Study: You can lower the odds of being outsourced
Want job security? Learn business and management skills
Computerworld - Which part of 22-year-old Rupak Shahs resume will most likely impress IT employers? Is it:
- A) His computer science degree from the prestigious University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign?
- B) The Chicago natives skills in languages such as Java and Perl and database programs such as SQL Server and MySQL?
- C) The e-commerce Web site he started last year, for which he negotiates prices for his products -- imported herbal supplements -- with overseas suppliers?
Shahs degree and technical skills might land him the interview. But his entrepreneurial skills and business savvy set him apart from the pack and bode best for his career, according to a new report released this week by the Society for Information Management (SIM).
Based on interviews with 96 SIM members, all of them IT managers at firms ranging from small companies to multinational enterprises, the study found that business skills accounted for five of the 10 attributes organizations want from their in-house staffers over the next three years. The other five most-requested skills by CIOs include a mix of project management and technical skills, though the latter are still client-facing.
This is a long-standing issue, said Kate Kaiser, an associate professor of IT at Marquette University in Milwaukee and the reports primary author. But its now more important than ever to have business skills. Companies are more aware than ever [about] what IT can do for them.
In contrast to the layoffs and hiring freezes that graduates faced at the start of the decade after the dot-com crash, the overall IT workforce is expected to remain stable until at least 2008, according to the report.
While some jobs, especially technical ones at larger organizations, continue to be outsourced, the IT jobs most likely to be retained and created in-house will emphasize business and management skills such as business process re-engineering or project planning, rather than purely technical skills, according to the report. That offers great opportunities to young IT workers with the right skills and mind-sets, said Kaiser. She pointed to two former students who were promoted from programming to project management jobs in just two years rather than the five or more years such a climb typically requires.
The time period one spends as a programmer is becoming compressed, she said.
The average age of CIOs I meet today is five years younger than it was a decade ago, said Stephen Pickett, president of SIM and the CIO of Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based trucking company Penske Corp.
The trouble is that many young IT job seekers havent gotten the message. Many are less like Shah and more like Thomas Tanaka, a recent computer engineering graduate, also of the University of Illinois. Apart from some intro econ classes, the 26-year-old avoided taking business and management courses. My technical courses already took up most of my time, Tanaka said.



- Excel 2010 Cheat Sheet
- Register for this Computerworld Insider Cheat Sheet and gain access to hundreds of premium content articles, guides, product reviews and more.
- Overcome Top 7 Admin Challenges of Active Directory
- As Active Directory's role in the enterprise has drastically increased, so has the need to secure the data. Gain insight on creating repeatable,...
- Insiders Can Ruin Your Company. Take Action.
- Did you know that 80 percent of threats to an organization come from the inside? The threat from insiders is often overlooked in...
- Top Solutions and Tools to Prevent Devastating Malware
- Custom malware frequently goes undetected. According to Forrester Research, the best way to reduce risk of breach is to deploy file integrity monitoring...
- Streamline Compliance and Increase ROI
- Streamline, simplify, and automate compliance related activities; especially those that impact multiple business units. This white paper from NetIQ, outlines solutions that will...
- X-Ray of the PCI Process-4 Proactive Steps
- This white paper from Forrester Research Inc., helps break PCI into understandable components. Security and risk professionals will gain knowledge and insight into... All Careers White Papers
- Optimizing Networks for the Cloud
- Join guest speaker, Rohit Mehra, IDC Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, to explore current trends, discuss best practices for optimizing Data Center and...
- Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as...
- Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and...
- Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware
- Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn...
- Virtualize Business-Critical Applications with Confidence
- Virtualizing business-critical applications has become a key focus for organizations as they move along their virtualization journey. With the launch of VMware vSphere®... All Careers Webcasts