Cloud careers: It's a seller's market

IT professionals who have learned to work across traditional borders are the hot ticket in the current cloud-crazy job market.

When David Grimes, CTO of managed and cloud service provider NaviSite, based in Andover, Mass., is looking to fill jobs at both the junior and senior level, he's not looking for folks who have stayed centered in a particular professional silo like application development,server management, network engineering or data storage.

Rather, he wants to hire someone who has trained across several of those IT disciplines.

"Moving forward it's going to be difficult to navigate a career in the cloud if you are solely operating within those traditional vertical alignments," Grimes says.

Francesco Paola, vice president at consultancy Cloud Technology Partners, explains that burgeoning cloud concepts like software defined networking (SDN) and orchestration portals require IT professionals to have a solid working knowledge of the fluid, underlying cloud networking infrastructure, understand how cloud-enabled applications need to be built to ride on those rails, have insight into how server virtualization affects both of those parts of the picture, and be clued into how security can be wrapped around the whole shebang.

"In a cloud-based deployment, there can't be the kind of technology handoffs between silos in IT we have seen in the past. To achieve the efficiencies of a cloud investment, there has to be staff that can manage the layers of the cloud in cooperation with each other," Paola says.

10 of the most powerful cloud computing companies

The exact titles for these new hybrid jobs -- as well as the set of duties to be carried out by the individuals who fill them -- are still in a state of semantic and substantive flux. Some, like cloud architect, cloud software engineer/developer, cloud systems administrator, do indeed make the "cloud" bent quite obvious.

While others - like DevOps, for example - describe which two old IT silos - straight development and straight operations - have morphed into a new line item in the cloud focused IT budget. And still others -- traditional positions like project manager, business systems analyst and network architect -- are evolving into jobs that require their occupants to work in the cloud daily.

IT certifications lead to jobs, higher pay

Joe Coyle, CTO of Capgemini North America, agrees with Grimes that IT people with cross-training have a leg up in the new cloud world. "I can no longer interview application developers solely based on their application development skills. I need to know how well they understand how those apps intricately map to the underlying cloud infrastructure it runs on and how they will react if that underlying IaaS needs to be changed," he says.

That said, "What people want and what they can get are two different things in this market," says John Reed, senior executive director of Robert Half Technology, a worldwide IT staffing firm headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif.

Reed says professionals who are experts in cloud computing, software as a service and virtualization are in high demand, but those with combined skills in server, software and networking are the most sought after in the current IT job market.

Reed advises senior IT staff looking for cloud talent to realistically set their expectations. "At this stage you're not going to find a cloud project manager who has five migrations under their belt. You'll be lucky to find them with more than one," Reed says.

More than a dozen CIOs, headhunters and IT training professionals interviewed for this article contend that veteran IT professionals who have had the time, inclination and opportunity over the past year or two to get cross-educated or pick up on-the-job cloud experience are few and far between.

Steve Caniano, vice president of cloud strategy and business development at AT&T Business Solutions, oversees both the company's growing cloud services business and a team of thousands of IT professionals supporting that venture. "There are just not enough folks that have mastered the cloud yet," says Caniano, who expects that it will be at least five years before the supply of cloud professionals will meet the demand.

"It's a seller's market. And for the foreseeable future, we are going to have to be willing to pay a premium to get this cross-disciplined cloud talent," says Grimes, adding that the best place to look for them at the moment is in the consulting world.

According to salary statistics published by several sources, Grimes is going to have to pay a good bit more.

Data collected by Dice.com, a leading career site for technology and engineering professionals, shows that cloud has been one of the fastest growing skill segments, with related job postings up 72% over last year. That comes out to more than 3,800 positions listed on any given day. To put that into context, overall tech jobs on Dice are up only 4% year over year.

Dice.com data also shows that cloud computing professionals in the United States this year will earn on average, $92,830, compared to the median $81,327 tech salary.

Robert Half Technology research, according to Reed, shows that cloud computing related salaries are continuing to rise between 8% to 10% annually, compared with 3% to 4% growth in the average IT salary. In research the firm conducted for its 2013 Salary Guide (to be released next week [Oct. 15]) the hiring environment is only going to be tougher next year.

The report states that as the pool of qualified candidates shrinks, and demand grows, competition for IT professionals with mobile, big data, cloud and virtualization experience will receive multiple offers and hold much of the bargaining power.

"Job seekers in traditional IT roles looking to advance themselves either internally or by moving out in this very favorable market need to repackage themselves with some level of cross-training," says Alice Hill, managing director of Dice.com. Hill says this cross-training can come from both external classes and certification programs or by seeking out on-the-job cloud project experience, especially if it's outside the scope of their existing job description.

Server virtualization vendors from Microsoft to VMware -- and every Linux-based derivative in between -- as well as wildly successful proprietary IaaS providers like Amazon and more open organizations like OpenStack have accessible training programs. These programs can help cross-train network staff about hypervisor internals and server administrators on why OpenStack's Quantum "networking as a service" project will impact next generation cloud deployments.

Capgemini's Coyle thinks good job candidates, from a practical standpoint, only need to have one flavor of formal vendor-specific training in each of the cloud platform segments. For example, if a DevOps candidate has picked up a certification in VMware, "it is a good indication that he's got an understanding on how a virtualization platform operates and can work on the job to apply that across a hybrid cloud where other hypervisor software is in use," Coyle says. Likewise, if she understands how Rackspace runs its IaaS platform, she can map that to Amazon's offering.

