IT Jobs Thriving

IT jobs thriving despite lackluster economy - USATODAY.com

Better sharpen up your business and soft skills. Learn your economics, accounting, risk management, etc. I have been saying for a while that IT pros lack business skills which is really holding a lot of us back. Less time at a Linux prompt, more time with pie charts.

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tpatt100

N2IT wrote: »

That's where I am at right now.

P&L Statements, Presentations, Risk, Sustainability, Revenue, Cost, Utilization

Those 7 words sum up my space.

Yup, I find myself wanting to take a writing class this summer to improve my writing skills.

UnixGuy

it_consultant wrote: »

... I could lab it and figure it out and after a little while become proficient, thats because I am an IT professional and I am expected to be able to handle that.

...

See, this is my point right there. I'll try to use another example to make my point more clear: Let's assume that an OS is crashing, can you or me lab it even if we're given a one month period of time to do so ? No, we can't.

I know I can't jump to OS kernel programming, even though I'm an experienced IT professional. There are necessary steps to be taken, and there's no one book or one lab or one document to make that shortcut for us. It is painful. Years of working experience in programming + working experience in OS kernels is needed to do such job.

Now moving from that example, a person with a business background can never do efficient project management of Kernel Programmers. Project managers, Architects, Team leaders who manage Kernel Programming teams (for example) MUST be experienced enough in that field. They must take the necessary steps to build that kind of experience/knowledge. IT professionals aren't dumb, the fact that they climbed the ladder to manage such kind of high level teams should mean something. If they can climb the ladder to manage such teams on a large scale, I don't think knowing whether a solution is needed or not will be a problem IMHO.

Facing accounting teams, and budgeting, yes that's an important role, but with your example, it looks like more of a Sales kind of job. Why should an IT pro deal with accounting when more specialized people who learned these things the proper way can do it ? Accountants, account managers, Sales engineers, and Pre-Sales engineers (with proper background) can do this. How can someone who troubleshoot Kernel bugs go and talk to the financial departments ? and Why?

Yes, getting your foot into project management will demand this kind of knowledge, and this is a science that need to be learned the proper way. I think it shouldn't be learned on the fly, there's a proper way of learning it. But I get your point.

it_consultant

I take back one thing I said, even though I could learn how to set up a Red Hat cluster, the reality is I would contract my cousin to help me. He is a Unix expert with a lot of experience.

My example is one I ran into, great client too. The problem is that sales is just that, sales. IT needs to figure out if the software bag of goods being sold to the client will actually do everything the old system did and more. I believe this is called regression analysis. My cousin, the UNIX expert, would blow this part completely off because its not his job. It does fall into a grey area, I have never seen anyone else bounce up and help integrate these systems into the department. The depth of IT knowledge needed to make intelligent observations can be too much for them.

Having said that, I just got an email from one of my clients (my contact there is the accountant) and she told me that she was able to recover a file out of Backup Exec that someone deleted off the server. She knows too much!!!!

hiddenknight821

tpatt100 wrote: »

Yup, I find myself wanting to take a writing class this summer to improve my writing skills.

I definitely do not like writing, but I need to improve that area too. Instead of taking writing class, I don't mind taking business-centric grammar class. I believe it would help me become more successful at writing, because I pay close attention to how the words are structured in a sentence. You may think this is for elementary kids, but study has shown that most deaf people have trouble writing/reading because of the language gap we experienced when we're children. You know how you learned something from overhearing television or a conversation without realizing it? That's what we missed, and we have to learn how to read first before we can pick up things visually. Also, English is not exactly our primary language. If you can find errors in my writing right now, then I'm sorry, but I can tell you that was not done on purpose. I swear. I tend to edit my post right afterward.

UnixGuy

it_consultant wrote: »

.. She knows too much!!!!

Is she single ?

I agree, it is a grey area. From my personal experience, successful managers/architects usually go from being techs then team leads, sometimes project coordinators, and then project managers. I just disagree with articles that says let's learn project management because this is the future of IT. They're no different than articles that say "In 10 yrs time, Security will be the most paid job" so let's all take a CISSP and call it a decade.

Project management, financial analysis, accounting are broad fields, and I'm with dedicating people for these things. A tech has to go the proper way to reach such positions. Team Leader, project coordinator, project assistant...etc are just proper ways of achieving such transition. For a busy programmer who has many deadlines and coding to do, it's not feasible to wear all those hats together (although in some cases they do). I've met IT experts in their 40s and 50s going back to business schools to learn things the proper way. It's a science, just like any science, and no one science can make the other science redundant

Turgon

UnixGuy wrote: »

Getting it to work: installation, administration, and support IS the difficult part. Making a decision whether a high-availability solution is needed or not IS the easy part. Anyone with high-school level knowledge (and common sense) can decide whether a high-availability solution is needed or not, and whether the cost is justifiable or not. These things are included in entry-level basic certifications material like CompTIA Server+

I disagree with the blanket statement but it probably explains why I have run into my fair share of poor designers all of whom have at least high-school level knowledge.

Choosing a HA solution can depend on many, many factors, not least where a company is going in terms of technology strategy and business strategy. We have far too many designers collecting a cheque who think design is a no brainer. It isn't. A lot of installation, administration and support work is much less risky for the decision maker, easier to do, and importantly for the besieged IT professional working very hard in demanding aspects of operational work, it is perceived to be easy.

UnixGuy

Turgon wrote: »

I disagree with the blanket statement but it probably explains why I have run into my fair share of poor designers all of whom have at least high-school level knowledge.

Choosing a HA solution can depend on many, many factors, not least where a company is going in terms of technology strategy and business strategy. We have far too many designers collecting a cheque who think design is a no brainer. It isn't. A lot of installation, administration and support work is much less risky for the decision maker, easier to do, and importantly for the besieged IT professional working very hard in demanding aspects of operational work, it is perceived to be easy.

I absolutely agree with you. I'm with climbing the ladder to reach a design position. It's very risky, a mistake in design can cost a lot of time and resources. I've seen projects go for months without any progress because of serious design mistakes. I wasn't implying that it's no brainer, I meant to say that for an experienced IT professional who climbed the ladder to reach an architect/decision making position, the least expected of him is to know whether an HA solution is worth it or not.

N2IT

tpatt100 wrote: »

Yup, I find myself wanting to take a writing class this summer to improve my writing skills.

I could use that myself to be honest.

higherho

I like ITconsultants example of the medium size business. When I got interviewed for the position I'm in now I got asked some technical questions and ALOT of business questions. The next day I got a phone call stating they were impressed not for the technology aspect but the business skills / knowledge (brining portfolios of previous work really helps) and how I interacted with a high level manager at the interview on an issue the business was having with a technology situation going on at the same time as the interview.

How to Fix issues requires knowledge and troubleshooting skills of that technology. However, IT is not all about technology. The business aspect is huge and it keeps growing. My friends laughed at me in college when I got some minors in Marketing and Business Administration along side my four year and two year technical degrees. They were not laughing when I called them and said I beat them to the punch in a job because of the business skills I gained. Now they are going for MBAs.

Now you also have to realize EXPERTS will always be needed in a particular field and those jobs will not go any time soon. Although, they are shrinking for people with expertise in technology and business.