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Hot Tech Skills For 2006? 494

Posted by Zonk from the switch-jobs-now-avoid-the-rush dept.
linumax writes "Computerworld is running a 3 page story on what tech skills will be in demand for the coming year. They suggest developers, security experts and project managers are in demand. It also comes up with some good news. FTA: 'Despite the notion that hordes of U.S. IT jobs are being sent offshore, in reality, less than 5% of the 10 million people who make up the U.S. IT job market had been displaced by foreign workers through 2004, says Scot Melland, president and CEO of Dice Inc., a New York-based online jobs service. The numbers of jobs posted on Dice.com from January through September for developers, project managers and help desk technicians rose 40%, 47% and 45%, respectively, compared with the same period in 2004, says Melland.'"
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Hot Tech Skills For 2006? More

Hot Tech Skills For 2006?

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  • The most important skill (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:19AM (#14358107) Homepage Journal
    I think it's a myth that IT jobs are declining -- I have more need for quality workers than I have ever had in 15 years of business. I believe I will have a 200-300% growth in 10 years if I wasn't on the verge of retiring from this market.

    The reality, though, is that I constantly have to re-evaluate if my top paid employees are worth the money they're getting paid. I don't have as much trouble as do MOST IT employers -- my employees make minimum wage plus a large per-project bonus. I would pay less than minimum wage if I could (and more of a bonus), because it forces workers to become more efficient, and we all benefit from this.

    Here's the kicker: as I see more decent workers come into the workforce, I see less reason to pay as much as I have in the past. Every dollar I save in wages and bonuses is almost $1.50 I can save my customers. I sell my business to my customers by guaranteeing a profit for them on every dollar they pay me. If I can save them that $1.50, I can show them more of a profit, for less expense. It is a win-win situation for the customer and myself, but it causes IT employees to cry foul.

    This is a very strong part of the free market -- supply and demand. As the supply of quality IT workers goes up, demand has to go up equally for the price to stay constant. The demand HAS gone up, but I believe the supply is heading upwards at a much higher rate, hence a lower base pay. The second part of the free market that angers the average worker is that as the base pay gets lower, salaried workers have more reason to go off on their own (to earn that $1.50 instead of the $1.00), which increases competition, lowering prices even more.

    This is GOOD for the economy and good for the world -- the less that companies pay for IT, the more money they have for other costs and investments, such as R&D or more efficient machinery. I personally have made more money in the years that I lowered my billing rate, as I found more customers willing to extend projects they didn't want to in previous years.

    To stay on the topic, the hottest tech skills are less important (to me and my customers) than the ability to understand what IT does for a business: it should raise efficiency, it should allow multiple tasks to be performed by the same person, and it shouldn't interfere with the employees' abilities without increasing their abilities in some other area. IT should be profitable for a company, not an expense without gain.

    If you want to be a valuable IT employee or consultant, figure out how you can make your customer (or employer) more money, so that you truly have value for the work you perform. If you are just an expense, you're not doing your job. This is true of ANY employee in ANY business, but most people ignore the realities of business and the market.
    • Nevermind the fact that all your employees are probably frustrated that you are busy trying see how much work you can squeeze out of them for how little money. You don't sound like the kind of person I would work very hard for.
      • Nevermind the fact that all your employees are probably frustrated that you are busy trying see how much work you can squeeze out of them for how little money. You don't sound like the kind of person I would work very hard for.

        I wouldn't hire someone with that attitude anyway. My goal with each and every person I hire is to see them competing with me in 5-10 years. Not a single employee of mine better stay an employee for the rest of their lives. I have a few ex-employees (one guy in his 50s) who are now
        • And I suppose the competing business model to your "underpaid revolving door" employee model would be the "properly paid, retention" plan where you build a good core of strong workers, properly compensated, and instead of having to constantly loose skilled workers to better jobs or have to replace ones that don't make the grade you could simply have a dedicated group of people who know what's expected of them and take pride not only in in the work that they do but the job that they have.

