Dr.

Muhammad Shaban Jokhio

B.E, M.E (MUET, PK), Ph.D. (UoAuck, NZ)
Asst. Prof. Dept. CSE, MUET Jamshoro

STUDENT SEMINAR ON CAREER COUNSELING

Arranged by Dept. of CSE, MUET, Jamshoro
 Introduction  Career in New Zealand
 Career objectives  About New Zealand
 Career essentials  IT Careers in NZ
 Career directions
 About Scholarships
 Education counseling  Pre-requisite for scholarships
 Higher Education in PK  About IELTS & GRE
 How to study smart  Scholarship hunting
 Communication skills
 Time management  Research Counseling
 Research methodologies
 Career in industry  Research attitude
 Career in Industry  About my research & directions
 Overview of an I.T industry
 Different roles in industry, responsibilities,  Self Employment
packages
 Self employment options in IT
 How to get in industry
 Latest tools and trends
 How to get into Industry  Conclusions
 I.T industry overseas  Summary and final words
 Career Objectives
 What are your career
objectives?
 Money?
 Certainly YES, but NOT
all

 High ambitious goals

 Respect
 Contribution to society
 Enhance skills
 Enjoy life
 Career essential
 Only counseling will not
help

 MUST achieve following

 Good academic grades
 Good knowledge & skills
 Proper guidelines
 Proper career planning
 Executing your plans &
achieving goals

 You must also know

how to study & work
smart
Higher Education (HE) in PK
 Literacy (58%) [1]

 HE (139 unis)  1.6m (0.89%)

 Total MS + M.Phil  1.16m (0.64%)
[2]
 Total Ph.D.s 8143 (.005%) [3]

 IT Professionals 7500/yr (50% 0f

demand) [4]
 Quality professionals 1000
(You have to aim this)

 HE Issues:
 Lowest access
 Quality (Intake, faculty, syllabus)
 Teaching methodology
 Practical implications
How to study smart
 Understand
 Never remember

 Ask (student-teacher gap)

 From teachers/ colleagues/
 Search and verify

 Write/Rewrite
 Write in your own words

 Do/Demonstrate
 Doing is learning
 Demonstrating is perfection
 Communication skills
 Team work group
study
 Make study groups
 Share topics, prepare
and explain to each
others

 Communication skills
 Communicate clearly
and briefly
 Participate in class
presentations
 Learn to present well
 Resource management
 Time management
 Study for concepts not exams
 Plan at Macro-level
 Manage and execute at micro-
level  use digital tools

 Health & Fitness

 Live with a proper working
pattern
 Eat a balance diet
 Light exercises daily

 Money
 Spend on health & resources
 Career directions
Academics S
E
L
F
A&R
Student University E
M
Research P
L
O
Y
B.E (CSE/SWE) M
R&D E
N
T

Industry
 Academic career
 Public sector universities
 (around 75+)
 Eligibility: Graduation first division + NTS
GRE (>=50%) [5]
 Contract role then permanent
 BPS-18+
 Tenure track  very handsome
packages
○ 100K to 400K (asst. to full prof.)

 Private Sector Universities
 Around 63
 Eligibility: Qualification and skills
 Handsome packages
 Many tertiary institutes
 Success keys
 Specialized Knowledge
 Communication & Leadership qualities
 Tolerance & passion
 Advantages
 Job security
 Balanced personal life
 Sharing experience
 Contribution to society
 Opportunities to enhance
qualifications and scholarships
 Disadvantages
 Less practical implication
 Unidirectional knowledge
 Skill enhancement limited
 Career in Industry
 Scope
 PSEB registered industries 1140

 Difficult entry:
 grades, certifications, strong
portfolio
 Start as junior developer/engineer