NaviSite's Grimes suggests that IT professionals should be selective regarding their cross-training. "Say you are a solid Linux system engineer and you want to dive into networking, you could work on a CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) to get a broad understanding of networking and acquire a good base of skills. But going for, say the CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert), is going to put you too far up the Cisco stack, which would be overboard for this purpose," Grimes says.

Paolo advises that senior IT management can push the idea of cross training along by merging teams of complementary disciplines, like system administrators and network administrators, for example. "It also makes sense to seed these teams of seasoned professionals with recent college graduates who are more open to cloud computing and can be trained in this cross-discipline environment from the start," Paolo says.

Grimes warns that IT management must be watching for potential turf animosities and suggests nipping them in the bud with cross-discipline design sessions that both open the lines of communication and reinforce the message that the company is determined to break down traditional vertical IT divides.

Mark Herbert, CTO at intY, a UK-based cloud services aggregator that runs its U.S. business out of Florida, argues that while cross-training is a good idea, only hands-on cloud work can provide data centric personnel with the flow and pressures of working in a non-stop services environment that defines cloud computing.

On the job cross-training also offers insight into two irrepressible facts about cloud computing, says Brett Adam, CTO of rPath, an enterprise platform-as-a-service (PaaS) company in Raleigh, N.C., that recently published the "Enterprise Cloud Adoption Framework", a document that outlines some best practices for cloud adoption. "The first is that automation is good. And the second is with automation, comes a reduction of choice. So being an IT professional working in the cloud, you've got to come to grips [that there are] fewer choices on how you build your apps, how you run your network, and how that drives the business," Adam says.

If on-the-job training is not available, the low entry price of cloud computing also comes in very handy for cross training purposes, says Chris Brenton, a cloud security architect at CloudPassage, a cloud server security company. He advises IT professionals to take advantage of the 30-day free trial subscriptions most cloud service providers offer potential customers as an opportunity to work with a broad range of products.

Another avenue for hands-on experience is to offer to do pro-bono work for non-profit organizations that need technical assistance to run more efficiently in the cloud.

Proving your cloud chops on paper

We were able to identify just two third-party cloud knowledge certifications - ComTIA's Cloud Essentials and its new Cloud+ Certification and the Cloud Security Alliance's Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK) -- that carry any weight in the industry at this point.

However, having either on your resume is more a testament to general knowledge about how cloud computing works (in the case of the CompTIA certification) and the principles that IT professionals need to know to securely migrate operations to the cloud. Neither group claims that these certifications guarantee deep technical expertise in the cloud.

However, representatives of both indicated that future iterations of both prerequisite training and testing will move in that direction. Next year, CompTIA will be offering a Cloud Plus certification for which, Rick Bauer, a senior member of CompTIA's skills certification staff says that IT professionals will have to be "petty deep in the technical weeds" to collect a passing grade.

Neither organization will go on record to say exactly how many IT professionals have taken their tests or publish pass/fail rates, but both say that the numbers are rising rapidly.

Bauer did disclose that his firm was gearing up to administer between 500 and 1,000 Cloud Plus tests next year.

CSA's COO John Howie contends his outfit has seen a dramatic increase in people seeking out the CCSK in the past year.

"But an even better indication of the interest is the number of companies that are coming to us and saying they are requiring whole teams to become CCA accredited," says Howie, adding that the CSA responds to that by working with member training organization to complete on-site cloud training.

Source: networkworld.com

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IT job numbers decline for first time in 25 months

IT lost 1,700 jobs in September, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Last week's jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed better-than-expected results, including a sizable drop in the national unemployment rate to 7.8% from 8.1%. But for the IT industry, September was a big disappointment. After sustained growth -- including 36,300 jobs added in July and August alone -- the IT industry lost 1,700 jobs in September.

September marks the first the monthly decline since August 2010 that wasn't associated with a labor strike or other market anomaly, notes IT analyst firm Foote Partners, which focuses on tech employment research.

Foote Partners analyzed the numbers:

* In the Management and Technical Consulting Services category, 1,800 jobs were lost following 17 consecutive months of job growth during which a total of 95,400 jobs were added.

* One bright spot: the Computer Systems Design/Related Services segment. This category gained 2,900 jobs in September, marking the 24th consecutive month of job growth.

* Telecommunications posted a loss of 400 jobs in September, and the Data Processing/Hosting/Related Services segment lost a total of 2,400 jobs -- the largest single monthly decline since June 2009, Foote Partners noted. Between January and August, these two segments combined lost 15,000 jobs.

Of the sudden reversal in IT job expansion, Foote Partners CEO David Foote said it was unanticipated but, given the volatility in IT skills supply and demand, likely to be reversed in the near term.

"Overall national employment numbers were disappointing [in] July and August, but for IT they were spectacular, the greatest monthly gains in five years," Foote stated in his monthly analysis of the DOL's employment report. "At the jobs level I wouldn't be surprised if this turned back around soon because the truth is that many of the IT job segments in the government jobs reports, in particular those in IT services, have been on strong and sustained growth runs for nearly two years. Companies are actively searching for talent and hiring for the future, though with considerable selectivity."

Companies are looking for versatile individuals with multi-dimensional skills that aren't always easy to find, Foote noted.

"Companies continue to aggressively pursue workers with multiple talents -- a mix of technology, business, and people skills that many who are not working simply do not have. Or a unique combination of pure tech skills: for example, cloud administrators who are adept at automating the configuration and operations in a cloud environment by combining a variety of different skill sets around systems administration, virtualization, storage and network administration. It's not about just running a server. Or cloud developers who have mastered new sets of APIs, new frameworks, and non-relational databases like NoSQL to develop elastic and scalable apps in the cloud."

