Demand IT Skill in Industry

12 IT skills that employers can't say no to (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/071107-12-it-skills-that-employers.html, By Mary Brandel)

1) Machine learning

As companies work to build software such as collaborative filtering, spam filtering and fraud-detection applications that seek patterns in jumbo-size data sets, some observers are seeing a rapid increase in the need for people with machine-learning knowledge, or the ability to design and develop algorithms and techniques to improve computers' performance, Scott says.

"It's not just the case for Google," he says. "There are lots of applications that have big, big, big data sizes, which creates a fundamental problem of how you organize the data and present it to users."

Demand for these applications is expanding the need for data mining, statistical modeling and data structure skills, among others, Scott says. "You can't just wave your hand at some of these problems -- there are subtle differences in how the data structures or algorithms you choose impacts whether you get a reasonable solution or not," he explains.

You can acquire machine-learning knowledge either through job experience or advanced undergraduate or graduate coursework, Scott says. But no matter how you do it, "companies are snapping up these skills as fast as they can grab them," he says.

2) Mobilizing applications

The race to deliver content over mobile devices is akin to the wild days of the Internet during the '90s, says Sean Ebner, vice president of professional services at Spherion Pacific Enterprises, a recruiter in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. And with devices like BlackBerries and Treos becoming more important as business tools, he says, companies will need people who are adept at extending applications such as ERP, procurement and expense approval to these devices. "They need people who can push applications onto mobile devices," he says.

3) Wireless networking

With the proliferation of de facto wireless standards such as Wi-Fi, WiMax and Bluetooth, securing wireless transmissions is top-of-mind for employers seeking technology talent, says Neill Hopkins, vice president of skills development for the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA). "There's lots of wireless technologies taking hold, and companies are concerned about how do these all fit together, and what are the security risks, which are much bigger than on wired networks," he says.

"If I were to hire a wireless specialist, I'd also want them to understand the security implications of that and build in controls from the front end," agrees Howard Schmidt, president of the Information Systems Security Association and former chief information security officer and chief security strategist at eBay Inc.

But don't venture into the marketplace with only a wireless certification, Hopkins warns, "No one gets hired as a wireless technician  -- you have to be a network administrator with a specialization in wireless so you know how wireless plays with the network," he says.

4) Human-computer interface

Another area that will see growing demand is human-computer interaction or user interface design, Scott says, which is the design of user interfaces for the Web or desktop applications. "There's been more recognition over time that it's not OK for an engineer to throw together a crappy interface," he says. Thanks to companies like Apple Inc., he continues, "consumers are increasingly seeing well-designed products, so why shouldn't they demand that in every piece of software they use?"

5) Project management

Project managers have always been in high demand, but with growing intolerance for over-budget or failed projects, the ones who can prove that they know what they're doing are very much in demand, says Grant Gordon, managing director at Kansas City-based staffing firm Intronic Solutions Group. "Job reqs are coming in for 'true project managers,' not just people who have that denotation on their title," Gordon says. "Employers want people who can ride herd, make sense of the project life cycle and truly project-manage."

That's a big change from a year ago, he says, when it was easy to fill project management slots. But now, with employers demanding in-the-trenches experience, "the interview process has become much tougher," Gordon says. "The right candidates are fewer and farther between, and those that are there can be more picky on salaries and perks."

The way Gordon screens candidates is by having on-staff subject-matter experts conduct interviews that glean how the candidate has handled various situations in the past, such as conflicting team responsibilities or problem resolution. "It's easy to regurgitate what you heard from PMBOK [the Project Management Institute's Project Management Body of Knowledge], but when it comes to things like conflict management, you start seeing whether they know what they're doing."

In one case, Gordon asked a candidate to describe how he'd go about designing a golf ball that goes farther by changing the dimples on the ball. "No one has the answer to questions like that, but it shows how they think on their feet and how they can break down a problem that's pretty ambiguous into smaller segments," he says.