 Advantages  Industry attitude

 Opportunity to enhance skills  Accepting challenges
 Wide exposure & practical hands-
on  Dedication & loyalty
 Updated with latest tools  Team coordination
 Discipline
 Disadvantages
 No social / family life
 Stressful occasions (project
delivery)
 IT Industry overview
 Dev.
 In house development
 For any domain
 Analysis & Design
 FRON, Back-end, DB
 QA
 Testing and quality
 Dev to QA  3:1
 Pre-production
 Before actual deployment
 Customer Service
 Customer support
 Customer satisfaction
 Expansion
 Management
 Project managers
 Business Analysts
 Executives

 Production
 Finally going live

 IT-S
 Technical support

 HR
 IT knowledge and HR
 Dev (Front-end)
Role name Responsibilities packages Skill set

Graphic designer Designing layout, CSS, graphics, 46K$ PA -- Coral Draw,

(Junior, senior) look and feel, creativity 58K$ PA Photoshop,
Illustrator,
Flash,
FreeHand

Web designer Design UI, Forms, validation, 55K$+ 65K HTML,

javascript, CSS,
jQuery,

Web developer Web designing and application 60K$- 90K Server-side

work flow, server side technology
development, request handling stack
 Dev (Back-end)
Role name Responsibilities packages Skill set

Programmer/Developer Complete a peace of code, perform unit 50K$+ 80K$ Any programming
testing language, unit
testing etc

Software Engineer Analysis, design, coding, development, 60K$+ to analysis, design,

(Junior, Intermediate, testing, documentation writing. API 100K$ required technology
Senior) design, stack.
A senior software engineer is a technical
lead on some project Design
Software Dev. Lead Assigning tasks to resources, delegate 80K$ to Analysis, design,
responsibilities from top management to 120K$ Server-side,
dev team, lead the dev tasks, analyze technology stack,
critical paths etc. decision making
Software Architect High level design of the software or 90K$ to Technology stack,
software component, if any new 140K$ experience, decision
requirement comes or any change in the making
request or new expansion
Solution Architect Domain expert, prioritize solutions, high 100K$ to Technology, domain,
level design 150K$ cost benefit analysis
 Back-end (DB)
Role name Responsibilities packages Skill set

DBA Installing, configuring and maintaining a (DBMS). 42K$ to 62K$ Oracle, MySQL,
Often tied to a specific platform such as Oracle, MSSQL Server
MySQL, DB2, SQL Server and others.
Database Analyze data requirements for specific 55K$ to 75K$ Database schema,
Designer applications or users, and designs database normalization, design
structures and application capabilities to
match.
Data Specializes in extracting data, analyzing and 62K$ to 80K$ Data mining,
Mining/Business reporting on important data streams, such as clustering, data
Intelligence (BI) customer data, supply chain data, transaction analysis
Specialist: data and histories, and others.
Data Warehousing Gathers and analyzing data from multiple 75K$ to Data warehousing,
Specialist: operational systems (orders, transactions, 100K$ Data mining, Analysis
supply chain information, customer data and
so forth)
Establish data history, analyze trends,
generate reports and forecasts, and support
general ad hoc queries.
 QA (Testing)
Role name Responsibilities packages Skill set

Junior Tester Executing test cases to test a peace 40K$ to 55K$ Knowledge and
of software or a particular version usage of software,
ISTQB foundation
level
Senior Tester Execute test cases independently, 50K$ to 70K$ Knowledge of
should be capable to extract test software
cases from the requirement specification and
specification testing, 3 years
experience
Test Analyst Designing test cases from the user 60K$ to 75K$ ISTQB qualification,
requirement specification, execute experience in
test cases, perform complete testing
integration, write the test report..
Automate Test Automate the complete test case 75K$ to 90K$ Programming
Engineer execution and analysis process, language, software
including test case execution, testing, Test
gathering results, comparing outputs automation API
and analyzing results, reporting,
QA Lead Domain expert, prioritize solutions, 100K$ to Experience in
150K$ testing, decision
making
 Deployment
Role name Responsibilities packages Skill set

