Sunday, July 31, 2005

IT Market Compensation Study

Information Technology (IT) job opportunities will continue to expand throughout 2005 according to a newly released study. Overall, two out of three of the 160 organizations surveyed projected hiring additional technology workers.

In particular, if your technology experience touches on the following areas then IT recruiters want to talk with you:

  • project manager
  • web applications programmer
  • security analyst
  • database administrator
  • network engineer

Specifically, the skills that IT organizations report having the greatest difficulty recruiting are the following:

  • PeopleSoft
  • J2EE
  • Microsoft.Net
  • Java
  • Oracle
  • Visual C#.Net
  • SAP
  • XML and XML Web Services

The survey reveals that while Web applications programmers are in demand, the specific technologies that professionals with Web-based skills should consider developing include Microsoft.Net, Visual C#.Net and XML.

The place to start: XML. If you have a working knowledge of HTML, you can add XML to your resume with a little self-paced training. Simply access W3Schools' XML Tutorial and begin your free training today. W3Schools also provides free tutorials on Microsoft.Net and ASP.Net.

To learn more about the 2005 IT Market Compensation Study access a press release from Gartner.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

IT Skills & Certification

A survey of 50,000 IT professionals reveals that the offshore outsourcing of technical talent has slowed and has begun to reverse for technology professionals with in-demand skills. According to the survey's author, David Foote of Foote Partners, companies "are once again investing in their own people to build and maintain systems critical to their business strategies."

So what are these in-demand skills? Tech skills were evaluated based on pay growth for individuals with and without certification. The non-certified skill areas that exhibited the most pay growth in the first six months of 2005 were as follows:
  • operating systems (8.2%)
  • networking/internetworking (5.1%)
  • database (4.3%)
  • applications development (2.1%)

In particular, four of the top five hottest non-certified skills (25% or more pay growth) in the past twelve months were Microsoft-related:

  • SQL Server
  • Websphere
  • Active Server Pages
  • Microsoft .NET
  • SQL Windows

For those tech workers with certification the areas that have seen the most growth were as follows:

  • Web (3.8%)
  • applications development/programming languages (2.3%)
  • database (0.7%)

According to the author, companies are searching for "workers with solution-specific experience within a particular industry" to develop "new products and services that will ensure their competitiveness against challengers of all sizes and geographies." He concludes by stating that "most employers favor both experience and credentialing in a job candidate whenever possible."

Web designers and developers should consider obtaining CIW Associate certification, the first in a series of Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) certification paths available from Prosoft. For a complete list of 86 certifications used in this analysis, along with links to certification Websites, access Web Apprentices' Training Center.

A summary of this research is available at Information Week. For a more detailed findings access a Foote Partners Press Release.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Boston Market -- July

The market for Web Developers continues to grow in the greater Boston area. An analysis of job listings in the Boston Globe reveals that the job market has expanded approximately 33% over the past five months. Database (SQL and MS Access) and programming skills (ASP and JavaScript) continue to outpace design skills (Photoshop and Dreamweaver).

Listed below in descending order are a few of the most in-demand Web Developer skills.

  • Skill -- number of listings (percent increase from February)
  • SQL -- 425 (12%)
  • MS Access -- 217 (36%)
  • HTML -- 192 (22%)
  • ASP -- 124 (27%)
  • JavaScript -- 93 (58%)
  • Photoshop -- 80 (40%)
  • Dreamweaver -- 28 (33%)
The Career Links in the right-hand column provide easy access to job listings from both Bostonworks.com and Monster.com.

Sunday, July 03, 2005

Best Places to Work

How does your employer rate? Is your workplace one of the best in Massachusetts? To find out pick up a copy of the June 27 issue of the Boston Business Journal. Or, simply review the interactive list below.



Small (20-100 Employees):
Adheris Inc.
ADS Financial Services Solutions
ath Power Consulting
The Castle Group Inc.
ChoiceStream Inc.
DSCI Corp.
Eliassen Group Inc.
Epsilon Associates Inc.
Imceda Software Inc.
Insight Performance Improvement Inc.
Intranets.com
Kforce Professional Staffing
Mazu Networks Inc.
Pyxis Mobile Inc.
Richards Barry Joyce & Partners
SHIFT Communications LLC
Stacy's Pita Chip Co.
Text 100 Public Relations
Thrive Networks Inc.
Travel Collaborative

Midsize (101-500 Employees):
athenahealth Inc.
BBN Technologies
Boston Communications Group Inc.
Commonwealth Financial Network
Danversbank
Deploy Solutions Inc.
Excel Switching Corp.
Gentle Giant Moving Co. Inc.
MC Communications LLC
Nixon Peabody LLP
Nutter, McClennen and Fish LLP
Seaport Companies
Shawmut Design and Construction
SolidWorks Corp.
Suffolk Construction Company Inc.
TechTarget Inc.
VERC Enterprises
Vitale Caturano & Co.
Wolf & Company PC
Wolf Greenfield & Sacks PC

Large (Over 500 Employees):
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Bingham McCutchen LLP
Bright Horizons Family Solutions
Comcast Corp.
Deloitte & Touche USA LLP
Digitas LLC
Genzyme Corp.
Grand Circle Corp.
Hallmark Health System
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
International Data Group
Kronos Inc.
Lifeline Systems Inc.
New England Baptist Hospital
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
Progress Software Corp.
Roche Bros. Supermarkets Inc.
Shields Health Care
Simmons College
Winchester Hospital