          I've worked under

    • Re:The most important skill (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Brave Guy ( 457657 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:32AM (#14358184)

      Interesting comment. I have two follow-ups:

      1. Do you think general business awareness is a skill in itself? I agree with you that understanding your role as an IT guy (whether sysadmin or development) is vital to being as useful as you can be, but I suspect it's important enough to be considered a whole category in its own right rather than just another skill on the checklist next to configuring SAMBA or programming Perl. I also think it can be taught/learned in the same way as good management.
      2. Do you really think the supply of good quality IT workers is going up? IME, it's the opposite: most of the guys coming in now are all hot on this certificate or that buzzword, but even those from an allegedly academic background often don't understand basic principles as much as everyone used to when the market was smaller and newer.

      • Re:The most important skill (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:45AM (#14358266) Homepage Journal
        Do you think general business awareness is a skill in itself?

        Absolutely. It is not learned in school, either. I am constantly amazed at how many massively profitable businesses bring on "business experts" who have huge paper backing without any real life experience. In the past 10 years, I've watched almost 5 big customers of mine go in the gutter over the advice of a guy with letters after his last name. America is quickly learning that MBA is not the key to running a good business: profitability, efficiency, and marketplace wanting your product/service is. It isn't so hard to understand.

        I also think it can be taught/learned in the same way as good management.

        I'm not sure. From my experience, the best managers are the people who understand both the needs of the employee from a human standpoint and the needs of the company from a profitability standpoint. For the majority of employees without management potential, this is a constant area of debate. For management, they see how effective it is to constantly balance the needs. In my experience, the best managers don't come out of college, and some of them barely finished high school. I did meet a fantastic manager with a Master's Degree, but he admitted that it was 'in his blood.'

        Do you really think the supply of good quality IT workers is going up?

        Absolutely not. In this country, the supply of quality workers is going down. My firm belief is that young men and women should get work experience as early as possible in life -- instead we focus on higher education in high school and college. I learned everything I needed to know about business between the ages of 13 to 15 by studying other businesses and trying things. I meet 20 year olds now who won't take a risk and start a business because "college experience is more important." I think there are far bigger risks to take when you are young, and this can lead to a higher quality work force.

        The worst part of the workers in this country is the demands they make and our government backing those demands up. I don't want to get to that part of the debate because it always starts flame/troll wars, but let us just say that I feel the employee/employer trade shouldn't be regulated or restricted. :)

        most of the guys coming in now are all hot on this certificate or that buzzword, but even those from an allegedly academic background often don't understand basic principles as much as everyone used to when the market was smaller and newer.

        It isn't the market's oldness that is the problem, it is the fact that companies are losing ground VERY fast, and they're not sure what the problem is. People think it is the lack of "training" or being in the wrong business, but that is not the case. For the past 3 decades we've sown terrible policies (politically, educationally and in the workplace) and these policies are catching up with us. A very good friend has a son who is just starting out on his own business (the kid is 16) that I helped him start. He works cheaply, efficiently and in the first 3 months he has more opportunities than he could every handle. Why? Because he's willing to let the market set his price and his product instead of the other way around. Opening yourself to the realities of the marketplace is much more important since you'll be more willing to see where you are needed and for how much rather than say "This is how much I demand I get paid and this is how many hours I will work."
    • 87 employees.
      185 indian infosys contractors (130 of them in bangladore) that -would- have been employees 5 years ago.

      Your probably right.

      The only hope is for 18% wage inflation to continue.
    • I've been tracking IT jobs from 2000 to 2004, and the decline is far greater than the article's author (and this poster) believe it to be.

      Remember, such numbers are only voluntarily given by corporations (and the federal and local governments which do the same thing), and in each and every study by the GAO, and various other agencies and organizations, very few corporations and companies actually responded.

      Just doesn't track.....here in Seattle, I see nothing but inferior white Project Managers who oversee

    • Re:The most important skill (Score:5, Insightful)

      by drewzhrodague ( 606182 ) <drew@nOsPaM.zhrodague.net> on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:38AM (#14358227) Homepage Journal
      It is obvious from reading your post, and a quick look through your blog, that you have not worked in the IT field, and thus -- do not know what you're talking about. Me working for peanuts is not good for me, and I can't imagine how a low-wage earner of any career is good for the economy (except for banks). Also, I've noticed that when I reduce my rate, people not hire me, even if I'm starving. Crank the rate back up, and I find myself consistantly employed. I don't like being treated like a slave laborer, either.

