Hot Job Areas for 2006

by James Gaskin

January 3, 2006 —

Hot job listings seem wonderful, but the flip side says people now in those jobs can't cut it. Since the hot jobs for 2006 (by most accounts) are security experts, project managers, and IT folks cross-trained in business, most will agree current job holders lack effectiveness.

For the security experts, the problem remains that we still don't have enough in-depth security experts. There certainly seems to be fewer security experts than security problems, and recently certified security techs still lack enough real world experience to be highly effective. Let's add this year to the long list of years needing more security help.

Project management, an under-appreciated but vital skill, suffers from a bias by technical people against management work. Don't believe me? Has your company ever chosen a team leader or project manager to keep that person from messing up a technical job? In other words, promoted them out of "important" areas into pseudo-management? That insults good project managers and illustrates the weakness of your department's management philosophy.

For every $100 million boondoggle of a huge project turned into a train wreck reported in the trade papers, there are thousands of $2 million car wrecks inside every company. One would think smart management would realize a few experienced project managers cost far less than multiple project failures, wouldn't one? The need for experienced and focused project managers grows daily, even if your own company and department have yet to discover why so many projects crash and burn.

If you hope to grow professionally this year but don't care for security or project management, get some business training. You don't need an MBA to become a biz-IT liaison, but a few courses or personal business research may make enough difference to get you noticed.

Hard to believe we'd still need to talk about coordinating business needs with the IT and network agenda, but we do. After all, every field person carries around or accesses more technology today than a CIO of 15 years ago. Many times, a new business process means a Web site rather than a retail building, or an extranet rather than a strategic partnership. Business today is IT, and IT today is business. Period.

By the way, effective IT/business project managers with security experience are never outsourced. They are promoted.

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