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Business skills: The key to tech success in 2005

David Southgate Tech Republic

Published: 18 May 2005 13:10 BST

Project managers, network administrators, and business analysts will be in growing demand during the first part of 2005, but they'll need a new set of skills to land the jobs, particularly in the areas of finance, compliance, research and planning. That's the opinion of Terry Phillips, branch manager for Robert Half Technology's Columbus, OH marketplace, and a long-time technology recruiter and former techie. Phillips' employer just released the Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Index and Skills Report, which shows some hiring optimism in 2005.

In a national poll that includes responses from more than 1,400 CIOs from a stratified random sample of US companies, 11 percent of CIOs polled said they'll be adding staff in 2005, an uptick of 9 percent over the previous quarter's forecasts.

It won't be blanket growth across all sectors, however, says Phillips.

Growth sectors
The wholesale sector leads all industries in hiring optimism, with 16 percent from this sector planning to staff more IT. CIOs from retail, business services, finance, insurance and real estate industries also anticipate notable employment gains.

Several factors are driving the positive hiring projections. According to Phillips, these include:

Companies going through a refresh cycle to bring older technologies up to date.
Public companies responding to regulatory requirements, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, a law requiring public companies to follow strict requirements for financial record keeping and reporting.
General business expansion, requiring infrastructure expansion and more help desk/end-user support.
Increased attention to firewall administration and wireless network management.
Projects associated with SQL management and Cisco network administration.

Large public or soon-to-be public companies are driving much of the projected job growth due to compliance needs pertaining to Sarbanes-Oxley.

"It has forced companies to spend money on compliancy, where small firms haven't necessarily been held to that standard," said Phillips. "I think smaller firms are getting into things like IT corporate governance, but not to the full length that a public firm or a larger firm that wants to go public."