College Graduates Are Frustrated With the Developer Recruiting Process

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Devpost has released the second edition of its annual Student Hacker Report, which takes a look at how students feel about, look for, and evaluate their tech career options.

More than 1,700 college students from at 80 hackathons across the U.S. were surveyed about expected compensation and longevity expectations, what students value most when evaluating a job or internship offer, and the key pain points they feel during their job search.

One of the interesting insights from the report is that graduates are having trouble with the standard developer recruitment processes. Among the top three issues are:

- Difficulty finding desirable job opportunities due to lack of information

- Job applications don’t represent them effectively

- Interviews are stressful and unproductive

When asked what students felt about applying online, the top responses were:

- Too time consuming

- Job posts are often out of date / already filled

- They are cumbersome and duplicate information / tasks

- No way to apply to lots of jobs all at once

- Platforms lean too heavily on résumés

Other findings of the report include:

- Colleagues are key: People are the single most important factor to students when considering a job offer - 35% of students value information about their future colleagues more than other considerations. (They want to know how potential colleagues interact with each other, what they enjoy most about their jobs, and what their skills and background are.)

- For internships, students want to learn more than they want to earn - 38% of students said learning was more important than compensation when comparing internship offers.

- Salary expectations are high: Students expect to earn between $70,000 and $100,000 right out of school, and to receive a $20,000 to $30,000 raise within their first five years on the job.