Hot Skills for a Cold Market

By Deborah Radcliff

November 12, 2001 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - About a year ago, Fred Meyer Jewelers began a migration away from the mainframes at its parent company, Fred Meyer Inc., a $5.5 billion retailer based in Portland Ore. That's when Karen Fung began to see the writing on the wall.

A 14-year Cobol veteran, Fung quickly taught herself C and Visual Basic. Then she signed on to a project to develop a point-of-sale system to run on new Windows NT machines. She's now senior programmer in charge of five intranet and Web development projects.

Fung didn't have any Java experience. And she was just learning HTML and Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Information Server at the time she landed the senior programmer's job. It was her soft skills, particularly her ability to pick up new languages and concepts, that got her the job, according to her boss, Mark Funasaki, information systems manager.

"She's since passed up our Web development team and is leading the charge," Funasaki says.

Pickings are slimmer than they have been in recent years, but jobs are out there for IT workers who can add value to a company's bottom line, says Katherine Spencer Lee, executive director of the consulting division at Robert Half International Inc., a job placement firm based in Menlo Park, Calif.

For example, corporate intranets are going forward because they reduce paper and training costs. That's creating a need for people with Web development, XML and media-streaming skills, Lee says.

At some companies, the strategic value of data is driving demand for database and data efficiency managers. And other value-add projects call for skills in networking, security, disaster recovery and wireless LANs, according to hiring managers and job placement experts.

Hot Skills

The following skills are still in demand, despite the slow economy:

Languages

Java

C++

C

Web Development

HTML

Visual Basic

Java

Active Server Pages

Development Tools

Oracle Developer 2000

Visual Studio

Database Management Systems/Relational Database Management Systems

Microsoft Access

Microsoft SQL Server

Oracle

DB2

Operating Systems

Windows NT/2000

Linux

Other Unix

Networking

TCP/IP

Internetworking

Routing

Ethernet switching

10Base-T switching

LAN

Windows NT Server

Ethernet HTTP

Office/E-Mail/Groupware

Microsoft Exchange

Enterprise Applications

Oracle

System Software and Support

Web server administration

Project management

Internet application development

Security

Help desk

Source: Computerworld survey of IT hiring managers, fall 2001

Risky Business

Until recently, network security has been a difficult sell. But the rise in worms and other malicious code attacks and concerns about liability and terrorism changed all that. Security architects and people with risk-assessment, public-key infrastructure (PKI) and business continuity skills are in demand, according to Tracy Lenzner, president of Lenzner Group, an IT security placement firm in Las Vegas.

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