Source: networkworld.com

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Trying to fill 6,000 jobs, Microsoft pitches $10,000 H-1B visa

Rebounding after laying off 5,000 in 2009, Microsoft says it now has big need for more tech workers.

WASHINGTON -- With the recession hit in 2008, Congress put the idea of a "skills shortage" and a need for more H-1B visas in a closet.

That didn't mean, though, that interest in raising the H-1B cap went away for everyone.

New York City Mayor Bloomberg, for instance, last year called the limits on both temporary and permanent employment-based immigration a "form of national suicide."

Microsoft has long advocated for more work visas. But the company's advocacy was quieted during the recession as well, as it announced in 2009 a layoff of 5,000 workers.

Circumstances at Microsoft have since changed for the better.

Microsoft said Thursday that it has some 6,000 open positions in the U.S., and is creating new jobs faster than it can fill them. The company is now using its own workforce needs to make a case for a new type of H-1B visa as well as a permanent employment visa.

In prepared remarks delivered at the Brookings Institution here yesterday, Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel and executive vice president, presented a plan to add 20,000 H-1B visas and an equal number of STEM visa green cards to help companies get qualified workers.

What may make this plan novel is a proposal to require that companies pay the government $10,000 for H-1B visas in a new "supplemental category," and $15,000 for STEM green card visas.

Microsoft is recommending that Congress invest the money paid for the visas -- estimated at up to $500 million year -- in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEM, education programs.

The company presented a paper with recommendations on improving STEM training.

Microsoft says the 6,000 open jobs it has in the U.S is an increase of 15% over the number open last year, and that over 3,400 of those jobs are for researchers, developers and engineers.

"Our nation faces the paradox of a crisis in unemployment at the same time that many companies cannot fill the jobs they have to offer," Smith said.

He warned that if the positions can't be filled locally "we risk these jobs migrating from the U.S., creating even bigger challenges for our long-term competitiveness and economic growth."

Smith said Microsoft spends 83% of its R&D budget in the U.S. today.

It isn't clear whether Microsoft's proposed $10,000 fee will replace any existing charges applied to an H-1B visa.

The visa already has a variety of fees, including a $325 base filing fee, plus a $1,500 fee for employers with 26 or more full-time employees. There is a $500 fraud detection fee, and a $1,225 premium processing fee for expedited processing.

In 2010, Congress added a $2,000 fee on top of these charges for any company that has more than half of its workforce on H-1B or L-1 visas. This fee was aimed at offshore outsourcing firms.

The H-1B visa cap is currently at 85,000, which includes 20,000 visas set aside for advanced degree graduates of U.S. universities.

The U.S. begins accepting H-1B petitions on April 1 for the next fiscal year.

In April of 2008, still months before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September that year, the U.S. exhausted the visas within one week. But after the recession, demand slowed. In 2011, it took 10 months to use up the visas. But for fiscal year 2013, which begins Oct. 1, the visa cap was reached in one month.

Microsoft is introducing the visa plan by itself, and will likely get support from some groups that advocate on skills immigration issue. But whether it goes anywhere with lawmakers that may be left until next year.

There is a lot of support in Congress to expand the green card program for foreign students that earn advanced degrees.

Although the recession ended efforts to raise the H-1B cap, lawmakers have pushed ahead to create STEM visas that offered permanent residency. The backers argue that such employment visas would help keep foreign advanced degree graduates of U.S. schools, seen as potential tech and business innovators, in the U.S.

Just last week, 257 members of the U.S. House voted to create up to 55,000 STEM visas. The vote for the Republican sponsored plan failed because the bill was introduced on suspension calendar and thus required that two thirds of the legislators vote "yes."

The Democrats didn't want to support the measure primarily because the Republican plan would have repurposed 55,000 diversity lottery visas for the STEM visas.

Diversity visas are made available to people in countries underrepresented in the U.S.

The H-1B visa is more controversial than green cards for advanced degree graduates.

The H-1B is heavily used by offshore outsourcing firms, which puts a lot pressure on the cap creating competition for visas for U.S.-based firms.

The H-1B visa has also given rise to small IT development shops that primarily use foreign workers. The prevailing wage protections in the visa aren't seen by critics as strong enough, and because employers apply for the visa, it is argued that the foreign workers are all but indentured.

Ron Hira, a public policy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and high skill immigration issues, took issue with some of the Microsoft's arguments, including its workforce projections and claim that computer science degree production is not keeping up with job demand.

Not all computer-related occupations have or need a computer science degree, Hira said.

"Is there a shortage of people going to medical school or even law school or in investment banking? No, because smart kids know that this is a reasonable career path," said Hira, although he notes that may be changing for law school.

"Why are kids not going into IT? Because of industry employment relations," said Hira.

In the late 1990s the number of computer science grads doubled and he believes enrollment could double again. "Why not focus efforts on that instead of importing guest workers?" he said.

In terms of visa needs, Hira believes the problem could be fixed through legislation introduced by Senators Richard Durbin (D-ll) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). Among the things their reform would accomplish is restricting work visas to 50% of its employment U.S. base.

"This would solve their issues," he said.

Source: computerworld.com

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10 Hot IT Skills For 2013

Want to snag a pay premium? Check out the IT skills that will be in high demand in 2013. 

The number of companies planning to hire tech professionals continues to grow, with 33% of the 334 IT executives who responded to Computerworld's 2013 Forecast survey saying they plan to increase head count in the next 12 months. 

This is the third year in a row that the percentage of respondents with hiring plans has risen -- up from 29% last year, 23% in 2010 and 20% in 2009.