      • Re:The most important skill (Score:5, Interesting)

        by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:50AM (#14358299) Homepage Journal
        It is obvious from reading your post, and a quick look through your blog, that you have not worked in the IT field, and thus -- do not know what you're talking about.

        Really? I started my first IT business almost 17 years ago. It has been in business all that time, grown every year, and has performed work on some of the largest commercial ventures in the Chicagoland area. I'm tired and have no desire to stay in the business more than another 3 years. Blogging is a new direction for me (I wrote paper newsletters for years that were successes and failures). Considering my company refused to go dotcom and continued to grow duing the dotbomb, I think I do know what I am talking about.

        Me working for peanuts is not good for me, and I can't imagine how a low-wage earner of any career is good for the economy (except for banks).

        Really? My employees that earn peanuts for a salary make a ton of money in bonuses. Some projects bonus out over 66% of the profit of the project. One of my top employees only works about 15 hours a week and he owns his condo, car and all his assets without loans. He's not even close to 30 years old.

        Also, I've noticed that when I reduce my rate, people not hire me, even if I'm starving. Crank the rate back up, and I find myself consistantly employed.

        This is VERY true. When I said I lowered my rate, I didn't mean going from $160 per hour to $40, I meant going from $160 per hour to $145 or so. Consider it a discount for past contracts, but it helped 75% of the time I presented it.

        I don't like being treated like a slave laborer, either.

        Only someone not willing to increase their abilities and offer their customers profits would be a slave. If you have value, you'll never be a slave, except to the State.
        • It seems to me that you really don't pay your employees peanuts, (which I applaud).

          However, you are deluding yourself if you think that this isn't a real problem. Without paying a decent salary, you aren't going to get good help, which you personally can see because your good employees earn huge bonuses.

          However, you get what you pay for, which is something that tends to be forgotten in the American corporate rush to commoditize employees (outsourcing, switching to temp workers and lowering salaries in gene
        • I started my first IT business almost 17 years ago. Yup, I was right, you've never worked in IT before. Starting a business is vastly different than working in it: One requires skill, the other requires money. My employees that earn peanuts for a salary make a ton of money in bonuses. Some projects bonus out over 66% of the profit of the project. One of my top employees only works about 15 hours a week and he owns his condo, car and all his assets without loans. He's not even close to 30 years old. Soun

    • This was done (Score:5, Insightful)

      by porkThreeWays ( 895269 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:44AM (#14358263)
      I would pay less than minimum wage if I could (and more of a bonus), because it forces workers to become more efficient, and we all benefit from this.

      This was done during the industrial revolution. Workers were paid not on a wage, but by how many units of whatever they could produce. This left workers tired, worn out, and considerbly less effective.

      Then the workers rights movement emerged. Unions formed to protect workers as a whole. Required breaks, 40 hour work weeks, and wage all came about because of this. It's kinda sad to see that a lot of the tech industry is not learning from the past.

      It doesn't make them more efficient. It makes them feel like they've constantly got to work at 100%. This isn't sustainable and in the long term the total output of work is equal or lower than someone on set wage.

      There was an article on this idea a few months back that actually one some awards from what I understand. Studies during the industrial were cited.
    • I would pay less than minimum wage if I could ... because it forces workers to become more efficient

            So if I don't pay my workers ANYTHING, and promise to give them a huge bonus if they finish the job, they will be perfectly efficient?

            Tell me something, you don't happen to be a manager at EA do you?

    • mod parent -1, flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)

      by happyemoticon ( 543015 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @12:03PM (#14358380) Homepage

      He deviates from the topic to carry on for five paragraphs justifying why he pays his workers so little. Posting that on /. is like jumping into a pit of lions covered in Worchestershire sauce - there is no explanation as to why somebody would do this except to elicit hateful responses. I recommend some self-help books on guilt or conseling, because he's clearly consumed with guilt.

      Economics is more than just supply and demand. If it were that simple, then there would be no economists, no economics professors, and the only book necessary for an exhaustive understanding of the economy would be The Wealth of Nations. There's another side to business: you have to give in order to get. I've watched more than a few restaurants go under because the owner was an indifferent jerk. No matter how good the food is, if the company's ugly, you'll leave. Likewise, a well-treated worker is more efficient than one who gets treated like shit, because being paid well and being valued by your employer raise your self-esteem.

