The job market remains tight, but that doesn't mean IT isn't hiring. Indeed, there are those who say IT is one area where organizations will keep hiring near term.
Who's getting hired? Statistics show demand for networking experts, database administrators, security experts, and help desk personnel. But there are a handful of other positions that remain much tougher to fill. And in some ways, these high-level posts are going to be strategically necessary for organizations looking to prosper in today's economies.
Here is a sampling of some of the IT job titles in growing demand and for which supply is "rare as hens' teeth":
Data scientist. The professionals who can identify the questions to ask of big-data are turning out to be the heroes of the new analytics movement. But they're hard to find. In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, authors Thomas H. Davenport and D.J. Patil acknowledge the difficulty of finding help in this area:
[T]here are no university programs offering degrees in data science. There is also little consensus on where the role fits in an organization, how data scientists can add the most value, and how their performance should be measured.
The lack of available talent is a boon to IT vendors. In a recent Internet Evolution 7DEE lecture, Deepak Advani, who owns strategy and development for the business analytics product portfolio at IBM, said that technical tools for analytics are getting easier to use. But professionals with the skills needed to use these solutions to greatest advantage may be tough to find. So, IBM offers its own services.
Enterprise architect. Considering the amount of rhetoric around the need for IT to align more closely with the businesses it serves, it is surprising that this job is rarely filled. But apparently, it is a post that's rarely occupied, even where it's most needed.
Perhaps one reason is that an EA position demands as much business sense as technological know-how. There are a range of certification programs, none of which are easy to fulfill. Further, some confuse the job with that of a CIO. Not so, says one observer. "I think few CIOs will see EAs as co-anything but as direct reports practically translating business needs into technically detailed plans for the IT needed to execute on them," wrote "Imran" in a
message
posted on IE in March 2012.
Data storage manager. A prerequisite to cloud computing and analytics is an underlying storage network that is affordable, practical, and performs well. Experts in data storage tools and technologies are among the toughest to find. Sometimes storage is assigned to a manager within IT whose primary function is something unrelated. Sometimes the SAN (storage area network) manager is looked down upon. In any case, storage is a difficult area to master, and real talent is tough to come by -- which boosts the earnings of consultants in this area.
The above list of tough-to-fill IT positions is by no means complete. It's
been said that IT in general is an area where talent is in demand and hard to find. And as analytics, mobility, cloud services, and security evolve, expertise in these areas is likely to become even more valuable.
Odd that there is such a disconnect between companies and the universities that are supposedly training folk to work for them. You'd think the law of supply and demand would factor in somehow, but apparently it doesn't.
That said, companies need to step up, too, and not expect to find the jack of all trades, 20 years of experience for a product just invented 10 years ago, person at minimum wage that they seem to want to find.
slfisher, your post immediately brought to mind these lyrics:
Twenty years of schoolin' And they put you on the day shift
It's true that universities, for whatever reason, don't seem to train people very well for starting out in business from day 1. I hope that businesses are working with nearby universities to provide internships and coop jobs, helping the universities define the curriculum, and, for public universities, leaning on the legislatures to ensure that they're properly funded.
That said, companies need to step up, too, and not expect to find the jack of all trades, 20 years of experience for a product just invented 10 years ago, person at minimum wage that they seem to want to find. Companies need to be willing to grow and groom people. Moreover, how about looking at older workers rather than immediately claiming the only qualified people are H1Bs who just happen to be a whole lot cheaper?
Mary, I couldn't agree more. So much opportunity is being lost in the training at universities that do not relate to the real world changes and demands of industry.
Technology is viewed as a more mechanical job and has not developed to its potential, let alone prepare students for the demands in business today.
We need more technology vision in the universities.
That certainly is true, kicheko. I think the business user, who can put the data and information into a business context, will take the lead. Or, we may have technology/business experts or tiered levels of expertise that build the business intelligence bridges for effective use.
Great point about academia. Universities often seem to be behind the curve in terms of technology. That's become a problem for turning out qualified IT personnel.
One would think universities would keep up with trends and have more courses available, but I suppose with funding issues and the the highly changeable nature of tech, it just as hard for academia to keep up to speed as it is to find the qualified people to fill jobs.
Indeed big-data is the point at which the business analyst role seems to be converging so fast with a lot of IT functions. Probably a more inclusive role would be that of an business auditor because this involves analysing business, systems and the data.
The ThinkerNet does not reflect the views of TechWeb. The ThinkerNet is an informal means of communication to members and visitors of the Internet Evolution site. Individual authors are chosen by Internet Evolution to blog. Neither Internet Evolution nor TechWeb assume responsibility for comments, claims, or opinions made by authors and ThinkerNet bloggers. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
Facebook and Twitter are great for posting cat pictures. But are people really using social media for life-changing communications? Like, if a hurricane comes by and blows down their house?
In a standout presentation at the Jefferies 2013 Global Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in New York this week, the UK government talked about becoming a "very intelligent client."
A consumer business would have to be crazy or desperate to change call-center software in December, the peak of the holiday season. But that was exactly Positec's position.
To help enterprises deploy software faster for mobile, social, big-data, and cloud applications, IBM this week acquired development tools vendor UrbanCode.
Internet Explorer seems like a relic of the 90s, like parachute pants and Friends. But that's just me. I'm a Chrome guy, and before that I used Firefox.
Multi-tenant clouds assure security for clients, but not necessarily for their ideas. Here's one thing you should discuss with your cloud provider before you sign on.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Big-data has become a big point of emphasis for many businesses. While the technology is available to deploy these applications, the needed personnel often is not. As a result, analytic engineers' salaries have blown past the six-figure mark, and hiring these experts has become a challenge for IT managers.
Network complexity, cloud-based architectures, the explosion of apps, and the growth of bandwidth needs are among the reasons enterprises need to improve insight into traffic and data.
Enterprises are discovering that using social networking within the secure setting of a SaaS provider's network gives them an unusual opportunity to freely collaborate with partners, suppliers, and even competitors.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
your weekly update of news, analysis, and
opinion from Internet Evolution - FREE! REGISTER HERE
Wanted! Site Moderators Internet Evolution is looking for a handful of readers to help moderate the message boards on our site – as well as engaging in high-IQ conversation with the industry mavens on our thinkerNet blogosphere. The job comes with various perks, bags of kudos, and GIANT bragging rights. Interested?
To save this item to your list of favorite Internet Evolution content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
Email This