"When you look at just about any research or market trend, IT is one of the top two or three always mentioned as a bright spot in the job market, and it's pretty simple why," says John Reed, senior executive director at staffing firm Robert Half Technology. "When you look at technology, it drives so much of what business does, from productivity to communication to improving speed to making better business decisions. So companies are investing in that, and you have to have the people experienced in doing that.

Of course, IT leaders aren't hiring technologists indiscriminately. They're seeking specific skills to deliver what the business needs to compete today. Here's a look at the top 10 skills for 2013.

1. Programming and Application Development

• 60% plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

Companies put off projects during the recession, but now they're playing catch-up and looking for staff to keep up, according to Reed.

"Technology and software are great ways for companies to improve productivity, lower costs and create better Web presence," he says, adding that companies will need staffers to create new and better technology to do those things.

That's the case at San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, says Jason Griffin, vice president and technology talent acquisition manager. "Our top needs are in programming and application development," he says. "We're just looking for more to meet the business need. The business [units] are investing in new products, they're looking for ways to provide products and services to meet customer needs."

Griffin, like others, says he's specifically looking for people with experience in Java, J2EE and .Net.

2. Project Management

• 40% plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

The ongoing need for project management skills tracks with the continuing need for programmers: Both are responses to the demand for new applications that businesses need to compete.

"More projects mean more project managers," Reed says, noting that companies want experience as well as credentials, such as the Project Management Professional designation.

Jamie Hamilton, vice president of software engineering at Detroit-based Quicken Loans, says project manager jobs will be among the 100 new positions his company plans to add to its 800-strong IT team.

Hamilton says demand for project managers is strong in part because projects are growing more complex as the connectivity between applications increases.

Successful candidates need to have proven track records. "Three things are key for us, and they're more around behavior: Are you a leader, and do you operate as a leader? Do you have a history of executing? What's your behavior around detail?" Hamilton says. 

3. Help Desk/Technical Support

• 35% plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

Jack Wolf, vice president and CIO at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, says he has a list of initiatives to pursue, including deployments of new radiology systems and electronic health record applications. To ensure success, he's looking not only for people to build and implement the systems, but also for tech support workers to help employees use them.

"New systems mean you need more help desk people to handle the increase in calls we expect," Wolf says.

He's far from the only one searching for such skills. Tech staffing firm Modis reports that help desk technician is the job title that companies most often seek help filling. 

4. Security

• 27% plan hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

Security has long been a concern of IT leaders, and demand for specialized security professionals is growing as the task of safeguarding systems and data becomes increasingly complex.

Consider the case of Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics, which has U.S. headquarters in Andover, Mass.

Cynthia Burkhardt, vice president of talent acquisition, says the company is building its IT security department internationally. It hired a chief information security officer, who is based in the Netherlands, and it's adding four more IT security executives -- two of whom will be based in the U.S. She says the company expects to continue building its IT security team from the top down.

Burkhardt says Royal Philips wants experienced IT security professionals who have business acumen in addition to expertise in deploying firewalls, threat detection tools, encryption technology and other security systems. 

5. Business Intelligence/Analytics

• 26% plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

Big data is one of the top priorities for many companies, but getting the right people to analyze all that information is challenging, says Jerry Luftman, managing director at the Global Institute for IT Management and a leader in the Society for Information Management.

The best candidates have technical know-how, business knowledge and strong statistical and mathematical backgrounds -- an uncommon mix of skills, Luftman says. In fact, some companies are hiring statisticians and teaching them about technology and business.

Joe Fuller, CIO at Dominion Enterprises, a marketing services company in Norfolk, Va., says he anticipates hiring data scientists or data analysts in the future but acknowledges that it will be a challenge.

"We're missing that person who thinks outside the box, who understands the link between this behavior now and this behavior later," Fuller says. "I don't know who to look for there, so I think it's [going to be] a team. I can't imagine finding that in one person."

6. Cloud/SaaS

• 25% plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

Fuller's staffing plan at Dominion Enterprises is also a case study for skill No. 6, which didn't even crack the top 10 in the 2011 survey: He says the company will need cloud computing experts as it moves beyond its two existing data centers.

"We're going to need a cloud architect who knows how to leverage and how to architect without breaking the bank," he says. "We're going to need to know where we should host it, how to configure it, how to negotiate the [service-level agreements], and to make sure we're backed up properly." 

7. Virtualization

• 24% plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

Jon A. Biskner, assistant vice president of IT at Nicolet National Bank in Green Bay, Wis., says he wants to create a virtualization administrator position.

"It's hard to find someone who is fully skilled in virtualization," Biskner says. "They have to understand the storage and clusters behind the virtual server because before the connection was more physical; now it's more logical." IT professionals talk about virtualization, he adds, but often they don't have a breadth of experience with it. 

8. Networking

• 19% plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

Networking expertise remains a perennial top 10 most-wanted skill, although demand has dropped from 38% in the 2010 survey to 19% in the 2013 survey. Despite the decline, however, IT leaders say they still need networking professionals who have solid experience.

In Robert Half Technology's third-quarter IT Hiring Index and Skills Report, network administration was the No. 2 most sought-after skill set, cited by 48% of the 1,400 CIOs surveyed. It was second only to data/database management, which was cited by 55% of the respondents. 

9. Mobile Applications and Device Management

• 19% plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

As consumer and business use of smartphones and tablets expands, employers are looking for workers who can handle the demands related to the proliferation of such devices, says Motti Fine, managing director of TreeTop Technologies, an IT staffing and consulting firm. Case in point: Kathy Junod, senior director of IT at Auxilium Pharmaceuticals in Malvern, Pa., plans to create a new job with the title mobile manager to add to her existing staff of 22. She says she needs an experienced manager to oversee building the niche mobile apps the business needs. 