Deployment Engineer Deploy the new version of the software 60K$- 75K$ Cross-platform
in different departments, after in Dev, experience, expert
QA, Pre-prod and prod. Responsible to solve integration
for all configuration. issues, system level
and integration level
Make software available to use for testing, Release and
other employees in company or other Deployment
clients outside. Management
Deployment and integration of software process

Automated Automate the deployment process, in 70K$- to 90K$ Same as

Deployment Engineer case if any change in system deployment
configuration occurs. engineer with
automation
experience

Continuous Integration Automate the release process, 75K$ to 90K$ Build process,,
or Build Engineer integration testing process, deployment source control,
process. automated testing,
integration testing
 IT-Support
Role name Responsibilities packages Skill set

System Engineer Installation, configuration and upgrading of workstations, 60K$ to Technical, analytical,
(Junior, intermediate, servers and related hardware and software in a LAN, 100$K interpersonal and
senior) WAN and stand-alone environment. Depending organization skills
provides investigation, diagnostic testing and upon level required. Servers,
repair/resolution of system, hardware, software and and workstations, MS
infrastructure. experience Exchange, VMware,
Citrix, anti-virus and etc
Network Engineer Analyze, design, configure and maintain company 55K$ to Practical knowledge of
network and runs them. Configure and setup firewalls, 88K$ computer networking,
VPN connectors etc. Design, setup and configure Microsoft or Cisco
complex switching environments etc. certifications will help
Weekend or on calls
Network Administrator Creating user groups, assigning users to user groups, 45K$ to Operating systems,
assigning rights to users and user groups and managing 77K$ servers, Windows
security, authentication and authorization. Looks after servers, Linux server
the network intranet system of the organization admin, certifications

IT-Technician/ Helping the different staff with the daily technical issues 41K$ to Basic diploma course, A+
Helpdesk in an organization. 56K$ certification etc. Basic
understanding of the
computer hardware,
software and operating
system
 Management
Role name Responsibilities packages Skill set

Business Analyst Requirement gathering, analysis, simplifying and 52K$ to Degree in IT or

communication. Planning and monitoring, Eliciting 74K$ business,
requirements. Writing specification for communication and
requirements written skills,
CBAP™ certification
etc, technical writing

Project Manager Manages the overall project, resources, budgets 65K$ to Degree in IT or
and the process model execution. Selects the 100K$ business, 3-5 year
appropriate methodology for the project execution. experience,
communication skills

Executives Stack holders Not Not specified.

Look after the overall execution of the projects, specified
budgets, critical decision, expansions etc. Can be
one executive or board of governors. Exec
operations, CTO, CEO, etc.
 Latest trends in IT
 Android
 For mobile app dev.
 50% shares

 iOS
 For mobile app dev
 iOS for iWatch

 MEAN Stack
 For web development
 Economical and light weight
solutions
 MangoseDB, Express, AngularJS,
NodeJS

 dotNET
 if windows 10 takes-off well :)

 Java
 Still on high demand in industry
 Latest Tool Set in IT Industry
 Programming:
 Java or C#  Deployment and process:
 Ant, Maven 4
 Front end
 HTML5, CSS3, JavascriptOO,  Debugging
JQuery, YUI3, AJAX  Firebug, HttpAnalyzer,
 Bootstrap, Foundation, Backbone,
AngularJS, NodeJS,
 IDEs
 Eclipse, IntelliJ, NetBeans
 Backend/Server-side:
 J2EE, Servlet, JSP, ASP, PhP,
.dotNet, Stripes, Springframework  Methods
 Agile, SDLC
 Testing
 JUnit, TestNG, Selenium, Jasmine
 Version control system
 Database  SVN, Git, GitHub,
 MySQL, JSON, MongoDB,
ExpressDB  Issue tracking
 JIRA, Agile JIRA
 Web services
 REST, XML, XPATH
 IT career overseas
 Thousands of IT roles overseas
every year
 Skill shortage in many countries:
 AU, NZ, UK, US, Canada, Europe,
Middle-East, Pakistan, India

