Posted on 06/22/2009 12:40:47 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
OK, before you get your knickers in a twist, let's put the CEO's comments into context. Vineet Nayar, the highly respected CEO of HCL Technologies, one of India's hottest IT services vendors, was speaking this morning in New York City to an audience of about 50 customers and partners when he related a recent experience with an education official in a large U.S. state.
The official wanted to know why HCL, a $2.5 billion (revenue) company with more than 3,000 people across 21 offices in 15 states, wasn't hiring more people in his state. Vineet's short answer: because most American college grads are "unemployable." (In fairness to HCL, the company recently announced plans to open a delivery center in another state, North Carolina, and invest $3.2 million and hire more than 500 employees there over the next five years under a Job Development Investment Grant.)
Many American grads looking to enter the tech field are preoccupied with getting rich, Vineet said. They're far less inclined than students from developing countries like India, China, Brazil, South Africa, and Ireland to spend their time learning the "boring" details of tech process, methodology, and tools--ITIL, Six Sigma, and the like.
As a result, Vineet said, most Americans are just too expensive to train--despite the Indian IT industry's reputation for having the most exhaustive boot camps in the world. To some extent, he said, students from other highly developed countries fall into the same rut.
In an interview following his presentation, Vineet said HCL and other employers need to have a greater influence on the tech curricula of U.S. colleges and universities, to make them more real-world and rigorous. For the most part, he said, those institutions haven't been receptive to such industry partnerships.
More broadly, Vineet echoed the concerns expressed by other CEOs, including SAS Institute's Jim Goodnight and Cisco's John Chambers, about the failure of the U.S. education system to prepare the country's next-generation tech workforce (a subject Goodnight and others will dive into at the InformationWeek 500 Conference, Sept. 13 to 15).
Beyond the need to bolster competencies in math, the hard sciences, and basic problem solving, U.S. schools at all levels must place a greater emphasis on global history, foreign languages, and other subjects that prepare students for jobs and life outside this country. How many grads of U.S. colleges are ready or even willing to work abroad? Vineet asked rhetorically. "We need to define the American dream to be more global in nature," he said.
The cynical among you will counter that some American students, having seen tech jobs move to lower-wage countries or go to H1-B visa holders, have lost their appetite for process-oriented IT professions. But if this country's economic future is indeed rooted in technology--whether in health care, energy, transportation, or the tech industries themselves--then the status quo won't do.
Communism with a racist excuse is all ,the democrat hero uncle Joe once said cut the legs of the tall.
No, but they are moving greatly in tech/health care companies setting up shop there because they have one of the lowest corporate taxing structures. Developing yes, but not in the traditional sense of the word.
It took the "collective" efforts (which caused 95% of the problems) of about 20 people to do an inventory of a small warehouse in about a 1.5 month period working 10-12 hour days factoring in several restarts.
The head of the inventory unit was flown in to straighten things out and he went a long way towards it.
However I am still finding very basic problems that are lingering from that great collective effort. I have a certificate in basic accounting, some common sense, willingness to bother to read, and the ability to do a little physical work.
From the beginning I said and was backed up by the other few competent people that one small group of the best in the facility armed with laptops and wireless scanners have stations set up for everything to run through. All items then should be compared against the master list and any problem children be held back for further examination.
Instead it was deemed better to arm everyone with notepads and pens to write down everything for later comparison. Never mind that most of them had no idea what they were looking at or really even doing.
Why do things right in one or two attempts when you can do it over again and again halfway?
bump
“proofread” is a compound word that only recently has been accepted as acceptable spelling.
It is only preference in usage that matters now, just like using “can not, cannot, or can’t”.
I have seen “proof’d” used. Do you think that is an acceptable contraction, or should it always be spelled out as a combination word, or can it still be separate words?
you’re right — I’d suggest Italian or French, though I like Polish as well now!
The problem is that if folks keep thinking that “ah, it’s just the 3rd world, who cares”, they’ll suddenly realise in a few years that those third world nations have caught up, and quickly. It will be just like the 50s and 60s when the US was undisputed # 1 in everything and disdained rice-burners and Jerry wagons....
why don’t we have scientists and inventors as transcendental figures? like the intel ad?
Well, I couldn’t resist.
One of the 60’s downsides was the reduction of the role of Science, and the concept of Progress, and the values of the Enlightenment in general.
The explosion of a good, Higher Education for more people, paradoxically led to the devaluation of college degrees, as what are essentially frivolous topics, or alleged professionalism degrees proliferations (Waste of Mass Degrees - WMD), buttressed by colleges being staffed with individuals who, if not in love with Stalinism, nevertheless imbibed Marcuse, Gramsci and Said to instil in young minds only the wrongs of Western Civ, not its many and incredible benefits (try not using the crapper for a week, and that’s a 140+ year old technology!).
The Supercharged Entertainment industry propogated antiScience thrillers, and a general ethos of untrustworthy scientists. Now, there were always mad scientists and all in the 50’s (THEM, giant ants in Nevada’s nukes sites) but science was not inherently evil, contrast with how the China Syndrome essentially treated an industry as evil, along with the science behind it.
Arts, Self Expression and the creative trades became romantic and sexy. Even the hipness of 90’s geeks faded. Despite being children of technology, they and their peers, being heavily indoctrinated, have chosen to go with the conventional wisdom of fashionable malaise deriding the science of mankind as a deviation from our humanity.
Rosa Klebb says it best at 1:03.
Lots of words :) basically it’s hip to be dumb, no, eh? or rather, YO!
Holy cow.
It took 24 posts for someone to stand up and say “bunk”.
Thanks.
The amount of schaudenfreud on this board bashing American workers, never ceases to amaze (and discourage) this poster.
The GOP or conservatives are never again going to win an election - if they’re not looking out for AMERICA.
Not “pulling a Galt”. But jumping in with sleeves rolled up and fighting FOR America. Our jobs. Our trade balance. Our factories. Our nation.
Thanks for standing up for American IT.
Remember. This is where it all started.
If we would stop shipping all those jobs offshore at the slightest wage difference - it would stay here.
Time for a good old fashioned trade war.
AMERICA FIRST.
We went to my daughter in law’s college graduation last month ... it was a small ‘leading edge” college within a major university.
Some graduated with majors in ‘gender,’ and other such rigorous majors .. not only that, they were offered fellowships to pursue their studies in ‘marginalized sexual minorities’ (GLTB). I wondered what kind of parents paid tuition for that for four years? What university is paying for the graduate work? Better they learn four years learning how to fix a car.
When did Ireland become a developing nation? They seem pretty developed to me.
I don’t think that Asian countries such as India are going to catch up at all, I think they will overtake us and keep accelerating away from us over the next 50 years. Not only is the East rising, the West is declining horribly. The latter was not occuring (at least nowhere near as rapidly) during the 50s. It will be their world by the end of the century, and there will be little room in it for Westerners (though there will not be many of us around by then anyway).
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