12 IT Skills That Employers Can’t Say No To

Job hunters with these IT skills are assured of employment, now and in the future

Have you spoken with a high-tech recruiter or professor of computer science lately? According to observers across the country, the technology skills shortage that pundits were talking about a year ago is real.

Many recruiters say there are more open positions than they can fill, students are getting snapped up before they graduate.

If you want to be part of the wave, take a look at what eight experts — including recruiters, curriculum developers, computer science professors and other industry observers — say are the hottest skills of the near future.

1) Machine learning
As companies work to build software such as collaborative filtering, spam filtering and fraud-detection applications that seek patterns in jumbo-size data sets, some observers are seeing a rapid increase in the need for people with machine-learning knowledge, or the ability to design and develop algorithms and techniques to improve computers’ performance.

Demand for these applications is expanding the need for data mining, statistical modeling and data structure skills, among others.
You can acquire machine-learning knowledge either through job experience or advanced undergraduate or graduate coursework. But no matter how you do it, “companies are snapping up these skills as fast as they can grab them,”.

2) Mobilizing applications
The race to deliver content over mobile devices is akin to the wild days of the Internet during the ’90s. And with devices like BlackBerries and Treos becoming more important as business tools, companies will need people who are adept at extending applications such as ERP, procurement and expense approval to these devices

3) Wireless networking
With the proliferation of de facto wireless standards such as Wi-Fi, WiMax and Bluetooth, securing wireless transmissions is top-of-mind for employers seeking technology talent.

4) Human-computer interface
Another area that will see growing demand is human-computer interaction or user interface design. This is the design of user interfaces for the Web or desktop applications.

5) Project management
Project managers have always been in high demand, but with growing intolerance for over budget or failed projects, the ones who can prove that they know what they’re doing are very much in demand.

6) General networking skills
No matter where you work in IT, you can no longer escape the network, and that has made it crucial for non-networking professionals, such as software engineers, to have some basic understanding of networking concepts.

7) Network convergence technicians
With more companies implementing voice over IP, there’s a growing demand for network administrators who understand all sorts of networks — LANs, WANs, voice, the Internet — and how they all converge together.

8) Open-source programming
There’s been an uptick in employers interested in hiring open-source talent. Some people thought the sun was setting on open source, but it’s coming back in a big way, both at the operating system level and in application development. People with experience in Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP, collectively referred to as LAMP, will find themselves in high demand.

9) Business intelligence systems
Momentum is also building around business intelligence creating demand for people who are skilled in BI technologies such as Cognos, Business Objects and Hyperion, and who can apply those to the business.

10) Embedded security
Security professionals have been in high demand in recent years, but today, there’s a surge in employers looking for security skills and certifications in all their job applicants, not just the ones for security positions.

This mirrors the trend toward integrating security into companies’ day-to-day operations rather than considering it an add-on role performed by a specialist. Companies will still need security specialists and subject-matter experts, Schmidt says, but more and more, every IT person a company hires will have to have an understanding of the security ramifications of his area.

11) Digital home technology integration
Homes are increasingly becoming high-tech havens, and there has been enormous growth in the home video and audio markets, and in home security and automated lighting systems. But who installs these systems, and who fixes them when something goes wrong?
To answer that question, CompTIA developed a certification in cooperation with the Consumer Electronics Association, called Digital Home Technology Integrator. It’s the hottest and most vibrant market seen in a long time.

12) .Net, C #, C ++, Java — with an edge
Recruiters and curriculum developers are seeing job orders come in for a range of application frameworks and languages, including ASP.Net, VB.net, XML, PHP, Java, C#, and C++, employers want more than just a coder.

Where do you fit in?