6) General networking skills

No matter where you work in IT, you can no longer escape the network, and that has made it crucial for non-networking professionals, such as software engineers, to have some basic understanding of networking concepts, Scott says. At the very least, they should brush up on networking basics, such as TCP/IP, Ethernet and fiber optics, he says, have a working knowledge of distributed and networked computing.

"There's an acute need for people writing applications deployed in data centers to be aware of how their applications are using the network," Scott says. "They need to understand how to take advantage of the network in their application design." For instance, to split three-tier applications among multiple machines, developers need to know how to build and coordinate that network. "People who understand basic distributed systems  principles are very valuable," Scott says.

7) Network convergence technicians

With more companies implementing voice over IP, there's a growing demand for network administrators who understand all sorts of networks -- LANs, WANs, voice, the Internet -- and how they all converge together, according to Hopkins.

"When something needs to be fixed, companies don't want the network administrator to say, 'Oh, that's a phone problem,' and the phone guy to say, 'Call the networking guy,' " Hopkins says. "Our research has validated that there's a huge demand for people who've been in the phone world and understand what the IT network is, or someone managing the IT network who understands the voice network and how it converges."

8) Open-source programming

There's been an uptick in employers interested in hiring open-source talent, Ebner says. "Some people thought the sun was setting on open source, but it's coming back in a big way, both at the operating system level and in application development," he says. People with experience in Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP, collectively referred to as LAMP, will find themselves in high demand, he says.

Scott Saunders, dean of career services at De Vry University in Southern California, is seeing the same trend. "Customer dissatisfaction and security concerns are driving this phenomenon, especially in the operating system and database markets," he says.

9) Business intelligence systems

Momentum is also building around business intelligence, Ebner says, creating demand for people who are skilled in BI technologies such as Cognos, Business Objects and Hyperion, and who can apply those to the business.

"Clients are making significant investments in business intelligence," Ebner says. "But they don't need pure technicians creating scripts and queries. to be a skilled data miner, you need hard-core functional knowledge of the business you're trying to dissect." people who can do both "are some of the hottest talent in the country right now," he says.

10) Embedded security

Security professionals have been in high demand in recent years, but today, according to Schmidt, there's a surge in employers looking for security skills and certifications in all their job applicants, not just the ones for security positions.

"In virtually every job description I've seen in the last six months, there's been some use of the word security in there," he says. "Employers are asking for the ability to create a secure environment, whether the person is running the e-mail server or doing software development. It's becoming part of the job description."

This, Schmidt says, mirrors the trend toward integrating security into companies' day-to-day operations rather than considering it an add-on role performed by a specialist. Companies will still need security specialists and subject-matter experts, Schmidt says, but more and more, every IT person a company hires will have to have an understanding of the security ramifications of his area.

Hopkins echoes that sentiment. "Every single certification we do now has an element of security built in," he says. "We keep getting feedback from the market researchers that security touches everything and everyone. Even an entry-level technician better understand security."

Saunders says De Vry University has responded to this demand by adding a security curriculum to some of its campuses throughout the U.S. "Companies are increasingly interested in protecting their assets against cyberterrorism and internal threats," he says.

11) Digital home technology integration

Homes are increasingly becoming high-tech havens, and there has been enormous growth in the home video and audio markets, and in home security and automated lighting systems. But who installs these systems,and who fixes them when something goes wrong?

To answer that question, CompTIA developed a certification in cooperation with the Consumer Electronics Association, called Digital Home Technology Integrator. "It's the hottest and most vibrant market we've seen in a long time," Hopkins says.

12) .Net, C #, C ++, Java -- with an edge

Recruiters and curriculum developers are seeing job orders come in for a range of application frameworks and languages, including ASP.Net, VB.Net, XML, PHP Java, C#, and C++, but according to Gordon, employers want more than just a coder. 'Rarely do they want people buried behind the computer who computer who aren't part of a team," he says. "They want someone with Java who can also be a team lead or a project coordinator."

