Staying afloat in a skills storm

By Jeanne Vida Douglas, ZDNet Australia, 4 November, 2002 13:21

NEWS

The Cobol programmers who commanded blank cheques in the run-up to Y2K, have gone back into early retirement and the web developers everybody wanted a piece of in the tech boom are languishing in probation. Those who have seen demand for their skills come and go realise that a long-term career in IT requires an unfaltering commitment to keeping your skills upgraded. And this upgrade treadmill is becoming even more important in the current climate which prizes a diversity of skills and abilities rather than niche abilities. Martin Nicholls, Australasian practice director for technology recruitment company TMP Worldwide, says the traditional call for a mixture of business and IT skills is increasing alongside a desire for multi-disciplined IT professionals "Many companies these days are looking for a broad understanding of a variety of technologies, along with business skills," Nicholls says. "For example, there has always been a demand there for networking abilities, but these days there is increased development in remote access and VPN technologies and the next generation of networking activities." While networking isn't everyone's cup of tea, pundits point out that a little knowledge of Internet protocols (IP) goes a long way. Giles Blaber, national technical manager at Australia's largest IT outfit, Kaz Computer Services, says IP is the perfect compliment to just about any other specialisation. "There is no language specifically that will guarantee a job, but people need to know something about IP. The areas where these skills come into their own is network management and application management," Blaber says. He went on to point out that the increasing dependence on the Internet as a medium means all applications developers should be aware of how their programs will operate in this context. Securing your future
While organisational requirements differ from company to company, one skill set is coming to the fore as the most sought after in the IT industry: security. The increasingly interconnected nature of business that Blaber describes is also leading to a justifiable increase in chief information officer paranoia. "Security is hot on the agenda at the moment," says Blaber. According to Joe D'addio, services director at systems integrator Dimension Data, network engineers should focus on emerging areas like IP telephony and security skills in order to stay ahead of the pack. He says there is not only an undersupply of the technical skills associated with security, there is also a need for "soft" security skills associated with consultancy, risk assessment and security policy generation. "Consultants generally are in demand especially in the infrastructure space," D'addio says. "Not many companies are investing in infrastructure at the moment, so there is a call for people who provide planning and consultation services, but like everything it is cyclical." Lisa Norris, regional director for Spherion recruitment solutions in Sydney, says the tech spending squeeze has done away with many of the operational tiers within organisations, leaving a lot more of the management to software and network engineers. "You used to be able to work in a silo of skills, where you could be recognised as an expert in a specific area," Norris says. "But now it is important to have all of those softer skills as well."

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