Dear Friends,
You may like to read this…
Wishing you a very happy & cheerful new year.
Regards,
chirag
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the World.
--- Nelson Mandela
From: terrafirmapune@yahoogroups.com [mailto:terrafirmapune@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of www.terrafirmajobs.com
Here is an interesting article-'The 9 hottest IT skills for '09' -as
an indicator of new global trends in IT industry. I hope it helps
you in planning your career.
____________
The 9 hottest skills for '09
By almost any measure, the
the Great Depression. Consumer spending is down, credit markets
remain weak, and more than 10 million Americans are out of work.
Yet despite the grim financial picture, demand for certain types of
IT skills, such as SAP, .Net and help desk/support, remains strong.
And while some employers will continue to look outside their
companies to find workers with expertise in these and other
disciplines, some CIOs are building some of this know-how internally
as hiring freezes become more common.
Here's a look at the hottest skills, as cited by respondents to
Computerworld'
1. Programming/
Ask any recruiter what the single most sought-after IT skill is at
the moment, and the universal response is a three-letter word:
SAP. "The little joke in our industry right now is that if you
have 'SAP' on your résumé right now, you have zero unemployment,
says Bruce Culbert, CEO of iSymmetry Inc., an IT consulting and
recruitment firm with offices in Washington and
SAP experts, particularly those who are experienced with a specific
module in a certain industry, are commanding $35 to $40 per hour more
on average than other types of senior technicians, says Culbert.
Demand for SAP skills has remained red hot because a growing number
of companies are working toward establishing global instances of the
ERP system, says Jill Herrin, president of IT recruiter JDResources
Inc.
But not far behind is demand for IT professionals with .Net
experience, say Herrin and other observers. Some companies that
relied on offshore labor to deliver .Net and C# capabilities just a
few years ago found that route to be "nonproductive,
Now they're looking to fill those jobs in-house, she says.
Rich Schappert, senior director of IT at Casey's General Stores Inc.
in
for .Net and SQL Server programmers for the past five years by
recruiting and training local college students. The company, which
operates 1,500-plus stores across the
Cobol-based financial applications into the .Net environment to
reduce its mainframe costs. "[It's also] getting tougher to find
people who know Cobol," notes Schappert.
2. Help desk/technical support
Help desk and technical support skills remain in strong demand,
particularly for people who offer a blend of deep technical expertise
and solid customer-service abilities, says Herrin. "I have lots of
customers who tell me their customer service function is broken and
they need people with better communication skills," she says.
"One of the things we're seeing a demand for in this space is what we
call a JOAT -- a jack-of-all-
work and a bit of desktop support," says Katherine Spencer Lee,
executive director at IT staffing firm Robert Half Technology. Demand
for well-rounded technicians tends to become more acute when
companies are looking to get more work done with fewer people, she
says.
3. Project management
Even though many companies are cutting back on IT projects, there's
still robust demand for project managers with solid track records,
says Spencer Lee. "A differentiator is whether the person can
articulate that they've brought a project in on time -- or, better
yet, under budget -- and how they did that," she says.
Project management is one of the areas "that endure all economies and
climates, where companies are constantly looking for people who
understand the project and the systems development life cycles and
make sure the project goals are closely aligned with the business
objectives," says Harvey Koeppel, executive director of the Center
for CIO Leadership in New York.
Employers also need people with project management certificates, even
at the vice president level, according to some headhunters. As of
late July, The Computing Technology Industry Association had awarded
20% more Project+ certifications than in the previous year, says
Gretchen Koch, director of skills development programs at CompTIA.
4. Networking
The ongoing convergence of voice, e-mail, video, instant messaging
and other communications systems will continue to create demand for
networking specialists with implementation experience. For example,
Scholastic Inc. in
network convergence manager to help it create a virtual call center
using voice over IP, says Saad Ayub, senior vice president and CIO at
the children's education company.
Those types of projects often require new skills as well. In 2008,
for example, CRST International Inc. moved from a frame-relay network
to AT&T's Multiprotocol Label Switching network and installed Cisco's
VoIP system. As part of that project, the Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based
transportation company trained some of its IT staffers to become
Cisco Certified Voice Professionals, says Steve Hannah, vice
president of IT.
Network convergence projects will also heighten demand for workers
with network security and data privacy acumen, Koeppel says, adding
that "it's not just pure [network] backbone and infrastructure
skills" that are being sought by employers.
5. Business intelligence
Now more than ever, corporate executives want to be able to analyze
customer and sales data in order to make informed decisions about
business strategies. That's driving demand for business intelligence
specialists across the board, including people with data mining, data
warehousing and data management skills.
At Aspen Skiing Co., which operates four ski resorts in western
on customer spending, including analyses of spending habits during
the previous recession, says CIO Paul Major. "We're going to have to
get very granular with our analytics," he says.
Meanwhile, there's steady demand for IT professionals with experience
using vendor-specific BI tools from companies such as Business
Objects and Cognos, says Spencer Lee. But the toughest people to find
in this area are those who can help business managers understand the
type of data they're trying to analyze and how to interpret the
results, she says. "What's difficult," she adds, "is to find someone
who's the full-meal deal."
6. Security
When it comes to demand for certain types of security professionals,
those with SAP security experience "are probably the hottest of the
hot right now," says Herrin.
But interest in security professionals remains strong across the
board. "Companies can't ignore security requirements, even in tough
economic times," says Stephen Pickett, CIO at Penske Corp. and past
president of the Society for Information Management.
There's also strong interest in people with network and wireless
security skills, as well as those with Certified Information Systems
Security Professional accreditation.
7. Web 2.0
While many companies are just starting to noodle with corporate
implementations of social networking applications such as MySpace and
Facebook, "more and more companies are trying to reach their
customers via the Web," says Pickett.
Demand for Web 2.0 skills is also driven by the continuing expansion
of business-to-
Hospital and Health System in
roughly half of its physicians who work remotely. The system provides
them with access to summary medical data on patients, says Mike
Jones, vice president and CIO.
8. Data center
Most of the glass-house buzz is about server and storage
virtualization projects that help organizations lower their energy
costs and shrink their data center footprints.
But few companies are recruiting specifically for data center skills.
Instead, they're retraining existing staff in VMware and other
virtualization technologies. For instance, Aspen Skiing is
considering virtualizing up to 40% of its servers in 2009, says
Major. To achieve that, Aspen Skiing plans to rely on VMware and EMC
to provide staff with the necessary training.
9. Telecommunications
VoIP and projects involving unified communications continue to drive
demand for blended telecommunications and networking skills,
particularly among small to midsize businesses that are just
beginning to deploy these systems, says Spencer Lee. Interest in
Fi, WiMax, Bluetooth and related skills is also growing, says
Koeppel, "particularly as cities look to WiMax as a feature to
attract businesses."
Next: The newest, coolest products you'll be using in '09 to increase
your productivity
By Thomas Hoffman
http://www.computer
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