Newsletter sign-up

View all newsletters

Sign up for our technology specific newsletters.

Enterprise Java

Email Address:

12 skills that employers can't say no to

The technology skills shortage is real, and so are the opportunities that come with it

By Mary Brandel, Computerworld, 07/11/07

Page 3 of 4

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, and 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 DeVry 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.

For more enterprise computing news, visit Computerworld. Story copyright Computerworld, Inc.

 

Improve efficiency with Visual Studio(r) 2010 Beta 2. - Microsoft

About Us | Advertise | Contact Us | Terms of Service/Privacy

Copyright, 2006-2008 Network World, Inc. All rights reserved.