      Why do you think Google is the envy of all of Silicon Valley? In order for Parent to have any semblance of sense, Google's HR policies would not only have to be incorrect, but totally fallacious. Judging by the fact that their stock is 423 bucks right now, there are at least a few people out there who believe Google is doing something right.

    • The reality, though, is that I constantly have to re-evaluate if my top paid employees are worth the money they're getting paid. I don't have as much trouble as do MOST IT employers -- my employees make minimum wage plus a large per-project bonus. I would pay less than minimum wage if I could (and more of a bonus), because it forces workers to become more efficient, and we all benefit from this.

      I take it the saying goes.. "You get what you pay for." Really works here.. I can't see HOW they could even surv

    • I don't suppose you're located in Madison, WI and looking to hire somebody who's spent the last four years in what turned out to be an IT career dead-end, are you?
    • Yes, if you paid everyone $0.01, you're profit margin would be higher than if you paid everyone $0.02. Did you figure this out yourself or take a class?

      The problem with your model, which in certain forms is flatly illegal and I suspect you're skirting legality (not to mention credulity) already, is that in effect you base your employees pay on YOUR performance, not theirs. So, they bust their butts and you lose a client (for whatever reason), which conveniently gets you off the hook for paying them. No matt
    • I did all of that, yet I have been out of work since 2002 and nobody wants to hire me. I am a very good developer, and have over 20 years of programming experience. I hold a bachelor's degree, and I helped companies save millions of dollars that they wasted that my programs helped make them more productive. I gave the former employers I worked for all that I had and more, and for my efforts I got shat on and then taken outside and shot. Replaced with someone who can work my job in another location of the wo

  • Currently Seeking (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:20AM (#14358119)
    - 10 years AJAX/Web 2.0 development
      - 5 years Ruby on Rails development
      - Microsoft Windows IIS 6.0 security and administration certification

    • Re:Currently Seeking (Score:5, Funny)

      by MBGMorden ( 803437 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @12:14PM (#14358459)
      You forgot the combos man. Experience with all the stuff seperately gets you nothing.

      Also required:

      17 years experience developing Java applications that interface with a high availability MySQL database that imports data from a Commodore 64 system, converts all the data to PNG image format and then OCR's it back into text to be stored into an Oracle 9.3.4.1a database running on a FreeBSD 4.11 system that has Postfix & Apache installed but is not running Bind.

      5 years experience required on WeMadeThisProgramInhouse 2.0

      Applicants without these requirements will not be considered.

      • Re:Currently Seeking (Score:3, Informative)

        by edunbar93 ( 141167 )
        These sorts of ads aren't for anyone but the person they want to promote internally. It's just that they're required by some stupid law or beuraucratic bullshit to list it elsewhere.

        Either that, or it's some headhunter collecting resumes to stuff their database with.
      1. Advertise myself as an "Ajax Developer"
      2. When questioned as to what exactly Ajax is, give an evasive but impressive-sounding answer (derived from an old 1998 DHTML fact sheet)
      3. Get a job from a company with more venture funding than sense
      4. Play Xbox all day
      5. When questioned about work, extoll the "feature-rich Ajax environment" and promise vague results "as soon as we complete the development cycle"
      6. Profit!

  • From experience: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:20AM (#14358120) Homepage
    VoIP will be huge this year. It already is a big deal, but as companies start upgrading/replacing their phone systems, they will want to go with a voip based system to "future" proof it.

    This is from my experience this year. A lot of companies expressed interest in me setting up a voip system for them, and because I go with asterisk I can undercut most competition dramatically while offering more features.

    Look for voip ( and asterisk especially ) to explode in 2006.
    • As someone who's looking to go into a VoIP business with a few others, is there a certification or a good book you'd recommend on the subject?

  • To summarise then.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by onion2k ( 203094 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:22AM (#14358129) Homepage
    "In 2006 we'll be wanting qualified people with relevant experience."

    It take a certain kind of recruitment consultant to figure out these gems..

  • huh.? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheRealMindChild ( 743925 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:22AM (#14358132) Homepage Journal
    Using Dice.com (or Monster.com) as an example that IT jobs are more in demand, is plain rediculous. Have you SEEN any of said job postings? Nothing like a receptionist looking for "10 years experience in windows XP and Interweb Gooey experience a must".