Top 10 Skills in Demand in 2010 (www.globalknowledge.com, Linda Leung)

1) Project Management

As we emerge from the recession, organizations aren't likely to go back to the go-go days of throwing money at IT initiatives or taking risks and deploying without careful thought and planning. Organizations are putting pressure on IT to only implement projects that can show real return-on-investment. The first step to achieving a good ROI is professional project planning and implementation.

Project management skills often appear in top 10 skills lists, perhaps because some organizations got their fingers burned in the 1990s through the poo implementation of IT projects such as enterprise resource planning initiatives. But even though the profession is mature (in IT terms), project managers still have work to do to advance their status within organizations. According to an article on the Project Management Institute Web site, project managers still have to develop their people skills, organizational leadership, and individual professionalism.

2) Security

It's a never-ending game of cat and mouse for security professionals and 2009 proved to be another fun filled year. According to Symantec's Security and Storage Trends to Watch report, the number of spam messages containing malware increased nine-fold to represent more than 2% of e-mails, while other criminals manipulated people's love of social networking sites to launch attacks. Twitter, for example, spent much  of 2009  battling DDoS and other attacks. Meanwhile, top headlines, such as the H1N1 flu and the death of Michael Jackson were used by criminals to lure people to download malware.

Symantec predicts more of the same in 2010, warning that attackers will continue to use social engineering to get to consumers' sensitive data, and criminals will take Windows 7 as a challenge for seeking and exploiting vulnerabilities in the new platform. Mac and smartphones will also be targeted more by malware authors, Symantec says.

Despite the economic challenges of '09, organizations continued to hire security pros. The most sought-after security skills were information risk management, operations security, certification and accreditation, security management practices, and security architecture and models, according to a survey last year of 1,500 U.S.-based security pros by security certification provider ISC2. 2010 is expected to be another busy year from security professionals.

3) Network Administration

Networking administration skills never lose their luster. It's the second most sought after skill in the Global Knowledge survey and it will be the top skill sought by CIOs in the first quarter of 2010, according to a survey of IT chiefs by Robert Half Technology. In 2010, organizations are expected to upgrade to Windows Server 2008 R2 and the Windows 7 client, and perhaps install Exchange Server 2010 and SharePoint 2010. Enterprises are going to need network administrators to ensure network traffic continues to move without a hitch.

Meanwhile, Cisco hopes to push more data-intensive traffic onto corporate networks. Video is key focus for Cisco in 2010 as it works to finalize its control of video conferencing maker Tandberg and through its 2009 purchase of Pure Digital, developer of the Flip video camera. At the end of last year, Cisco introduced two TelePresence certifications: the Cisco TelePresence Solutions Specialist for midcareer voice or networking engineers seeking to specialize in the planning, design and implementation of Cisco TelePresence; and TelePresence Installation Specialist aimed at installation technicians.

4) Virtualization - Cloud

The projected cost saving and efficiencies are no-brainers for organizations seeking to implement virtualization and cloud computing. With the cloud computing space now taking shape it's difficult for enterprises to find pros with substantial relevant experience. Instead companies are drawing expertise from a range of IT skills sets, including storage, networks and desktop, according to a Network World article. Initially companies will set up cross-functional teams to buy and implement virtualization, but eventually cloud computing will be an expected skill set of systems administrators. In a few years, it could even be a standard skill set of all IT pros because it touches different aspects of IT.

For details about virtualization certifications from leading virtualization software vendors VMware, Citrix and Microsoft, see Global Knowledge's Top IT Certifications in Demand Today newsletter of June 2009.

