Software Vs. Design Ability ... a sore subject

Design ability??? I have seen very little of this in the people entering the field. They can draw the circle and line in Cad but do not know what to do with them. Companies do focus too much on the software side and because of this the design is poor. I have seen people coming out of school calling themselves Piping Designers and have no clue whatsoever what they are doing. They do not understand the basic fundamentals of design and what you end up with is an unworkable layout that will cost twice as much to construct than if it was laid out properly. Someday soon something will blow-up because of poor design and then maybe something will be done.

A buddy of mine is a Salesman, a really, really good one. I know he's good because for the last 15 years he was consistantly the top sales guy (in hard cash earned) for the company in which he worked. Two years ago he moved to the France office & did n't make one sale. They ended up firing him. He did n't have a word of French.
No matter how good you are (or indeed think you are) if you can't use the tools of the trade you're a liability. I worked on a project a few years ago with a guy who had 30years experience & bluffed that he could use the software being used on the project. The Design looked well & passed all internal & client reviews with flying colours. However there was a lot of sloping pipework & he manipulated it manually & filled in the gaps using dumb cad. As a result it was impossible to automatically generate the Iso's & they had to be done manually at major expense in terms of cost and schedule.
It being an employers market they are trying to narrow down the amount of applicants to those not requiring training in the software. From the CV & interview they can determine the best applicant based on actual ability/experience.
Just the humble opinion of a piper who wishes he was "proficient in PDMS"