The Skills That Thrill
After searching three months for a Visual Basic (VB) developer, Paul Coyle, chief technology officer at The CCS Cos. in Newton, Mass., thought he'd finally hit pay dirt.
The candidate matched all of Coyle's criteria: he had three years' real experience with VB, a college degree (from Hanover, N.H.-based Dartmouth College) and experience with report writers, which was a big plus because Coyle has a significant data warehouse project coming up.
Coyle interviewed the candidate late on a Tuesday afternoon in October and made his move early the next morning. He called to offer the job at a salary that was $5,000 more than the candidate had requested.
But another company had beaten Coyle to the punch, extending an even higher offer earlier the same morning. CCS's position, which opened in June, was still unfilled at the end of October.
"We chose Visual Basic as our development tool because it's relatively easy to learn, and we hoped that by going with it vs. C++ or another language, we would be able to find the talent we need," Coyle says. "But anyone who has Visual Basic [experience] has their pick of positions."
Coyle's difficulty in filling the VB position illustrates the extent to which application development skills will drive IT recruitment and training next year. In fact, according to Computerworld's 7th Annual Technology Skills Survey, which was conducted in the past three months, 70% of the 307 IT managers responding report that next year they'll hire or train staff in programming languages, Web development tools and object-oriented tools.
E-business initiatives such as supplier-facing extranets, customer-facing Web-based applications and collaboration on industry exchanges and marketplaces top IT agendas for next year. Hand in hand with those efforts are the related pieces of supply-chain management and customer relationship management (CRM) systems such as data warehouses and knowledge management applications.
| Takin' It To the Web Debbie Lynch has spent just over nine years in IT at Harrah's Entertainment Inc. in Memphis as a graphic designer working on brochures, presentations, T-shirts and logos. Last year, she decided to move into the Internet/intranet arena, where Harrah's is working on some key development initiatives. To reach her goal, Lynch, whose new title is Web developer, spent 15 days in formal classroom training this year. She started with HTML and Microsoft FrontPage training and rounded that out with JavaScript courses. Now she's enrolled in the Certified Internet Webmaster certification program developed by ProsoftTraining.com in Austin, Texas. She says the program is helping build her confidence in her new skills. Pursuing the certification also helps solidify Lynch's transition within the organization, says Eileen Cassini, vice president of IT services at Harrah's: "We encouraged her to get certified because she has grown up with us; the certification gives her credibility." In conjunction with her formal training, Lynch was a key contributor to the Sept. 29 relaunch of Harrahs.com. The new Web site, which will coontinue to
Post a comment
Resources
White Paper
Symantec Backup Exec 12 and Backup Exec System Recovery 8 deliver industry leading Windows data protection and system recovery. Download this whitepaper to find out the top reasons to upgrade and how to get continuous data protection and complete system recovery.  Webcast
Data and system loss — from a hard drive failure, malicious attack, natural disaster, or simple human error — can happen anytime. Don’t leave your business vulnerable. Make sure you have a secure recovery strategy in place. Symantec's latest backup and system recovery technology can efficiently restore critical applications, individual emails and documents and even restore your entire system in minutes in the event of a loss. White Paper
Businesses face a growing challenge to ensure that the IT environment is properly protected. Backup Exec 12 integrates with other applications in the Symantec family of products, to complement your current data protection strategy, keep your data securely backed up and make it recoverable when you need it most. Free stuff
Webcasts
Tags
  Caught in the act
In this age of YouTube, camera phones, and Google search, you'd think people would conduct themselves with some decorum, a little restraint, or at least an eye toward not getting caught. Not so! Featured Sponsor
Get a broad understanding of important regulations and how you can make sure your site is in adherence. 
Learn how VeriSign SGC-enabled SSL Certificates can help improve site security and customer confidence in the free white paper, "How to Offer the Strongest SSL Encryption." In this paper you will learn the differences between weak and strong encryption and what they mean for your site's performance. 
Get VeriSign's free white paper: "The Latest Advancements in SSL Technology" and learn about the benefits of strong SSL encryption, Extended Validation (EV) SSL and security trust marks and what these SSL offerings can do for your site. 
Now with Extended Validation (EV) SSL available from VeriSign, you can show your customers that they can trust your site. Learn about EV SSL benefits in this free VeriSign white paper. More Resources
Sponsored links
The IDG Network
CIO ::
Computerworld ::
CSO ::
GamePro ::
Games.net ::
IDG Connect ::
IDG World Expo ::
Industry Standard ::
Infoworld ::
ITworld ::
JavaWorld ::
LinuxWorld ::
MacUser ::
Macworld ::
Network World ::
PC World ::
Playlist
|
