Christmas came in midsummer for Nicole Thompson, IS director of applications at HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley.
Thanks to a federal mandate to implement electronic health records (EHR) systems, she has the funds in her 2011 budget to hire 11 new employees for projects ranging from database analysis and design to wireless device implementation.
Pockets of Hiring
What changes do you expect in your IT employee head count in the next 12 months?
* Increase: 23%
* Decrease: 22%
* Remain the same: 55%
Source: Exclusive Computerworld survey of 209 IT professionals, June/July 2010
“I’m bringing people on staff now who have extreme database experience,” says Thompson, who works at the health care network’s Benedictine Hospital campus in New York. She also needs someone with systems analysis and design experience, as well as someone who can communicate with clinicians about their workflow and then adapt a vendor’s software to fit the hospital’s needs.
“It’s a very exciting time,” she adds. “This is the first time in my entire IT career where I have been able to hire people. I’m loving this!”
After months of staff cuts or hiring freezes, many U.S. companies are planning to hire IT employees with highly valued skills. The percentage of respondents to Computerworld’s annual Forecast survey who said they plan to increase staff size in the next 12 months increased slightly, from 20% in last year’s survey to 23% this year.
“We’re talking about hiring. It’s happening now,” says Dave Willmer, executive director of IT staffing services firm Robert Half Technology and a Computerworld.com columnist. “Companies that cut staff or implemented hiring freezes are realizing they need employees now to help upgrade IT systems and prepare their firms for potential growth.”
What’s more, IT managers are taking the opportunity to mold their departments into profit-making business units.
Computerworld’s survey uncovered these 11 must-have skills.
1. Programming and Application Development
About 47% of the survey respondents who said they plan to hire IT professionals in the next year will be looking for people with programming or application development skills. Moreover, Monster.com reports that three quarters of 245 HR managers and recruiters it surveyed in May plan to hire IT staffers with applications expertise by the end of this year.
“Those skills are separate from enterprise business applications,” says David Foote, CEO and chief research officer at Foote Partners LLC in Vero Beach, Fla. In this volatile market, companies need to quickly reposition, as well as use IT to grow the business through new products and innovation. So “RAD, rapid programming and agile programming seem to be coming back. Companies are starting to increase some of their pay [in these areas], which means they’re looking for more capabilities in their companies,” he says.
2. Project Management
Kathleen Kay has put project managers at the top of her 2011 hiring list at Comerica Bank. With some 140 IT projects on the schedule, she will need people to oversee Web and mobile initiatives, a treasury management product rollout and a legacy applications refresh, among other efforts.
The Dearborn, Mich.-based bank will fill those needs by hiring new people and retraining existing employees. “
We are very passionate about investing in our people and making sure they stay up to speed on skills with emerging technologies,” says Kay, senior vice president of business technology services.
People with project management skills will be sought by 43% of Computerworld’s survey respondents who plan to make new hires, and by more than half of those polled by Monster.com.
3. Help Desk/Technical Support
Only 20% of Microsoft customers had converted to Windows 7 as of July 2010, according to Microsoft. “That leaves 80%. They have to move over. It’s not a matter of choice,” Willmer says. That may be one reason why help desk and technical support skills will be high-priority in 2011 for 42% of survey-takers who are hiring.
What’s more, major conversions like those in the health care arena, driven by the EHR mandate, require a lot of help desk support for users. “These aren’t just people doing password resets. They’re probably technically savvy as well as having that health care background,” Willmer adds.
4. Networking
Networking skills are in demand among 38% of Computerworld survey respondents who said they’re hiring. And those jobs were identified as the most challenging to fill in a Robert Half Technology survey of 1,400 CIOs.
“Networking is closely tied to virtualization,” says Willmer. “Finding somebody with that virtualization experience and the ability to convert nonvirtual environments into virtual environments probably is the biggest reason” some networking skills are hard to find.
5. Security
“Security is the only area of certified IT skills that has never had a negative quarter throughout this entire recession,” Foote says. “We’ve never had a three-month period with a loss or decline in premiums for these people.” Demand is being driven by regulatory compliance needs and by customer demand for tools with built-in security features.
Valuable security skills include expertise in identity and access management, threat and vulnerability assessment, encryption, data loss prevention, incident analysis, governance, compliance and auditing, biometrics, Web content filtering, safeguards for voice-over-IP systems and e-discovery support for litigation.
6. Data Center
Of the Computerworld survey respondents who will be hiring in the next year, some 21% said that data center skills, including storage experience, will be in top demand.
“Storage is becoming more important as we go to network-attached storage [and storage-area networks],” says Suzanne Gordon, CIO at SAS Institute Inc. in Cary, N.C. Finding people with expertise in particular storage areas is important, she says, “but they should also be able to step back and look at it strategically: Are we putting the right things in the right places, and spending the right amount of money for safety and backup of the different types of data?”
7. Web 2.0
IT workers with next-generation Web skills will also be sought-after in 2011, according to 17% of Computerworld’s respondents who plan to add new staffers in the next year. Hot Web 2.0 skills include expertise in Adobe Flex, JavaScript, Adobe Flash, AJAX and JavaScript Object Notation.
In the financial services industry, for example, “Web and mobile products are huge,” says Comerica’s Kay. “We have several projects ongoing that are geared around proving further Web and mobile functionality.”
8. Telecommunications
At Palmetto Health in Columbia, S.C., Michelle Edwards wants to hire staff with skills in unified communications. The health care provider is seeking people who can design an infrastructure and integrate various communications tools, including instant messaging, IP phones and remote access.
“In a hospital, you have urgent needs for patient care, on-call needs and remote needs. We want to make sure we understand all those needs,” as well as the security issues around those communications devices, says Edwards, senior vice president and CIO.
Some 16% of Computerworld’s survey-takers who plan to hire will be looking for telecommunications skills into 2011.
As data proliferates and IT departments look for ways to contribute to the company’s profitability, business intelligence skills will be highly sought-after in 2011, according to 13% of survey respondents.
Palmetto Health is using an EHR system and staffers have been “very good about putting information in, but we haven’t done as well taking that data and making it usable,” Edwards says. “We’re being forced to do a better job with presenting the information that we’re capturing” and sharing it through statewide health information exchange networks, she adds.
10. Collaboration Architecture
Collaboration architecture expertise is high on Campbell Soup Co.’s list of hot skills, says Donna Braunschweig, senior director of IT, enterprise portfolio and strategy. The company constantly looks at “how we can help the end-user experience be better by understanding how things like portals, Web and audio can integrate, and what does that need to look like to be able to have better collaboration across the company?” she says.
While most of Campbell’s collaboration tools are hosted offerings from service providers, Braunschweig says she still needs employees who can manage those vendors and understand the technology.
11. Business Acumen and Communication Skills
You won’t find this in any IT job titles, but most companies in 2011 will seek IT employees who understand the business and can communicate technical concepts to business units and customers.
Campbell requires IT employees to have four types of competencies: business and financial acumen, functional depth, leadership skills and a global mind-set. “Sometimes people think of IT as just technical skills, and it’s not,” Braunschweig says.
At HealthAlliance, Thompson recruits IT staffers who can communicate well both orally and in writing. “I also want to have a reference of someone who knows how you speak about IT issues to people who are not computer-savvy,” she adds.
Overall, the outlook for 2011 remains volatile, and IT groups will need workers whose skills can help them adapt to rapidly changing market conditions. But as IT units move from a support role to a profitability model, “now they are able to move more quickly,” Foote says. “I don’t think the [IT] world is ever going to return to what it was in 2008, but it’s a very positive thing.”