10. Data Center

• 16% plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.

Core technical skills remain in high demand, so it's not surprising that data center skills still make the top 10. In fact, CompTIA reported in its February State of the IT Skills Gap study that server/data center management and storage and data backup remain high on the list of IT skills that employers are seeking. Some 61% of the IT and business executives surveyed by CompTIA rated server/data center management as a very important skill, while 57% rated storage/data backup as such.

However, Robert Half Technology's third-quarter IT Hiring Index and Skills Report found that CIOs listed data/database management as No. 2 among the "functional areas" in which it's most challenging to hire IT professionals.

Source : computerworld.com

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5 hot IT certification picks for 2010

Certifications have always been beneficial to IT job seekers, but lately there's increased emphasis on vendor- and technology-specific training as the economy begins to recover and companies look to plug talent holes in their IT organizations.

"There are great opportunities in technology, but there is increased competition for jobs," says Ray Kelly, CEO of certification provider Certiport. "I have never seen a time like today where there is such a focus on certifications."


Cisco, Microsoft certifications increase high-tech salaries

When the economy tanked, certifications became more important for IT pros who wanted to make themselves more employable.

"For the past couple of years, the economy has been challenging, but from a technical education standpoint it has been a positive market," says Fred Weiller, director of marketing for Learning@Cisco. "In pure volume, the foundation technologies such as routing and switching -- without which no network exists -- represent a huge amount of our certification portfolio."

These days, Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts see virtualization as the top networking investment area (cited by 67% of 970 CCIEs polled by Illuminas on behalf of Cisco). Another 64% say security and risk management will continue to be the networking skills in greatest demand -- an expectation echoed by Weiller.

Already, "professionals with 'cyber' on their resume can command a 20% salary premium as both the public and private sectors are becoming more aggressive in building their security talent pipeline," notes Thomas Silver, senior vice president at Dice. The high-tech job board listed more than 62,000 tech jobs available as of early April, about half of which are contract or part-time positions.

Determining the best IT certification to pursue depends on an individual's existing skill level, career goals and accessibility to training. Here we detail five of the hottest IT certifications for 2010.

1. VMware Certified Professional

The VMware Certified Professional (VCP) program, now available on vSphere 4 (VCP4), seems like a no-brainer. With virtualization technology growing within the majority of organizations, it is critical that the talent pool keep up with the technology. Yet recent research shows that enterprises are worried about a lack of expertise specific to virtualization. New skills need to be acquired for virtual systems, and new management and automation technologies must be introduced into the environment to truly reap the rewards of virtualization. According to Forrester Consulting, which interviewed 257 IT professionals on behalf of CA, "the proper skills for the future are difficult to attain and retain."

2. Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist

Microsoft continues to dominate most desktops in U.S. business. Its Windows operating system boasts more than 91% market share, according to March figures from Net Market Share, and Microsoft has seen accelerated interest in the latest revision, Windows 7.

"Microsoft continues to leave its computing fingerprints on most desktops," says Forrester Research analyst Sheri McLeish.

IT professionals who become a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) can prove their abilities around implementing, building, troubleshooting and debugging specific Microsoft technologies, such as a Windows operating system, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Visual Studio. (Check out this 9 year-old, who's working on his fifth Microsoft certification.)

"In terms of training and certification, we have seen the fastest ramp up on Windows 7 than any technology in the past five years," says Chris Pirie, general manager of sales and marketing for Microsoft Learning. "We are anticipating a big wave of desktop refreshes and we will be having a new wave of Office software this summer. Certification is very hot for us right now."

3. Cisco Certified Architect

IT professionals with a few certifications under their belts could consider upgrading to what has been dubbed the Ph.D. in Cisco.
The network giant last year added to its educational roster with a new level of certification, the Cisco Certified Architect (CCA). While Cisco boasts more than 20,000 CCIEs worldwide, the vendor decided to build another layer of expertise on top of its proven certification program. The CCA requires applicants to already be certified as Cisco Certified Design Experts (CCDE) and have 10 years of experience. The training for CCA would equip IT professionals with the C-level know-how and skills to prevent wasteful investments on technology and better align network projects with business goals, according to Cisco.

"One of the key things we are testing or investigating is the ability for a candidate to understand the business side and translate that into technology demands," Cisco's Weiller says. "The CCA builds upon the CCDE program, which in itself is very much in demand. Networks have become very sophisticated and to be able to design and build a network that can adapt to changing needs and stand the test of time is critically important in making an individual successful in a networking career."

4. CompTIA Strata Green IT

While vendor-specific knowledge and foundational certifications seem a prerequisite for most jobs, IT professionals in 2010 should also consider amping up their vendor-neutral skills around technologies that continue to gain attention from high-tech as well as business leaders.

"From CompTIA's perspective, entry-level certifications such as the A+ and Network+ are going through the roof, and we are seeing double-digit growth in Security+ certifications," says Terry Erdle, senior vice president of skills certification at CompTIA (Computer Technology Industry Association).

Building on the basics, CompTIA just announced a new training track, green IT. CompTIA's Strata Green IT certificate is recommended for IT professionals with 18 months of technical experience and IT credentials such as CompTIA A+ or Server+, and the program is designed to show that a candidate is schooled in power management as well as virtualization techniques. The certification also includes training on developing and calculating ROI for green IT initiatives and knowledge of environmentally sound waste disposal techniques.

"We just launched the Strata Green IT certification to help build the funnel from the lower end to the higher end for people with advanced skills. The best thing we as a nonprofit in the IT industry can do is help fix the unemployment problem in the country, and we do that by adding such advanced skills training to address emerging employment needs," Erdle says.

