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At this time of year, it is customary to look back and see what has changed in
the last year and whether goals set a year ago have been achieved. This
month, I have looked further back, to the past ten years, in fact, to see how
the I.T. industry has changed in terms of skills in demand. I have noticed
some interesting trends in the recruiting patterns which I discuss in this
month's topic.
 We
at CRS would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers a joyous
Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.
When I look back to see which I.T. skills were most
popular 10 years ago, it's easy to spot the effect that Y2K had on the industry. From 1997 to 2002, the biggest demand by far was for software developers,
particularly for old mainframe/mini software like Cobol, RPG, Informix and
Oracle. PC software developers with Visual Basic, Foxpro and Java were also popular.
Plus there were occasional requests for Lotus Notes, Progress, Delphi,
Paradox, PowerBuilder, Magic, PL/1, Crystal Reports, Omnis, Domino, Adabas,
Basic, SAP and PeopleSoft.
Many of these skills were hard to find and a lot of
companies took the opportunity to purchase new software packages rather than try
and convert the old ones to be Y2K compliant. As the trend continued for a
couple of years past Y2K, it is clear that either companies were still
struggling with Y2K or that a backlog of software enhancements still had to be
dealt with in the wake of Y2K.
Other skills in great demand because of Y2K were I.T.
trainers, business analysts and system analysts. Interestingly, the demand
for web developers and administrators also peaked from 1999 to 2002 as many
companies strove to acquire an Internet presence at that time.
Network administrators, general I.T. administrators and
technical support engineers have enjoyed a constant demand over the years, as
have system administrators though there has been a marked decline for the latter
in the last couple of years. The demand for database administrators has
been small but steady throughout.
I.T sales personnel have always been highly sought after
as the good ones are in short supply, and they tend to move between the same
computer services companies locally.
In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in
the demand for certified project managers locally. I am curious to know why this is
so. Is it because more people are becoming certified in this discipline,
thus creating an increased awareness of the benefits of good project management
techniques? Or is it that there is a trend towards discrete I.T. projects
which require proper project management disciplines and that has led to the call
for certification in this area?
Is it because the multinational companies have been demanding higher standards
for managing their I.T. projects, or is it that the strict project management
techniques required for the boom in construction and engineering projects have
crossed over to the I.T. world? I would love to know your perspective on
this matter.
So what about the future? There has been an interesting
tendency for more esoteric titles such as Applications Architect and
Architectural Evangelist, and I'm sure that will continue as traditional roles
adapt to new approaches to I.T. Everything is becoming more web-based and
internet security is a hot topic.
The way we work is also changing and the future "I.T.
department" will become a small core of strategic people with the work being
outsourced to I.T. services companies or individual consultants. The I.T.
services companies themselves will hire consultants rather than keep a large
permanent staff, so they can better adapt to the changing needs of their
clients.
As a result, the future employee will probably be working on
contract, sometimes for a number of different companies at the same time.
Companies will be able to dip into this pool of skilled resources as needed, and
all parties will benefit from this way of working.
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We would love to hear what you think of this issue of CRS News.
And of course, if you have any suggestions for upcoming issues that you would
like to share with us, please send those too.
Comments, suggestions, feedback?
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