5) Business Analysis

Business analysis roles were commonplace in many organizations in the 1990s when big projects, such as enterprise resource planning initiatives, required the critical thinking that business analysts could provide. But as businesses began moving at a faster pace, business analysis fell by the wayside. Factors such as the economic downturn and regulatory compliance have forced companies to take a step back and to think through business problems and their solutions, and business analysis is making a comeback, as a result. Kathleen Barret, president of the international Institute of Business Analysis says the discipline is a phoenix rising.

The IIBA describes the job of a BA as a "liaison among stakeholders in order to elicit, analyze, communicate, and validate requirements for changes to business processes, policies, and information systems." IT pros are good candidates for BA jobs because they have a broad perspective of a company's business,says Barret. There are three types of BAs: enterprise BAs who identify opportunities for business change and defines the work to be done; transition BAs who fine-tunes the plans; and project BAs who work on project teams that implement the changes. Annual salaries average around $75,000 with enterprise and transition analysts earning more, Barret says.

For more about business analysis, see the IIBA's Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge.

6) Business Process Improvement

With project management and business analysis skills appearing in this skills list, it's no surprise that business process improvement skill is also here. Business process improvement and business analysis go hand-in-hand. Business analysts identify areas for improvements to business processes, while business process improvement or management pros use BPM techniques and technologies to help companies optimize their business processes.

A recent BPM survey by IT researchers, the Aberdeen Group says the top reasons business are driving BPM activity are the need to reduce operating costs and to improve cash flow. However, the top barrier to adoption was the lack of knowledge about BPM. According to Gartner, among the competencies required for successful BPM initiatives include process skills, tools and process assets, and transformation skills.

To learn more about BPM, go to the Web site of the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org), which promotes the standardization of common business processes; and the BPMinstitute.org, which describes itself as a peer-to-peer exchange for business management professionals.

7) Web Development

If you are---or you know friends who are---addicted to the FarmVille game on Facebook you'll know the power of Web development. In just a few short months, FarmVille's popularity has spread across the globe as Facebook fans tend to their farms and purchase virtual goods. The game, including others by FarmVille developer Zynga, has netted the start-up more than 200 million monthly unique users for its online apps. One financial analyst reckons Zynga could be valued at $1 billion if it were to go IPO in mid-2010.

Developing Facebook games is just one extreme of the vast Web development spectrum. Building iPhone apps could also be very profitable, writes Web developer and blogger Glen Stansberry. As moderator of the Freelance Switch job board, Stansberry listed other popular Web development skills including Framework knowledge, widget development, content management system customizations (for small businesses looking to create a unique look to their standard Wordpress and Drupal blogs), and Javascript Plugin creation.

8) Database Management

Databases are the hearts of key business systems that drive payroll, manufacturing, sales, transaction processing, and more. Programmers must be able to build programs that quickly and efficiently interface with the database management system (DBMS), while database administrators "must be able to bring the full power of database features to bear on business problems", writes Oracle- and IBM-certified DBA Howard Fosdick in his whitepaper Database Skills Availability: Critical to Your Selection of Database. "DBA expertise can be Achilles' heel of database projects - many IT projects have failed due to the inability to secure DBA talent or successfully address DBA issues," he adds.

The major database vendors are Oracle, IBM and Sybase. Oracle runs three main certification programs for database professionals. Oracle Certified Associate is the first rung of the Oracle certification ladder. Next is the flagship Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) credential, which certified an individual's ability to manage, develop, or implement enterprise-wide databases and other software. Oracle Certified Master (OCM) is Oracle most advanced accreditation. IBM offers a dizzying array of certifications surrounding its DB2 product series. The main credentials are IBM Certified Database Associate, Database Administrator, Application Developer, and Advanced Database Administrator. Sybase has two sets of certifications for its Adaptive Server Enterprise product: ASE Administrator Associate and ASE Administrator Professional; and ASE Developer Associate and ASE Developer Professional.

9) Windows Administration

As previously mentioned, Microsoft shops are expected in 2010 to upgrade to Windows Server 2008 R2 and the Windows 7 client, and perhaps install Exchange Server 2010 and SharePoint 2010 as well. Windows administration skills is going to be key for many enterprises implementing and maintaining existing and upgrade systems.