 In many countries companies

hunt talent from overseas
 Specially for contract job

 Make your port-folio and CV

stronger
 Certifications in certain areas give
accreditations:

 Apply online for any contract job

or temporary job

 The contract job is converted to

permanent
 Accreditation overseas
(Famous certifications)
 Networking:
 CISCO Certifications: CCNA,
CCNP, CCIE
 Others..
 Programming:
 Oracle Certified Associate
(Java Programmer),
 Web Component Developer
 Microsoft dot professional.
 Microsoft Certified Solution
Developer (MCSD)
 Architect
 Testing[10]:
 ISTQB foundation level
 ISTQB Agile Tester
 ISTQB Advanced level
 ISTQB Expert level
 Suitable career for females
 Business Analyst:
 CBAP certification
 Certified Business Analyst
Professionals by IIBA
 MongoDB NoSQL Certification
 Data Centre:
 CNet: Certified Data Centre
Management Professional
 Cloud :
 AWS Certified Solution
 Management:
 PMP: Project Management
Professional
 Certified Associate in Project
Management
 Career in NZ
About New Zealand
 I.T Career New Zealand
 Long term skill shortage
 Identified future growth area
 Many small to medium scale
organizations
 Giant branches too.

 Health-informatics industry and research

 Top in world

 Top IT companies in New Zealand

 Orion Health, Healthlink, Fisher and
Paykel, Datacom, Fronde, Assurity,
Catalyst IT etc.

 Hunt talent across the world, contract,

permanent, casual, part-time, full time.

 Apply online:
 www.seek.co.nz
 www.trademe.co.nz
 Immigration NZ
 Immigration is based on points:
 Points for qualification, experience, English
language, partner, kids
 Special points for long term or short term
skill shortage
 If your points >= threshold you will get
immigration
 Check your points online using
Immigration points calculator
 E.g., If you qualify for more than 100 points
you can get immigration in NZ
 If you qualify for more than 140 points you
will get quicker immigration
 Qualification Assessment by overseas
bodies:
 For example by NZQA (NZ Qualification
authority)
 Preliminary Assessment
 Full Assessment
 Create your account on www.nzqa.govt.nz
and get pre- assessment done
 Goto www.immigration.govt.nz and create
an account
 Fill in the online Expression of Interest
(EOI)
 Different sections: Biodata, qualification,
experience, character, health, partner, children
 Submit the EOI online (not expensive)
 You will get invitation to apply for
immigration New Zealand
 Depending on your points
 Four months to collect all documents and
send final application
 You application will be assessed
 If approved you will get immigration
 No need of immigration consultant (just
robbers)
 Do it yourself, consult someone.
 Scholarships (Masters/PhD)
 Many scholarships for Masters and PhD  Make a good research thesis
 Have your IELTS and GRE passed in B.E
 Extend the idea in Masters
 Famous scholarships  Make Ph.D. proposal as an
1. NZ Commonwealth Scholarships(CW extension to your MS
countries)
2. University of Auckland Doctoral scholarship  Search professors in your
3. University of Auckland Full-bright scholarship
area of interest
4. University of Auckland, commonwealth
scholarship
5. Shirtcliffe Fellowship (PhD only)

 Self funding Ph.D. cheaper in NZ

 6500NZ$ per year.
 Supervisor funding/

 There are many MS scholarship in Korea,

Canada, UK, Europe.

 Join facebook group: Scholarships Network

 IELTS Preparation
 For admissions in English medium
universities in overseas
 Require band 6.5+  IELTS academic

 For immigration in many countries

IELTS general/academic
 Require band 6+

 From Cambridge, held by British Council

and AEO

 IELTS academic has 4 sections:

 Listening 40 questions, 40 minutes
 Reading  40 questions, 60 minutes
 Writing  2 tasks, 60 minutes
 Speaking  face to face speaking test (15
minutes)

