Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation
ICT Skills Report: Discussion
2:15 pm
Mr. Sean O'Sullivan:
It probably depends on the employer. We are doing work that requires brilliant minds, creative minds and creative problem solving. Most of the software industry is like that, in fact. Perhaps Mr. Sweetman could speak on this question also. Sometimes there is a tendency among recruiters to say a person needs to have a certain skill such as JavaScript, or they need to have HTML5 or whatever. However, most of the time those skills can be learned in a matter of two or three months, enough to be good at it. I knew 19 computer programming languages by the time I was 19 years of age. If one is good enough at something it is not difficult to pick up a different set of similar skills. Employers such as those I mentioned might as well be saying "I would like to hire a mechanic who uses only wrenches." That does not work; one must have the ability to use blowtorches, wrenches and other tools. As an industry we do not need totally hyper-focused people; we need problem solvers. It is a contrast. I do not know if my colleague can explain it better.