What are IT employers looking for in both school leavers and tertiary graduates

Attitude over Aptitude
agiliitygroup

Attitude
an innate ability to learn quickly
employers will compromise on skills but not on attitude
high rate of organisational change
workplace presure
abundance of online resources
skill shortages opens up opportunities to look outside the 'norm'

Factors that are working for your right now
no sign of easing in tight labour market
huge amount of work on attraction and retention of future talent (airnz employing people to use bebo to make airnz attractive and look for jobs
'corporate predation'
technology indifference

Three things you should know
1. Importance of research, no excuses-wealth of online resources, the importance of workplace culture, visions and values(why are these important to companies like telecom, microsoft, vodafone), leverage social networking tools (linkedin.com)
2. All about ME, Team fit is everything(include sports, activies, community work, what motivates you outside your studies), grapping with Gen Y(corporates are still strugging with Gen Y , th difference in values and focus, garmmar, loyal not to the brand but to the individuals), Technology Indifference(what language, not as inportant, breth), Profiling(personality profiling, idea of areas they can work on, improve)?
3. Know what we look for
A willingness to keep learning, learn from mistakes, positive attitude to change, self starter(get ahead of the game), 'wnat' the job rather than 'need' it.