IT Hiring Trend: Business Savvy Mandatory

Posted by Deborah Hartmann Preuss on Aug 20, 2006

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Architecture & Design

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A Ziff-Davis CIO Insight survey for August 2006 focuses on the projected need for IT labour.  It finds: IT organizations are getting bigger, not smaller, and CIOs expect to keep growing.  The number one reason: new applications and infrastructure.  As a result, firms are adding IT staff to support overall corporate growth.  Many are hiring contractors and outsourcing, but of the companies that have cut back their full time IT staff, only 27% say outsourcing is a reason.

A second CIO Insight survey for August focuses on the hiring outlook for 18 specific IT positions, and provides data on which IT jobs will see the largest and smallest hiring increases 

This survey finds that this growing demand for new applications is leading to more hiring for IT professionals who can build them - but today, this requires business as well as technical know-how, a combination of skills IT executives expect will be difficult to find. Particularly in demand are professionals in project management, business-process redesign, business analysis and systems integration.  One particularly telling survey response was this:


The survey indicates that demand will be high for professionals in project management, business-process redesign, business analysis and systems integration.  Interestingly, over half of executives surveyed anticipate that the number of female IT employees at their company will increase by 25 percent or more in the next five years.  This, despite no indication from academics of increased female enrollment in programs leading to such careers.  (Women represented fewer than 15 percent of people receiving bachelor's degrees in computer science and engineering in 2005 at major research universities in the United States and Canada, according to a Computing Research Association survey.)  e-Week blogger Alan Alter conjectures that perhaps respondents expect more women to cross over to the IT field from other functions, as IT organizations seek people with strong business experience.

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   Of course they're hard to find

   by J Aaron Farr

   As software engineer with an MBA all I have to say is, "Of course they're hard to find." IT professionals with "superior" business skills are smart enough to run their own business and are likely doing so.

   Reply

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   Business Person Wanted. Business Savvy Mandatory

   by j c

   Reqs, Design and Dev wouldnt have to go around mgmt all the time if the business itself had any business savvy. The business people throw engineering to the wolves to make a quick buck.
   
   Business person wanted. Business Savvy Mandatory

   Reply