    • Re:huh.? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by C10H14N2 ( 640033 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @12:04PM (#14358388)
      Nothing like seeing 95% of the "250,000 jobs TODAY!" just cut-and-paste dupes of fifteen agencies selling the same job. I've had so many headhunters call me for Dice/Monster jobs in swarms, like ten calls on the same day, for the same job from people (using the term loosely) 10,000 miles apart. Then there are the duplicates of those duplicates that they post every week to bump their position up for "jobs" that arguably do not exist for any purpose but bait for resume banking.

      I figure, any number touted by Dice or Monster can be made more accurate by moving the decimal one position to the left and dividing by two.

    • Re:huh.? (Score:3, Funny)

      by roman_mir ( 125474 )
      Must be able to prepare COBRA solutions, knows Sun's Cafe Latte, an expert in Microsoft J2EE with 15 years of experience minimum. Yep. Only experts work here.

  • US jobs that will never leave (Score:5, Interesting)

    by OffTheLip ( 636691 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:24AM (#14358145)
    It's been mentioned before but the US government (not just the NSA) employs many IT/IS professionals and many of the positions require security clearance which can only be granted to US citizens. These jobs cover the gamut from weapons to environmental. Much of the US government tech market was unaffected by the dot.com draw down. Nobody gets rich but it's a living.
    • Much of the US government tech market was unaffected by the dot.com draw down. Nobody gets rich but it's a living.
      And the benefits are ridiculous.
    • My question is this, how does one get a security clearance? I live right outside of DC, 15 minutes from the NSA, and I have yet to get a straight answer as to how to get one. It seems that the majority of the tech jobs in this area require people that already have an ACTIVE security clearance.
      • Join the military. The government is, in my experience, the only employer that will pay you to get a security clearance, a process that can easily take 9-18 months.

        -Isaac

      • I was unemployed and got a call from a big contractor looking for the skills I had in my Monster resume. I had no clearance, so I sat in an office with my Escort Required badge until they got my provisional clearance, which eventually turned into a real clearance. I guess I was lucky - after the dotbomb layoffs and then 9/11, it seemed like having a clearance was a job requirement for anything in the DC area. I imagine the smaller companies aren't going to shell out to get you cleared, but the larger ones m
      • You can't unless

        1. You work for a defense contractor who will then sponsor your investigation.
        2. You were part of the DoD and already got one; pretty much if you were in the military at any given point working on an installation that required that sort of investigation. You're pretty much covered.
        3. You are a retired army general and are starting your own defense contractor business. In which case you probably don't have to ask for one.

        Disclaimer; I used to work on an intelligence battalion when I was in th
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Nobody gets rich but it's a living

      Yeah, no kidding. I took a significant pay cut to work closer to home and landed a govt gig. After a month here (as a contractor) they offered to make me a permanent employee. I would have made $10/hr less, with virtually no chance to advance (I would have been a senior developer, and the manager I would have worked for was in her mid-50s and had been managing that group for over ten years). When I declined their offer, they said they weren't surprised.

      It is an interest
      • I was on a contracting job for the Department of Supply & Services and I had a problem that needed management of four dimensional arrays, in COBOL which can only handle up to three dimensions. The answer was to use BLL cells. They has always done it by sorting and tallying.

        What's the difference? The jobs ran a few hundred times faster and involved a one step JCL to go from input to output instead of three steps, including an intermediate, totally useless and computationally very expensive sort.

        But the t

  • No need to specialize in a tech trend. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dc29A ( 636871 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:24AM (#14358148)
    IMO, just got to grok OO programming, know different protocols (SOAP, HTTP), know XML, have good self teaching skills, know how to google for answers.