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 certifications at the MCTS level cover configurations for Active Directory, networking, and applications. Certifications available for the MCITP level are Server 2008 Server Administration, Enterprise Administration. In a November blog posting in Microsoft's Born to Learn blog, the company wrote that the first of its Windows Server 2008 virtualization exams would be entering beta soon. The exams will cover server  virtualization, desktop virtualization, and virtualization administration. Windows 7 pros can certify as MCTS: Windows 7 - Configuration, and MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Administrator 7.

10) Desktop Support

Our recent article "Top Certifications in Demand Today" listed desktop support as a hot skill. In Global Knowledge's 2010 salary survey, it was named as the 10th most sought-after skill this year. In the June article, we quoted Robert Half Technology Executive Director Dave Willmer as saying that businesses will need desktop support personnel to support new workers as organizations begin hiring as the economy improves. The introduction of Microsoft Windows 7 is also expected to generate additional interest.

Microsoft currently provides the MCITP: Consumer Support Technician, and MCITP: Enterprise Support Technician certifications, but they are based on Windows Vista. Microsoft, in its Born to learn blog, in November said that it is working on a MCITP: Windows 7, Enterprise Desktop Support Technication. Prospective candidates are advised to prepare for 680: Win 7, Configuring and 685: Win 7, EDST.

10 Dying IT Skills (www.globalknowledge.com, Linda Leung)

10. COBOL

Is it dead or alive? This 40-year-old programming language often appears in lists of dying IT skills but it also appears in as many articles about organizations with legacy applications written in COBOL having a hard time seeking workers with COBOL skills. IBM cites statistics that 70% of the world's business data is still being processed by COBOL applications. But how many of these applications will remain in COBOL for the long term? Even IBM is pushing its customers to "build bridges" and use service-oriented architecture to "transform legacy applications and make them part of a fast and flexible IT architecture."

9. HTML

We're not suggesting the Internet is dead but with the proliferation of easy to use WYSIWYG HTML editors enabling non-techies to set up blogs and Web pages, Web site development is no longer a black art. Sure, there's still a need for professional Web developers (see the ColdFusion entry for a discussion about Java and PHP skills) but a good grasp of HTML isn't the only skill required of a Web developer. Professional developers often have expertise in Java, AJAX, C++ and .Net, among other programming languages. HTML as a kill lost more than 40% of its value between 2001 and 2003, according to Foote Partners.

8. SNA

The introduction of IP and other Internet networking technologies into enterprise in the 1990s signaled the demise of IBM's proprietary Systems Network Architecture. According to Wikipedia, the protocol is still used extensively in banks and other financial transaction networks and so SNA skills continue to appear in job ads. But permanent positions seeking SNA skills are few and far between. ITJobsWatch.com noted that there were three opening for permanent jobs between February and April, compared to 43 during the same period last year. Meanwhile, companies such as HP offer consultants with experience in SNA and other legacy skills such as OpenVMS and Tru64 Unix for short-term assignments.

7. Siebel

Siebel is one skill that makes a recurring appearance in the Foote Partners' list of skills that have lost their luster. Siebel was synonymous with customer relationship management in the late '90s and early 2000s, and the company dominated the market with a 45% share in 2002. Founded by Thomas Siebel, a former Oracle executive with no love lost for his past employer, Siebel competed aggressively with Oracle until 2006 when it was ultimately acquired by the database giant. Siebel's complex and expensive CRM software required experts to install and manage. That model lost out to the new breed of software-as-a-service (SaaS) packages from companies such as Salesforce.com that deliver comparable software over the Web. According to the U.K.'s ITJobsWatch.com site, Siebel experts command an average salary of GBP52,684 ($78,564), but that's a slide from DBP55,122 a year ago. Siebel is ranked 319 in the job research site's list of jobs in demand, compared to 310 in 2008.

