Date: 2010-09-01 Category: News

Graduates urged to brush up on open source skills

Aspiring developers should get involved with open source projects to improve their programming skills and gain a competitive edge when looking for employment, specialist IT recruitment consultancy IntaPeople has said.

The statement follows new research from the firm, which revealed that only 10 of all the developer roles filled in the last 12 months included junior positions.

IntaPeople believes that pursuing open source projects is an excellent way of graduates bolstering their CVs and convincing more businesses to take a chance on them.

Stephen Riley, director at IntaPeople, said:

There are literally thousands of open source projects across the net that graduates can sink their teeth into. Free platforms such as Microsofts Visual Studio Express series means that it costs very little to get involved, too.

From what we have seen, open source projects can play an important part in expanding the knowledge of upcoming developers. They also provide a key insight into what it is like to work on shared projects with a number of like-minded individuals.

With so many graduates currently out of work and only a relatively small percentage of firms turning to younger workers, open source assignments offer an excellent opportunity for keen developers to chalk up some relevant experience and improve their employability.

In July, IntaPeople announced that C# and ASP.NET developers topped the bill as the most sought-after IT staff for the first part of 2010. However, these latest findings suggest that graduates may need to do more to persuade businesses to overlook more experienced workers in their favour.

To view IntaPeoples previous research of the UKs most popular IT staff, visit www.intapeople.com

For more information contact Steven Florey at IntaPeople