Reading Time: 4 minutes
INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS GIVE ADVICE ON HOW TO NAVIGATE CAREERS
Software engineers and developers create software applications, systems of records, and telecommunications software among other systems — and they are needed in almost every industry including government, security, healthcare, and research.
The Government of Canada projects that from 2019 to 2028, there will be approximately 27,500 job openings for software engineers and development in Canada. However, the government also projects that there will only be 24,000 job seekers within that time — who are either recent university graduates or migrants.
The government labels this trend a “labour shortage”, which means that there are more jobs in this sector than there are workers.
According to this report, job openings in these fields, which have a median pay of $45.67 per hour, are expected to increase faster than most other fields in Canada.
This is good news for Canadian computer science graduates because there is great possibility for job security.
In fact, 99.6 per cent of all University of Ottawa software engineering students received a placement in the 2020/2021 school year, according to Chantal Yelle, a team lead with the U of O’s co-op program.
“We are able to have these fabulous results, even during the pandemic … we are in a tech market, so there’s a lot of local demand,” said Yelle.
The demand for these workers is so high that the job market is more competitive for employers than it is for job seekers. For this reason, Yelle said, “many [software engineering and computer science] students receive offers after their placement from their co-op employers.”
According to the U of O, 89.6 per cent of university software engineering grads and 100 per cent of computer science graduates find jobs in their fields two years after graduation.
But, just because software engineers and developers are in high demand, it doesn’t mean this career path is easy.
Attracting prospective employers
Often, employers have high expectations for their employees. More specifically, employers want to hire well-rounded employees who have passion for their work.
“The trend in the last five years has been that employers are seeking employees with soft skills. They also want to make sure [new hires] can communicate, write, [are] emotionally intelligent, and are able to participate in a group,” said Yelle.
For this reason, software engineering program coordinators added a mandatory class entitled, “Professional Communication and Responsibility” to the course sequence. In this class, students learn how to write reports, communicate effectively, and engage in collaborative projects.
Yelle also said, “employers are interested in students who are involved in [extracurricular] work.”
This is why employers are likely to notice applicants who “teach themselves programming languages, who participate in hackathons, and who work with their student association.”
Dominic Gagné a University of Guelph alumnus with a master’s in computer science. In conjunction with his academic achievements, Gagné pushed himself to learn as much as he could before and throughout his career. Now, he is a software developer for one of the largest multinational technology companies in the world.
“One aspect of my job is to manage resources for other companies, which means that if there’s code that is not working as expected in a data centre I am expected to help fix that problem,” said Gagné.
<…….