5. ITIL v3 Foundations

For many, the goal this year is to streamline IT operations, adding automation where possible, while at the same time increasing services to users. The premise of overhauling the way IT works is outlined in the IT Infrastructure Library, or ITIL (Version 3 is currently being adopted).

With four levels of ITIL certification, IT professionals can prove they understand the principals around service life-cycle management and apply them to real-world environments. Companies seeking such expertise would likely desire a candidate who couples ITIL skills with security or other technical expertise. Considered more of a process-oriented area, ITIL can still deliver benefits such as improved availability, faster problem resolution and reduced costs due to streamlined processes.

"Whether you want to call them soft skills or business skills, IT professionals need communications skills, they need to be able to manage a project, and they need ITIL skills to show they understand the service lifecycle," Cisco's Weiller says. "Individuals need all these skills, not just technical skills."

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India adds IT jobs despite recession

The largest addition of jobs in the country came in the IT services and BPO industries

India added 487,000 jobs in its IT and BPO (business process outsourcing) export industries in the quarter ended Dec. 31, despite the global recession, according to a Quarterly Quick Employment Survey by the country's labor bureau.

The survey was conducted to assess the impact of the economic slowdown on employment in India.

The results, released Thursday, found that of a total of 638,000 jobs added across the economy, 580,000 were in the exports sector. IT services and BPO exporters led the pack.

Besides Indian service providers, a large number of multinational companies like IBM and Accenture have set up IT services and BPO operations in the country, that service both the Indian market and markets abroad. Most of India's IT and BPO exports go to the U.S. and the U.K.

In January this year, a large number of Indian outsourcers, including the largest, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and the second largest, Infosys Technologies, reported plans to increase hiring in anticipation of improved business conditions.

TCS, for example, added 7,692 positions in last quarter of 2009, taking the total staff at the end of the quarter to 149,654. The company plans to hire about 8,000 trainees and about 3,000 experienced staff in the current quarter, it said.

India's software and services exports are expected to grow at 5.5 percent to US$49.7 billion in the Indian fiscal year to March 31, 2010, Minister for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot told Parliament on Thursday.

That growth rate for software and services exports is well behind the 16.5 percent rate in the year to March 31, 2009, and 29.5 percent in the previous year.

However an expected uptick in business later this year is driving new hiring by the IT and BPO sector. The National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) said in February that India's exports of software services and BPO are likely to increase by 13 to 15 percent in the fiscal year to March 31, 2011.

Some companies have also indicated that they will increase staff salaries soon. Raises were cut down or held back last year after the recession hit the industry.

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IT management: Zero in on business impact

Push users to think past the idea that technology will be a cure-all
CIO Executive Council - Within five years of moving into IT management, Jay Kerley found his purpose: working with the business to affect business outcomes and results. And he set his sights on the CIO role when it became clear that the best way to create change and effect a business impact on as wide a scale as possible is to have that executive-level, strategic role. "With a CIO's cross-division view of processes, you are in the position to shift and turn the company," says Kerley, who was promoted to the position of deputy CIO at Applied Materials in 2009.

Kerley, a winner of CIO magazine's and the CIO Executive Council's 2009 CIO Ones to Watch Award, identifies three milestones in his path to the c-suite: building business outcome-focused IT leadership teams, taking on risky challenges with big payoffs for the company, and cultivating a portfolio perspective.

Kerley's first taste of driving business results came in his first leadership position, where he discovered that he had a knack for rallying and motivating teams to tackle complex, business-oriented challenges. What motivated him -- and his team, in turn -- was the chance to create and enable business improvements. He built a close-knit team of people during his time in that position -- many of whom have stayed with him as he moved to new companies and new locations -- that led projects with far-reaching impact on the company, including globalization of processes for more efficient and consistent operations, and merging acquired business units without disrupting service to the customers.

Kerley realized that a willingness to face new challenges would bring greater benefits to the business, and he had this in mind when he joined Applied Materials, the world's largest supplier of manufacturing equipment to the semiconductor, display and solar photovoltaic industries. There he took a risk by evaluating applications that hadn't been meeting the engineering users' needs for years, pushing people to think past the idea that technology would be a cure-all, and examining the underlying processes as the source point for potential improvements. He then partnered with business leads to develop new processes and a technology solution to enable them. In the end, the engineering team not only had a better user experience, but was able to use the system in ways it hadn't before, including collaborating across the globe.

Much of this came together because Kerley found a strong CIO mentor early on, who complemented weaknesses -- while Kerley came up in IT via infrastructure and applications development, this mentor came from a leadership development and project and portfolio management background. Being exposed to that side of the IT world was a revelation, Kerley says. Having a portfolio perspective enables IT leaders to serve as a bridge into the business and to see the potential for cross-functional improvements, a skill-set necessary to being a results-oriented CIO.

Jay Kerley is deputy CIO at Applied Materials and a member of the CIO Executive Council. The Council's Pathways Program was created by CIOs to build business and IT leadership skills in senior IT leaders through group mentoring with CIOs, 360-degree competencies assessment, targeted seminars and community forums. To learn more, visit council.cio.com/pathways.html.

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Forecast 2010: 6 hottest skills for 2010

Pent-up demand for new projects. Veteran employees leaving the company. Who could complain about such pressures in the waning months of 2009, when the year was spent under a cloud of economic misery?

