind this is that if we can educate the UK’s careers advisors, they can educate the nation’s youth – and the skills shortage might not be as extreme in 2020 as anticipated.
While we can never guarantee that this kind of education initiative will help to push more prospective candidates into the digital sector, we can at least hope that they’ll be better equipped to make a decision on their future career path – and the potential industries that are available to them.
Amy Edwards is digital marketing manager at Bubble Jobs
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