    Learning a language or tech trend is not hard if one understands the underlying concepts: operating systems, OO code, various design patterns, protocols, etc.
    • Depends what area you want to go into. OO, SOAP, HTML, XML etc knowledge is worth buttons if you want to be employed as a device driver writer. Better to know about DMA, interrupt latencies, clocking and so forth. Even in the area I work in (financials programming) , I only use 2 of the above - OO and XML - and the XML is a cherry on the cake, I didn't get employed because of it plus any jackass can pick up XML in 30 minutes.
    • Learning a language or tech trend is not hard if one understands the underlying concepts: operating systems, OO code, various design patterns, protocols, etc.

      technically i agree with you. but that's a huge "if". many programmers (or those who call themselves programmers and are employed as such) do not understand the basic data structures, design patterns, algorithmic complexity, memory allocation, etc, etc, etc.

      i can't tell you how many hiring applicants i've weeded out because they couldn't give even th

      • Add to this finding an employer who understands that underlying principles matter more. I tried to get a job with a company as a VB developer and my background was pure C / C++ and Telecomms. At the interview they really didn't like being told that I'd just go and learn the VB language before I started. But what do you know? I did. Five weeks into it I was reviewing everyone elses code.

        But that only happened because the company was desperate and couldn't find another candidate. They'd have taken any mon

  • Only up to 5%? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:26AM (#14358153) Homepage
    Thats still half a million, the population of a medium sized city. I'd say thats a lot of displaced workers.
    • Thats still half a million, the population of a medium sized city. I'd say thats a lot of displaced workers.

      Just make sure you don't live there!

  • Recommended skills (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cryfreedomlove ( 929828 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:26AM (#14358156)
    Ground yourself in fundamentals rather than just one technology or language. Language wars are silly because a good engineer can learn a language easily.
    Know yourself. Be honest with yourself first. Understand what you like to do and find a job where you can do that.
    Be innovative. Keep your skills current and apply them to new problems.
    Be respectful to your colleagues. They need you and you need them. Penis waving is not a firm foundation for a functional team.
    Be a hero on a consistent basis.

  • DICE is the proof? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by whitroth ( 9367 ) <whitroth@5-BOHRcent.us minus physicist> on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:29AM (#14358168) Homepage
    I agree with another poster, that using DICE as evidence is absurd. I've pretty much given up on them - they're now among the most egregious sites that, regardless of what they *say*, update ads, so that an ad that was actually posted a month, or two months, or even three or more months ago shows up on a "search last seven days".

    Then, of course, there is the too-frequent ridiculous requirement that the person they're looking for be more experienced in that company's systems than the person who just left. Just look at the laundry lists of "requirements"....

    I wish companies would put a "date posted" *in* the ad, to prevent this abuse.

                mark
    • Many jobs on sites like this are nothing more than attempts by headhunters to collect resumes. That is, there was never a job to begin with. This alone makes using job-site stats worthless.

      Are IT jobs still in demand? Not where I work. Our development staff has been savaged over the last year. Many of our positions are now based in Bangalore. I see the handwriting on the wall and would like to take proactive steps but the situation is the same where ever I look.

      The best tech skill for 2006 is an alter
  • The big void is going to be in parallel and distributed computing. By 1998 desktops will have 4 core processors, workstations with two sockets will have 8 cores. Beyond multitasking, existing software cannot use these processors.

    Not that every program needs to use extra CPUs, but developers who have experienced continued speed "free lunch" improvements are going to hit a wall unless they start thinking in terms of threads, OpenMP, and MPI. You can check out Cluster Monkey [clustermonkey.net] for infromation on cluster compu

  • IT Jobs Not Dead (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ranton ( 36917 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:41AM (#14358248)
    I agree that the IT job market is no where near dead. I work at a small internet company, and hiring competent IT employees is always a hassle. The problem is not that it is hard to find a job in the computer industry, it is that there arent enough competent people.

    The only people that I know that are having trouble finding jobs are those without enough skill sets. Being a computer nerd, playing alot of video games, and running your MMORPG guild's website are not marketable skills. You need to actually be useful. Probably at least 95% of those 5% of jobs going overseas are just taking away jobs from the morons in the computer industry.

    And colleges are turning out incompetent programmers at an alarming rate. Going to a college to find a competent IT worker is barely more fruitful than going to your local Walmart. I wish they would start teaching these kids something instead of just having TAs on hand to basically do the student's work for them every time they have a problem. I actually have a friend who complained that his boss wouldnt help him enough whenever my friend had a problem with his work. I couldnt believe what I was hearing.

    • Re:IT Jobs Not Dead (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dr_dank ( 472072 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @12:04PM (#14358383) Homepage Journal
      I agree that the IT job market is no where near dead. I work at a small internet company, and hiring competent IT employees is always a hassle. The problem is not that it is hard to find a job in the computer industry, it is that there arent enough competent people.