Certainly not Shane Kilgore, IT director at Randall-Reilly Publishing Co. in Tuscaloosa, Ala. He was dismayed to see two talented software developers give notice recently. One had five years under his belt and the other had 10, but Kilgore took their departures as a sign that the economy is taking its first steps toward recovery. He plans to hire a few new developers this year, not only to replace the ones who left, but also to work on new products that will be in demand when -- as many economists predict -- the recovery gains headwind this year. (Read more about the outlook for IT compensation and hiring inComputerworld's Salary Survey.)

"Things have been frozen because of the economy," Kilgore says. "But if we don't get new products out there, we won't have enough places for customers to put their money."

Still, with signs pointing to recovery and even job growth in 2010, companies such as Randall-Reilly are planning to hire only in key areas, and even then, they will favor people with skills that span multiple disciplines. In many cases, companies will still resist bringing on full-time employees, says Tom Silver, senior vice president for North America at Dice Holdings Inc., which operates Dice.com and other careers Web sites. "One thing we see companies do is bring people in on a project basis, and then as business comes back, they hire them full time," Silver says.

According to Computerworld's 2010 Forecast survey, this year's hiring plans certainly aren't at 2009 levels. Less than 20% of the 312 IT executives polled said they plan to increase IT head count in the next 12 months, compared with 26% in the previous year. And nearly 20% said they plan to decrease their IT head count.

For IT professionals who are either looking to get back into the workforce or mulling moves to greener pastures, here are the six types of skills most in demand among survey respondents who said they expect to hire IT workers in 2010.

1. Programming/Application Development

Among companies that plan to hire, the top reason for doing so is to meet demand for new systems and projects. That could be why programming/application development is the skill set that's most in demand, by far, according to Computerworld's survey.
"We're actually seeing new projects get the green light," says Dave Willmer, executive director of IT staffing firm Robert Half Technology. Quite possibly, he says, these were projects that were canceled at the end of 2008, only to be revived for 2010. The wave of new projects is also leading to demand for application developers who can double as business analysts and project managers, Willmer says. (Read Willmer's recent column, "IT hiring poised for skills-driven rebound.")

Specifically, companies will look for developers with knowledge of .Net, Java, Web development, open source and portal technologies such as Microsoft Corp.'s Sharepoint, says Willmer, who is a Computerworld columnist.

Demand is growing for people who know specialized programming languages like Ruby on Rails and AJAX, Silver notes. There aren't many jobs that require those skills, he says, but the number of openings has increased since January 2009.

Kilgore says he would like to find a "hybrid" software developer who can also serve as a business analyst. "We need someone who can talk to the business and be a requirements gatherer, project manager and software developer, all rolled into one," he says. He also needs developers with open-source expertise -- a rare talent, he says -- as well as professionals familiar with Microsoft tools for the ERP and marketing intelligence sides of the business.

Willmer says it makes sense that companies are looking for developers with skills in other areas, such as business analysis or even quality assurance, since employers are concerned about the cost of talent. "They're making sure they get the most out of their resources," he says.

Computerworld's Forecast survey respondents said they also need developers to build homegrown applications in an effort to save money. That's the case for James Sullivan, manager of information services at Covidien, a global health-care company in Mansfield, Mass.

Sullivan soon hopes to add three or four business-savvy programmer/analysts with Java or .Net backgrounds and an understanding of SQL databases. That represents a 25% increase in his usual hiring levels, he says, and it's a departure from previous years when he looked for programming skills alone.

One of Covidien's 2010 projects is to migrate from third-party custom-built applications to commercial off-the-shelf applications or bring them in-house. This, Sullivan says, would reduce spending on vendors and consultants, as well as enable his group to provide the support and turn around business-driven changes more quickly. This dovetails with a growing trend at Covidien to better leverage existing resources. "If something takes 10 hours today, we're asking how we can make it take one-tenth of that," Sullivan says.

At Scottrade Inc., the recession didn't affect hiring, according to Ian Patterson,CIO at the online financial services company. He hired more than 150 IT professionals in 2009 and plans to hire up to 200 this year to meet demand for new internal and customer-facing applications, and to keep up with changes and expansions. He says he's mainly looking for people with C++, Java and C# skills and notes that the company is also implementing a Siebel CRM system for the call center.

Energy Northwest, a power supplier in Richland, Wash., also saw continued growth in 2009. CIO Keith Cooke is looking for computer and electrical engineers with Java, Web and .Net skills to help fully Web-enable an internal system that is partially Web-based but still uses a terminal-based interface. Initially, he didn't want to retrain staff to use a browser-based interface. Now, however, "we're bringing on people who can help us adapt our legacy system to the new workforces coming in," Cooke says.

2. Help Desk/Technical Support

It's no surprise that there will be strong demand for the people who make the help desk hum in 2010, Silver says. The need for support technicians tends to reflect general business conditions, he says. "As the business starts to improve, companies hire more people, which increases demand for help desk staff," Silver explains.

Willmer says he's already seeing a rise in demand for help desk and support skills, especially among companies that cut too deeply in this area in 2009. "They can get away with it for a certain time period, but it eventually catches up and affects revenue," he says. Instead of offering full-time positions, however, some companies are hiring on a project basis, he adds.

3. Networking

The demand for networking professionals, Willmer says, is likely connected to the growing complexity of networks and to the stresses placed on them by virtualization and newly popular approaches to application delivery, such as cloud computing and software as a service.

Cooke says the network will be a big area of focus in the coming year. Energy Northwest is making increasing use of video and voice over its IP network, so it will need network, voice and radio engineers to handle upgrades and ensure compliance with new federal mandates. One of those mandates requires the company to move from wideband to narrowband radio frequencies.