 RESOURCES:
 http://www.ielts.org/
 Cambridge IELTS course (7 books + CDs)
 Book: IELTS Target band 7
GRE (Graduate Record Examination)
 GRE Local called as NTS GAT (Grad. Assessment
Test)
 GRE General:
○ For HEC’s Indigenous & International scholarships
○ For getting job as lecturer in public sector universities
○ Must pass (>=50%)
 GRE Subjective:
○ Required for admission in PhD at public sector universities
○ Almost for majority of Engineering subjects:
 E.g., Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science,

 GRE International
 Pre-requisite for 90% of USA & many other high ranked
universities (e.g., Univ of Tokyo, NUS SG, Univ of Toronto)
 Local GRE overview
 100 questions, 2hrs, 50%
passing
 Verbal, Quantitative,
Analytical sections
 Verbal 35%:
 Total No of questions: 35
 Vocabulary (9) ,
Grammar(14),
Comprehension (12)
 Quantitative 35%:
 Arithmetic, Algebra,
Geometry etc
 Analytical:30%
 Deductive and inductive
logic, Critical thinking and
writing skills
 100 questions, 2hrs, 50%
passing
 General Section=30%+Subject
Section = 70%
 General Section:
 English (Verbal) = 15%
 Analytical Reasoning = 15%
 Links:
 www.nts.org.pk/ local
 www.ets.org/gre/ international
 Useful resources:
 Dogar publishers
 Magoosh video series
 Research
 Systematic investigation of a
problem
 New knowledge or validate
existing

 Types of research
 Quantitative:
○ That can be measured.
○ For e.g., Experimental,
Descriptive or statistical,
Analytical etc.
 Qualitative:
○ To measure or analyze a
feature or attribute that can not
be measured.
○ For example: Empirical, Survey,
Interview,
 Research attitude:
 Avoid plagiarism
 Can’t take anything for
granted
 Support your argument with
references
 Always justify your
statement. Answer why?
 Do proper experiments
 With appropriate data
sample
 Finding a research topic
Semantic web
 The most difficult task in research SWS testing
 My Problem is “Problem”

 Two approaches for this:

 Literature survey
○ Time consuming
○ More effort but more knowledge
○ Most Ph.D. topics

 Find a specific problem

○ Quicker and easy to go
○ For MS and undergraduate SW services
Goal based testing
 There should be a motivation of
solving problem
 Consider “includes” and
“excludes” (boundaries)
 Literature Survey
 User digital libraries for
search., eg.,
 IEEE digital library:
 Google scholar search engine
 ACM
 Use proper keywords for
search.
 Use advance search options.
 E.g., search by Author. Search by
topic, search by year etc.
 Download the relevant
research papers to your
topics/sub-area
 Short list the papers downloaded for
the further readings.
 Read the Abstract and conclusion
part of the research paper.
 This will tell you if it is relevant or not.
 Focus more the methodology and
results of the selected paper
 The Literature survey of the paper
can lead you to interesting or more
relevant paper.
 This is called back tracing literature
survey
 Conducting research
 following are the key
points to successful
 Think Think
 Spend time in thinking
critically
 Do experiments
○ Do experiments to find Do
answers to your Write/Rew
questions experiment
rite
 Analyze results
○ How results correlate to
your expectations or
deviate Analyze
results
 Write/rewrite:
○ Must be in your own
words. Have regular meetings with your
supervisor
Writing your research
 Writing helps at early  Initial publication in
stages of research Symposium,
career Workshops, Student
 Write. Publish, Get conference
feedback, rewrite  Conference, journal
publish... paper so on..

 Use tools like for

researching writing,
e.g., Latex, Miketext,
WindEdit tool
 Will help to focus on
writing contents
 About my PhD research
 Domain  Semantic Web (SW),
Semantic Web Services (SWS)

 Proposed a novel approach for

testing of SWS
 User requirement based testing of
SWS based on WSMO framework
 Including automated test case
generation from specification, test
case execution, running and
analyzing test results.
 Support with case study and
automated tool.

