ICT Labor Haven

At the ICT Human Resources Day (iDay) 2013 held last week in HCMC by QTSC, many local and foreign enterprises said that the human resources demand of Vietnam’s ICT industry and especially QTSC is huge as Vietnam has become a prestigious outsourcing destination.

Quang Trung Software City (QTSC) is on its way to teaming up with foreign investors in human resource training for Vietnam’s information and communication technology (ICT) industry. Cooperating with South Korea’s Soongsil University is among the latest examples.

At the ICT Human Resources Day (iDay) 2013 held last week in HCMC by QTSC, many local and foreign enterprises said that the human resources demand of Vietnam’s ICT industry and especially QTSC is huge as Vietnam has become a prestigious outsourcing destination.

Furthermore, training and recruitment formats have changed when fewer firms are patient enough to wait for new graduates. Instead they actively choose excellent senior students and send them to software projects on internship or to short-term training courses conducted by foreign organizations. After the projects or courses, the best candidates would be recruited.

Lam Nguyen Hai Long, deputy director of QTSC, said this trend is on the rise and events like iDay are indeed very supportive of businesses’ effort to find suitable talents. QTSC held iDay 2013 to create a place where students could learn how CEOs start their business and how to impress employers. The organizing committee said many of these fi rms like SMS Management & Technology, TMA, GCS, GHP, Luxoft, FPT and LogiGear had found suitable candidates during iDay 2013.

In addition to iDay 2013, QTSC has picked developing human resources as one of its plans of prime importance in 2013. Activities varied from organizing short-term training courses for enterprises, supporting the Institute of Technology and Digital Education to organize tailored training courses, and so on.

Students scrutinize courses at a booth of Soongsil University at iDay 2013
held in HCMC last week

ICT training partnership

At the event, ICT training courses co-organized by Soongsil University (South Korea) and QTSC with the support of the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) were opened. These are shortterm ICT scholarship courses for 580 learners. Senior ICT students and programmers who have 3-5 years of experience are top priorities.

Especially, the 3D Movie course is new in Vietnam. Machines and equipment of the courses are imported from South Korea, helping learners quickly access advanced technologies so that they can easily put freshly learned skills into practice. Lam Nguyen Hai Long said the program’s purpose is to help senior and programmers improve their practical skills so that they could adapt to and work at international companies. “We will evaluate the program’s effectiveness through regular surveys of learners. What you get from lessons and how you are when at work are our interests,” Long said.

Soongsil University also offers annual scholarships for learners from Soongsil ICT Center in Vietnam. After completing courses at the center, the top students will receive scholarships to join M.A. courses in South Korea or have great chance of landing a job at Korean ICT companies.

Soong Eun Ju, director of Soongsil ICT Center in Vietnam, said: “Vietnam’s ICT industry is developing and Vietnamese human resources are good at learning. However, the problem is that few of them have practical experience. Soongsil University has so far cooperated with QTSC with the support of KOICA to run short-term training courses. Offering high-quality ICT training courses and meeting orders of enterprises are a must. So it is essential if training courses either meet the demand of enterprises or are based on international standards.”

In 2012, in cooperation with Soongsil University, the HCMC Department of Information and Communications and the Ministry of Information and Communications, QTSC organized training courses for experienced programmers. In 2013, the courses are expanded to senior students to help them be more confi dent in the real environment. If everything is on the right track, KOICA will continue granting scholarships for Vietnamese ICT students in the years to come. QTSC expects it will receive more assistance from South Korean partners and neighboring nations.

By Tieu Nha – The Saigon Times Weekly