5 IT skills that won't boost your salary
Technical skills may never die, but areas of expertise wane in importance as
technology advances force companies to evolve and IT staff to forsake yesterday's
craft in favor of tomorrow's must-have talent.
"There is less need for system-side knowledge. In the past, IT folks had
to understand a lot about memory, drivers and address locations, and what used
which interrupt, but nowadays that stuff is plug-and-chug even on many Unix
systems," says Brian Jones, manager of network engineering at Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University's Tech Communications Network
Services unit in Blacksburg. "I feel like all the skills I have picked
up along the way are valuable and help shape my thinking and troubleshooting
abilities. I don't know how to value or devalue these skills; it's like they
have taken on new value now."
Industry watchers would be hard pressed to name specific IT skills as entirely
dead or completely useless, but some skills are well on their way to being considered
a thing of the past -- as reflected by the declining pay associated with them.
As hot skills like virtualization rise to the top of company must-have lists,
high-tech talents in certain operating systems and specific vendor products
fall to the bottom. Here are five high-tech skills that don't demand the pay
they once did.
Plain old HTML
As companies embrace Web 2.0 technologies such AJAX,
demand for skills in HTML programming are taking a back seat. According to Foote
Partners, pay for skills in technologies such as Ajax and XML increased
by 12.5% in the last six months of 2007, while IT managers say they don't see
a demand for technology predecessors such as HTML. "I'm not seeing requirements
for general Web 1.0 skills -- HTML programming skills," says Debbie Joy,
lead solution architect for CSC
in Phoenix.
Legacy programming languages
Skills in programming languages such as Cobol,
Fortran, PowerBuilder and more don't rate like they once did.
"Certainly the Cobol people that had a resurgence with the Y2K bug aren't
in demand," says John Estes, vice president of strategic alliances of Robert
Half Technology, an IT staffing consultancy. "Certain other applications
such as Delphi
and PowerBuilder,
[which were] very big in the '90s, are no longer in demand."
IT work-force and compensation research conducted by Foote Partners revealed
that Cobol, PowerBuilder and Jini noncertified skills were among the lowest-paying
skills in the second half of 2007. David Foote, CEO and chief research officer
at Foote Partners, says the research shows not that such skills aren't in use
today but that companies aren't willing to pay for them. "There is still
a lot of C and Cobol around, though these skills are worth very little paywise,"
Foote says.
NetWare
Operating system know-how continues to be in top demand among hiring managers,
but expertise in Novell's
network operating system NetWare isn't keeping up with other technologies in
the same area. "Networking software such as NetWare isn't near what it
was in the '90s," Estes says. And Foote adds, "Windows Server and
Linux skills have replaced, or are replacing, NetWare skills" in terms
of demand.
Non-IP network
IP and Internet skills usurped non-IP network expertise and know-how in technologies
such as IBM's
System Network Architecture (SNA) continue to rank among the lowest-paying skills.
"For networking, IP skills have replaced SNA skills," Foote says.
According to Foote Partners' research, SNA skills accounted for just 2% of base
pay in the fourth quarter of 2007, while security skills made up 17% of base
pay.
"Mainframe computing skills, including network components such as SNA,
are no longer required in a server-based IP networking environment," says
Martin Webb, manager of data network operations, Ministry of Labour and Citizens'
Services, Province of British Columbia.
PC tech support
The Computer Technology Trade Association (CompTIA)
reports that hardware skills and knowledge, including expertise with printers
and PCs, are on the decline in terms of demand. CompTIA surveyed 3,578 IT hiring
managers to learn which skills would grow in importance over time and the industry
organization found: "The skill area expected to decline the most in importance
is hardware."
Foote Partners' research separately showed an 11.1% decline in pay over the
last six months of 2007 for ITIL skills, which are often put in place to streamline
IT service management and help desk efforts.
"The 'move, add and changes' PC tech function isn't quite what is used
to be," Robert Half Technology's Estes says.
» posted by abennett
Network World
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