New graduates' knowledge of Software development works: what they need and how they learn

Abstract

The process of preparing the new graduate software developers (NGSDs) by organizations to become productive team members is challenging task on the parts of the organizations, likewise, starting job as a NGSDs is incredibly challenging time in the graduates‟ lives. This is because both the organizations and new graduates are challenged differently as both seek to bridge the gap between the skills taught in educational institutions, and the industry expected skill sets. These challenges coupled with high demand for software-development professionals in New Zealand, and this includes new graduates with a decline in the number of students enrolling in computer Science/Software Engineering in NZ meant that the old strategies, software companies were using to recruit and train staff had to change in order for them to stay competitive. Following the above preliminary knowledge, Jackstones is venturing on improving its new graduate's recruitment and preparation process and need to understand the proper ways to identify the knowledge needs of the new software-development graduates that it recruits and how to train them. This is aimed at positioning the new graduates into talented staff that the organization desires; capable of fitting its culture. Moreover, it is arduous to determine correctly the knowledge needs of the new graduates to work effectively in organizations without understanding this from the view of the organizations and the new graduates.

This study hoped that understanding the knowledge needs of the new graduates and how they learn once hired by organizations will benefit future hiring organizations:

• To recruit, train and retain new graduates that will serve as its intangible assets/increased its competitive advantage in the long term • To develop new graduates capable of delivering reliable software products • To guarantee that its employees know what they are doing • To increase the possibilities of obtaining more serious outcomes for itself and its clients • To understand/improve its recruitment/training programs for the new graduates • To lessen its cost and lessen the challenges that it encounters with new graduate recruitment/training.

On the part of the new graduates, it is believed that this study will benefit them:

• To understand/reduce complexities of software development • To understand the job they actually desire to do (career path) • To understand different ways to develop software • To understand specific knowledge to work environment • To work well within the team and with the customers • To cope with real/anticipated challenges • To develop better industry knowledge for future career progression

The issue was investigated through conducting semi-structured interview involving 6 participants out of which 4 were new graduate software developers. The others were an expert software developer and a manager respectively. All interviews were conducted via Skype's call; each lasted between 30 minutes to 1 hour and was audio recorded/transcribed. The data were analysed through thematic content analysis supported by a literature review and taxonomy of the knowledge framework was applied to the data to categorise the types of knowledge found during the investigation.

This case study was conducted on Jackstones, a New Zealand based software development/Information Technology Management Company. It is a large organisation that recruits and develops dozens of software developers annually, and this includes a big number of new graduates. It is an award-winning company whose products and services contribute greatly to the IT sector in NZ.

On one hand, it was found that the organisation faced a set of challenges in enrolling and preparing new graduates each year. It too faced enormous challenges in finding talented graduates to recruit. These were as a result of the decline in the number of students who enrol in computer science and software engineering courses. Furthermore, there is an increase in the number of companies needing the graduates in NZ. On the other hand, the new graduates that it recruits also faced a lot of challenges such as challenges of understanding the project size and complexities, lack of project-related knowledge/uncertainties, pressure due to less time to learn and the need to do the actual work. It was moreover, found that the knowledge the new graduates brought with them were not explored properly by the organization. Further findings were that substantial knowledge gap exists between what the new graduates knew and what the organization needed. A common, example was the lack of soft skills, such as communication and people skills, which contributed to the challenges of training them, etc.

The study concluded by recommending that the organisation places more emphasis on soft skills when recruiting and to recruit on core competencies rather than on knowledge. It should adopt the use of more interns to create rapport with the students and the universities to attract these students before they graduate, and so on.