 Testing a SWS from goal

specification can help in SWS
selection from user perspective.
 Research directions
 Semantic Web
 Ontology defining
 Ontology reasoning/scalable
 Ontology mining
 SPARQL engine performance

 Semantic Web Service

 Web service composition,
 SWS matchmaking
 SWS meditation
 SWS testing
 QoS for SWS

 Testing and QA:

 Formal methods based verification
 Formal specifications translation or mapping
 Tool support for formal specs
 Self Employment
 Entrepreneurship
 Commercialize the novel idea
○ May be your final year thesis project
○ Start it on small scale and grow it.
 Self employment
 Freelancing:
○ Hundreds of online projects and
tasks.
○ If you have good skills in
programming, you can go for this.
 Technical writer:
○ Article writing and technical writing.
○ Amount per article writing
 Web blogging:
○ Maintaining your own blog or
website.
○ Attracting visitors and create a
platform for advertising
○ Get Google adsense or others
○ Get paid per
 Game designer
○ Game developers earn million
bucks
 Outsourcing
○ Outsource projects from
overseas to Pakistan
○ Get projects done on low cost
○ Sell it on nominal cost and still
save a lot
 Online testing
○ A type of free lancing
○ Test softwares online
○ Get paid for testing and finding
bugs
 I.T trainer, education business
○ I.T education worth more than
any other
○ Train others and get paid.
 Conclusion
 CSE & SWE graduates have bright career

 Many options like:

 Academics, Research, industry, Career overseas, Self Employment,
Entrepreneurship etc.
 Should work smart, get good grades and good skill sets
 Define a particular direction, where to go

 This seminar was a good experience

 In future, we can arrange workshops on specific targeted areas,

 e.g., tools and technologies used in Industry, or hot topics in research etc.

 Hope it was beneficial for the students

 Thanks to participants, organizing committee and the chief guest for

appreciation
 References
 [1] Official report, “Pakistan Economy Survey, Chapter 10: Education”, 2013
available at: finance.gov.pk/survey/chapters_13/10-Education.pdf
 [2]: HEC Report: Analysis of Higher Education in Pakistan, Chapter 5, page 110-120
 [3]: The news report, available at: http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-
136296-Total-number-of-PhDs-reaches-8142-in-Pakistan
 [4]: Interview report of Chairman of Pakistan Software Houses (PASHA), 2013,
available at: [http://www.propakistani.pk]
 [5]: Eligibility conditions for appointment of faculty in Engineering, Information
Technology, and Computing disciplines in all HEIs/DAIs, available at:
www.hec.gob.pk
 [6] Notification: Revision in Tenure Track salary packages,
http://www.hec.gov.pk/InsideHEC/Divisions/Finance/Documents/TT%20Salar
y%20Package%20%28Revised%202011%29.pdf
 [7]: AbsoluteIT survey for IT salaries 2014, available at: [www.absolute-it.co.nz]
 [8]: Payscale survey, http://www.payscale.com/research/NZ/
 [9]: Ed. Tittel, “Best IT Certifications 2015”, survey report, available at:
[http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/best-it-certifications,1-1352.html]
 Useful Resources
 IT Certifications:
 http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/best-it-certifications,1-1352.html
 ISTQB certification (testing certification):
○ http://istqbexamcertification.com/
 ISTQB certification Agile level:
○ http://istqbexamcertification.com/what-is-the-istqb-agile-tester-extension-certification/

 New Zealand scholarships

 http://www.universitiesnz.ac.nz/scholarships/postgraduate

 Universities NZ: http://www.universitiesnz.ac.nz/

 IELTS
 http://www.ielts.org/
 Cambridge IELTS course (7 books + CDs)
 Book: IELTS Target band 7

 Research digital libraries:

 IEEE: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/
 ACM: https://www.acm.org/
 www.scholar.google.com

 Thesis writing tool:

 http://miktex.org/ (Miketex 2.9)
 WinEdit 9.0
Email: msjokhio123@hotmail.com