6. RAD/Extreme Programming

Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s the rapid application development and extreme programming development philosophies resulted in quicker and more flexible programming that embraced the ever changing needs of customers during the development process. In XP, developers adapted to changing requirements at any point during the project life rather than attempting to define all requirements at the beginning. In RAD, developers embraced interactive use of structured techniques and prototyping to define users' requirements. The result was accelerated software development. Although the skills were consistently the highest paying in Foote Partners survey since 1999, they began to lose ground in 2003 due to the proliferation of offshore outsourcing of applications development.

5. ColdFusion

ColdFusion users rave that Web programming language is easy to use and quick to jump into, but as many other independent software tools have experienced, it's hard to compete with products backed by expensive marketing campaigns from Microsoft and others. The language was originally released in 1995 by Allaire, which was acquired by Macromedia (which itself was purchased by Adobe). Today, it is superseded by Microsoft .Net, Java, PHP and the language of the moment: open source Ruby on Rails. A quick search of the Indeed.com job aggregator site returned 11,045 jobs seeking PHP skills compared to 2,027 CF jobs. Even Ruby on Rails, which is a much newer technology receiving a major boost when Apple packaged it with OS X v10.5 in 2007, returned 1,550 jobs openings on Indeed.com.

4. Wireless Application Protocol

Yes, people were able to browse the Internet in the late 1990s before Apple's iPhone. Web site operators would rewrite their content to the WAP's Wireless Markup Language, enabling users to access Web services such as email, stock results and news headlines using their cell phones and PDAs. WAP was not well received at the beginning because WAP sites were slow and lacked the richness of the Web. WAP has also seen different levels of uptake worldwide because of the different wireless regulations and standards around the world. WAP has since evolved and is a feature of Multimedia Messaging Service, but there are now a new generation of competing mobile Web browsers, including Opera Mobile and the iPhone's Safari browser.

3. Visual J++

Skills pay for Microsoft's version of Java declined 37.5% last year, according to the Foote Partners' study. The life of J++, which is available with Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0, was not a smooth one. Although Sun Microsystems licensed Java to Microsoft to develop J++, Microsoft failed to implement some features of the official Java standard while implementing other extensions of its own. Sun sued Microsoft for licensed violations in a legal wrangle that lasted three years. Microsoft eventually replaced J++ with Microsoft .Net.

2. Novell NetWare

Novell's network operating system was the de facto standard for LANs in the 1990s, running on more than 70% of enterprise networks. But Novell failed to compete with the marketing might of Microsoft. Novell tried to put up a good fight by acquiring WordPerfect to compete with Windows Office, but that move failed to ignite the market and Novell eventually sold WordPerfect to corel in 1996. Novell certifications such as Certified Novell Engineer, Master Certified Novell Engineer, Certified Novell Certified Directory Engineer, and Novell Administrator were once hot certs in the industry, but now they are featured in Foote PArtners' list of skills that decreased in value in 2008. Hiring managers want Windows Server and Linux skills instead.

1. Asynchronous Transfer Mode

ATM was popular in the late 1990s, particularly among carrier, as the answer to overworked frame relay for wide-area networking. It was considered more scalable than frame relay and offered inherent QoS support. It was also marketed as a LAN platform, but that was its weakness. According to Wikipedia, ATM failed to gain wide acceptance in the LAN where IP makes more sense for unifying voice and data on the network. Wikipedia notes that ATM will continue to be deployed by carries that have committed to existing ATM deployments, but the technology is increasingly challenged by speed and traffic shaping requirements of converged voice and data networks. A growing number of carriers are now using Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), which integrates the label-switching capabilities of ATM with the packet orientation of IP. IT skills researcher Foote Partners listed ATM in its IT Skills and Certification Pay Index as a non-certified IT skill that has decreased in value in the last six month of 2008.

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