      Whenever the subject of tech jobs comes up around here, you can always count on a number of posts from people who know this language and that, years of experience, etc etc going for months or years without employment as if the jobs didn't exist. I too, thought that IT/tech jobs were extremely few and far between until I got the opportunity to interview for a programming gig that I was in no way qualified for.

      It was then that I found out what the parent stated, truely qualified people are tough to find for these jobs.
  • As always, someone willing to work for less than a receptionist, move halfway across the country for a job that's 80 hrs a week of unrelenting grind while requiring 7 years experience in a technology that's only 3 years old will be in high demand next year.

    But in a serious vein - I'm in security and have been for years and I can't honestly see that demand for those jobs is increasing. I think what they're talking about is network admins who are familiar with the security aspects of the hardware they already

  • More important than anything else... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ErichTheRed ( 39327 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @11:48AM (#14358285)
    Language and platform fads are fun to chase, but the core skills of an IT person won't change anytime soon.
    • Solid logic & critical thinking skills. Sounds silly to mention, but there are way too many people in the IT world who lack these basic qualities that are so important to troubleshooting and smart design. I still run into a lot of people who don't grasp the big picture and realize that fixing A could break B through Z if they're not careful.
    • Willingness to solve tough problems. This was taken care of for the most part by the dotcom bust, but IMO no one belongs here who doesn't have a good work ethic and the desire to do difficult work. Especially now that IT is becoming more process-oriented and less "shoot-from-the-hip", being able to come up with an answer that does more than address the immediate problem will earn you huge points.
    • Business and customer service skills. The outsourcing thing is going to be especially hard on those who don't interact with users, exclusively write code, or do "just" their IT job. It's becoming even more important to get out there and be seen among your customers. The days of the "computer guy" who doesn't play well with others are numbered, nufortunately for people like this. There will always be a set of hardcore geeks in the center of it all, but that center is getting smaller as platforms merge, standards develop, etc.
    So basically, IT jobs at their core require the same skills as any knowledge worker, just more of them. Being technically capable is required, of course, but it's not the only requirement anymore.
    • Add to that:
      • Writing and communication skills. Be able to describe through documentation (e.g. UML, Visio, Word, Javadocs) what you are actually doing in a way that is understandable to: QA engineers, other developers and managers, product managers, and sometimes external customers. In most cases, I would not want to hire someone who knows the latest bells and whistles to build something but leaves the company in a lurch when s/he quits because no one can make sense of how the hell product/module/feature
  • I know that there are pleanty of jobs if you're willing to move OUT of the larger metro areas. I work for a company in Chattanooga, and we're always looking for qualified applicants to fill tech positions. I used to live in Denver, and you couldn't buy a job there with all the laid off programmers, the influx of tech workers from California and Texas, plus the large quantity of new grads from several local universities.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Lots of Bad Workers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Brushfireb ( 635997 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @12:04PM (#14358386)
    For the last two months I have been searching for two people to fill two clearly defined (and very fillable) positions with my company. We have used MOnster.com (Which has outrageous pricing) as well as craiglist, and have really only received crap.

    We have two IT Positions available, one for Web Developer -- PHP interfacing with PostGreSQL, and another for Software Engineer -- Designing Spec Docs and then Coding (and eventually managing other coders) that spec doc.

    Our technology bases arent the newest around (PHP, PostGreSQL, Perl/C) but we consistently get the following types of resumes:
      1 - Foreigners who want to work in the US. Sorry, I cant and dont want to sponsor you. We are a small company.
      2 - Foreigners who want to consult with companies in the US, but not move or be an employee. Sorry, not happening with us.
      3 - Highly underqualified people applying for a position. For example -- We have recieved a number of applicants who have 1 year programming experience, and no specific experience in our tech's, and who attended less-then-ideal educational institutions (Ivy Tech anyone?).

    I think that for every capable IT person, there are probably 15 cert jockies, and 25 idiots.

    Moreover, we have had people apply for the position who then asked what our company did. They could have spend 30 seconds looking at our website before dropping off or emailing their resume and found out. This type of laziness is horrible.