Patterson sees Scottrade dabbling with a converged infrastructure in the next 12 months, driving a need for people with a mix of server, software and networking skills to support networked storage and server devices contained in a single chassis. "This will change the market for the type of people we need," he says. "It won't be just a guy who knows EMC and Hitachi storage, but [one] who knows server, storage and networking all in one device. We'll need a guy who says, 'The network has a problem here,' but when he traces it down, the problem is due to a lock on a table in the storage device."

4. Project Management

Silver sees project management as an area that is growing in importance and a good avenue for technology professionals interested in building up their careers. "Professionals who understand technology and how it fits in the overall business strategy are the ones who add the most value, get paid more and have the most fulfilling careers," he says.

5. Security

Willmer sees a relationship between demand for security skills and the still-shaky economy. "The biggest threat to companies is breaches by their own staff," he says. "When you throw in changes to the staff and disgruntled employees losing their benefits or facing the threat of being laid off, you increase the chances of network fraud or security infringement."

Meanwhile, Cooke is concentrating on hiring people with cybersecurity skills. "Ten years ago, we didn't worry -- as leaders in our companies -- about things like passwords," he says. "Now we're making sure we support complex passwords. That's just a new reality."

Energy Northwest is looking for recent graduates who studied computer engineering and digital controls to help upgrade its manufacturing systems from analog to digital. "They need to understand how those systems should be protected, given the security world we're operating in," Cooke says, citing new federal regulations and threat warnings emanating from the Department of Homeland Security.

Patterson thinks the trend toward including security features in network and storage devices will also affect the skills professionals need in this realm. "I can't believe in the long term that you won't see companies like EMC or Cisco not embedding security into their devices," he says. "We're going to need people who understand not just how to run things from a server or storage or network perspective, but also the security implications."

Security is an evergreen skill, according to Silver. "If you know how to help keep your company's information secure, there will be a home for you forever," he says.

6. Business Intelligence

Computerworld's survey respondents ranked business intelligence skills as No. 6 in importance; for Kilgore, however, BI is a higher priority. "Being a smaller midsize organization, we're late to the game in BI," he says. "We don't have the budget to do a year's worth of R&D; we have to be effective with it out of the gate."

Sullivan would like to find a data architect to help with Covidien's conversion from a nonstandard business intelligence system and miscellaneous reporting tools to an enterprise standard. More important than a BI expert, though, are programmer/analysts who can relate the nitty-gritty of data tables, database joins and data structure to business requirements. "That's what I'm finding is more valuable to us at this stage in getting BI established and used by the business," Sullivan says.

Meanwhile, at Scottrade, Patterson sees BI intertwined with Web 2.0. Whereas BI has traditionally been understood as a system that collects historical data and provides tools to analyze it, he says, he's now more interested in real-time BI that relies, for instance, on people entering competitive data into a wiki and providing that information almost instantaneously via a portal.

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IT staff back in demand

Network engineers with security clearances wanted.
Help desk candidates and network engineers with security clearances were among the those most in demand this year, said recruiter Hays Information Technology.

Its latest quarterly report said that managed services businesses wanted help desk workers with "excellent communication skills and appropriate security clearances" to work on client sites.

"Following signs of increased government project activity, private companies are also seeking network engineers with clearance, preferably at the secret or above level," the report said.

Business analysts, infrastructure team leaders, project managers, system engineers and senior .NET developers rounded out those employers wanted.

Hays believed Australian employers were "repopulating teams" after a year when departing staff were rarely replaced.

"For many employees, the last few months have meant coping with extra work and employers realise they risk losing those dedicated employees if they don't feel recognised, rewarded and, most of all, supported," the recruiter's regional director Peter Noblet said.

Source : www.itnews.com.au

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Mommas don't let their babies grow up to be engineers

More than 85% of students today aren't considering careers in engineering, a new survey found, as more parents encourage girls specifically to become actresses than IT professionals.

The vast majority of students recently polled confirmed that interest in engineering careers has waned significantly, with a majority (44%) of respondents citing a lack of knowledge around engineering as the top reason they would not pursue such jobs. Another top reason kids don't consider a career in high-tech involves the "geek" perception for 30%, who indicated "engineering would be a boring career," according to the American Society for Quality (ASQ).

ASQ commissioned Harris Interactive to conduct an online survey of 1,277 U.S. youths aged 8 to 17 and 2,196 U.S. adults aged 18-plus, of whom 584 reported being parents of children aged 17 or younger. The ASQ kicked off the study in light of forecasts that there will be a shortage of 70,000 engineers by 2010, according to the National Academy of Sciences and National Science Foundation.

Another factor kids surveyed indicated steers them away from a career in engineering is a lack of confidence in math or science skills (21%). Yet 22% of kids polled listed math as their favorite subject and 17% find science the most fun. Additionally, just 20% parents encourage their children to consider an engineering career, despite the fact that 97% of parents said they believe knowledge of math and science will help their children have a successful career.

"It's clear that there is a low level of interest and knowledge about engineering careers for both parents and children," said Maurice Ghysels, chair of ASQ's K-12 Education Advisory Committee. "Educators and engineers need to work more closely together to get students excited about the profession and spotlight interesting role models."

The survey results also revealed a gender divide among students' career aspirations and parental guidance. Among the girls, 21% said their parents encourage them to be actresses vs. 10% hearing about the potential of engineering from their parents. Other careers parents find suitable for their girls include doctor (33%), teacher (31%), lawyer (25%), veterinarian (23%), nurse (20%) and businessperson (17%).

Boys indicated a higher interest in engineering careers than girls: 24% vs. 5%. And parents follow suit. Nearly one-third of boys polled said their parents have encouraged them to consider a career in engineering, vs. just 10% of girls who said the same.

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