Another advice on the job market
I have received several emails regarding the job market from my previous blogs. Some of you wrote that with the financial market in crisis, all you hear are cutting costs, layoffs and outsourcing but I continue to write about more technology jobs and shortage of software people all over the world. Many asked where jobs are for this year and what the hot jobs in the software area are in the near future.
In my previous blog, I wrote that I found over 40,000 software jobs on the internet (Dice.com) within half an hour so if you are looking for work that would be a good place to start. From recent university study, I found that last year the number of jobs listed on the internet was 70,000 software jobs every month but this year it is only 40,000 software jobs listed a month so there is a declining in jobs opportunity but based on this information some companies are still hiring. Of course if you look carefully in the job descriptions, you will find that they are hiring people with certain skills, especially a combination of technical and business skills. Some jobs require many years of experiences in which graduated students may not have. Even people with years of experience may find that they must upgrade their skills in order to work in today’s job market because technology always changes. What they know several years ago many be obsolete already. As I look into these jobs, I found that many are listed in a wide range of businesses like hotels, hospitals, and factories, and not software companies. A majority of them require people who can architect a system with a lot of hardware-and-software integration and data security. These are skills that are not taught in regular computer science programs.
My friend, who works in hospital, told me that within the next five years, all hospitals will have to automate their systems so there will be high demand in the area of information system management focusing on healthcare. These jobs will require skills in Database, Data mining and Business Intelligence to record, store, archive, update and search patient records so Database administration will be a very hot jobs. With the current shortage in the software industry, healthcare industry will have to hire a lot of information system management workers from foreign countries like India, Philippines and China. These are entry-level jobs so they will look very favorably at graduate students rather than people with a lot of experiences because they will have to provide additional trainings and certifications for them to work in hospital. As the health-care industry continues to grow quickly in the next five to ten years, there will be more jobs relate to this industry such as nursing, hospital administration, and network security.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment rate for software workers is about 3.6% in 2008 which is very low as compare with other fields. While outsourcing is clearly having an effect on some hiring but most companies participated in this government study indicated that they are hiring less computer programmer but more software engineer and information systems specialist to meet their needs. Most companies considered programming and testing are skills that can easily be outsourced but software engineering are needed to architect and design applications systems and information system specialist such as risk management, security management and system integration are essential to keep the business running efficiently.
So what skills and jobs will be the most in demand? According to several studies, these are the high demand skills in the next ten years:
1) Enterprise architects. One of the top priorities for many companies remains rationalizing, consolidating, and simplifying their infrastructures. Creating an enterprise wide architecture and standards will require enterprise architects and keep demand for them high for the foreseeable future.
2) Business analysts. IT does matter when it is aligned with the business and supports strategic business objectives. Key to consistently deriving value from IT investments is a cadre of top-notch business analysts and relationship managers — those individuals who comfortably move between business and technology. This role requires solution selling, consulting skills, and attitudes.
3) Security. Security specialists will remain in very high demand, especially those with CISSP and/or CISM/CISA certifications. These certifications, administered by the highly respected International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium and the Information Systems Audit and Control Association, respectively, ensure that prospective hires have extensive experience and exposure to a wide variety of security issues. Exposure to security related incidents represents one of the largest business risks, and building bulletproof IT infrastructures, systems, and processes is critical.
4) Web services. Next-generation applications will be built on Web services architecture. Many individuals with SOAP, XML,.NET, experience and certifications will be needed, with demand likely to outstrip supply, especially during the next several years.
5) Linux/open source. The Linux and open source juggernaut will not be stopped. The open source movement gains momentum every day as more and more products go the open source route. The amount of investment and intellectual capital that is being poured into the open source movement is unprecedented.
6) Agile programming. Approximately two-thirds of large organizations are adopting some form of agile processes for their internal applications development efforts. Those individuals who have embraced these processes and have hands-on experience will be in great demand.
7) Business intelligence/Database analysis. Companies have been collecting customer and market data for years and have amassed huge databases. The focus now is on turning all of that data into knowledge and using it to increase revenues, capture more market share, and improve profitability. It takes expertise with business intelligence and analytic tools to accomplish this, and these skills will be in high demand.
8) Business process modeling. Competitive advantage with IT is built around re-engineered or increasingly complex new business processes. The ability to quickly model and automate business processes is becoming an absolute necessity for IT organizations, and people with the skills and experience to do these tasks are in short supply.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