    B
    • If you're designing spec docs and then coding to them, you're doing the wrong things. I wouldn't apply for such a job.

      Rational Unified Process really is the way to go. Waterfall development processes suck to work under and don't perform. Divide a project into clear "user stories", do the risky ones first, and use agile methods (planning poker, team velocity, etc) to estimate time to completion.

      You can't know precisely what you want to do until you've tried some of it, all the way through down to coding a
  • I have been one of those 5% of jobs which were shipped overseas. Being in the QA field now almost 8 years, the last 2 positions I held (not including the present one), were shipped over. 5% doesnt seem like a lot, but telling those people who are now laid off 5% isnt helpful. It still is a considerable amount of jobs, in which people may still be laid off, trying to support their family. It's like saying hey there's a disease with no cure, but it only is affecting 5% of the population, well that's no cons

  • The training ground argument (Score:5, Insightful)

    by agslashdot ( 574098 ) <sundararaman,krishnan&gmail,com> on Thursday December 29, 2005 @12:10PM (#14358433)
    Even if you accept the dubious claim that there are jobs available for project managers & security experts, the typical career arc start at the bottom as a lowly programmer & work your way up to these lofty positions.
    When you outsource the lowly programmer jobs to India, where are the sec experts & proj managers supposed to come from ? No university instantly graduates a security expert - you learn on the job & submit papers get peer reviewed & work your way up. If you outsource the training ramp, you can't expect to get to the top.

    When I asked NYU economist Prof Easterly about this, he dismissed it as classic fallacy - "nobody works his way to a Professor by first serving at kindergarten, then middle school, then high school, then college, then univ..."

    Well ok, but you don't get tenure straighaway either - you start as a freshly minted PhD, become a post-doctorate asspc, then asst Prof, then associate Prof, then tenured Prof.

    There is always a training ground.

     

  • Dice is a poor reference point (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tturow ( 942056 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @12:15PM (#14358469)
    It has been my experience jobs posted on Dice and Monster don't even scratch the surface of what's out there. Doubtful companies that need a unique individual are going to waste their time looking for job board trolls... likely they will fill the post throught their own efforts or a specialized recruiter. Using Dice to measure market demand would be the last measurement I would accept. Job boards don't have a clue was it going on in the real world. And who would trust a proclamation of accuracy with a name like Dice.
  • ... or the rest also got pattern-trained to ignore forward looking statements in random articles that by definition almost never happen?

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @12:20PM (#14358507)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • That's easy (Score:4, Funny)

    by sd_diamond ( 839492 ) on Thursday December 29, 2005 @12:37PM (#14358629) Homepage
    1. Flying car repair & maintenance
    2. Personal Spacecraft repair & maintenance
    3. Portable Fusion Power Cell design & maintenance
    4. Servant Android Programmer
    5. Malfunctioning Servant Android Therapist
    6. Soldiers to fight Servant Android Rebellion
  • Computers are ___useless__ without I/O

    CNC is really starting to take off, a CNC robot is the modern equivalent of the black plantation slave, at the moment the CNC market is dominated by proprietary non standards compliant hardware and software attached to each machine, but this is changing.

    If you want more (interesting) work than you can shake a stick at then get into CNC now, and this doesn't mean just learn G-code programming, it means learning things like "real time" linux extensions, feedback and close

  • Threat of offshoring lowers wages (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sam_handelman ( 519767 ) <samuel...handelman@@@gmail...com> on Thursday December 29, 2005 @03:34PM (#14360003) Journal
    I don't doubt that the number of jobs offshored is relatively small - in fact, I would have expected it to be less than 5%, which is quite a lot of jobs.

      The point - at least initially - is not to shut down operations and move them overseas (which is often not really cost effective.) The point is that you can threaten people with outsourcing/offshoring/whatever in order to lower their wages.

      Large corporations - Caterpillar is a very famous case, type "caterpillar strike breaking" into google if you want detail on that - are very well served in having excess capacity overseas for this purpose. Technical workers do not generally form unions, let alone go on strike, but they still engage in negotiation for higher wages, and the *threat* of offshoring can be a powerful instrument in those negotiations, even if it is usually a bluff.

      This is especially important in that the thrust of the article remains true - demand for these skills is actually higher than it was at the peak of the .com boom, but salaries have been successfully contained.

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