Which technical skills are in demmand?

Posted 19 Nov 2002 at 18:44 UTC by kgb Share This

Ever wonder which skills and keywords result in the most employment search engine hits?

I was interested in finding out what skills were most in demand, and which keywords in a resume would create the larget number of useful matches. I ran some quick keyword search comparisons on 2 popular job search engines -- Monster.com and Dice.com. I could not use Hotjobs.com because it only showed the first 1000 hits. The results were interesting (looks like we should all know SQL).

Here were my results. The table shows a rough average number of hits for the various keyword and job catagories. In all cases, the searches were for only USA positions (all) posted within the month.

Position Type  Monster     Position Type    DICE
-------------  -------     ---------------  ----
SW Developer      4420     SW Developer     6712
Analyst           3000     Analyst          3800
Administrator     1200     Administrator    1500


Technical Skill  Monster   Technical Skill  DICE
---------------- -------   ---------------- ----
SQL                 3100   Unix             3931
Unix                3000   Oracle           3927
Oracle              2500   SQL              3514
C, GCC              2410   Java, Javascript 3128
Java, Javascript    2330   MS WinNT/2k/XP   2262
MS WinNT/2k/XP      2162   C++              2042
Internet            2000   VB               1587
html                1861   C, GCC           1426
C++                 1450   XML              1327
VB                  1350   Internet         1263
XML                 1079   html             1251
Solaris              793   Solaris           963
TCP/IP               729   Perl              800
Sun                  640   TCP/IP            770
Perl                 620   Shell             764
Linux                600   Sun               723
Shell                500   Linux             584
AIX                  362   AIX               519
Novell               280   GUI               355
GUI                  200   Novell            269
Kernel                62   Assembler         205
Assembler             58   Games             170
Python                46   Kernel            142
Games                 40   Python             46
IRIX                  35   IRIX               20

I think using the popular job sites for this was useful, as that is were most of us find published positions. Perhaps someone will be inspired to do a better analysis than this and keep a web page up to date with the results.


Skill levels, posted 19 Nov 2002 at 20:15 UTC by Zaitcev » (Master)

Keith, this is very interesting, but not quite as relevant to Advogato as to, say, Wired.

I arrogantly consider myself a pretty strong hacker (comparatively speaking, of course), and that a hard task will always exist which nobody else can effectively solve, given time constrains, budgets, etc. At least this is what my expirience suggests so far.

Now, Advogato in general is populated with dozens of people who are way stronger (for instance, we have DaveM and ~rth, to say nothing about raph). They do not always post, but they read. Such folks should consider ignoring the requirement gystogram, because it does not say which tasks are hard. It says which areas of skills require a lot of manual labour, which is different.

To take an example from close to home, how many positions which require intimate knowledge of SMP, caching and TLB, Linux arch API, UNIX process API are posted to Dice? You can search by keyword, but that would bring you driver monkey positions, because every word I wrote above is a buzzword. All together they mean something different. Someone can bring same examples from userland, too.

I think Advogato readers are looking at different positions in general than presented by Monster or Dice pools. Those positions are drowned in numbers.

It would be really interesting to find numbers of positions which require, something like porting Linux to Sun MAJC architecture (by the way, this requires retargetting gcc), _and_ supporting it for several years, with contributions to Linus tree. I may be talking out of my ass here, but another example would be porting GTK+/GNOME to another window system, wildly different from X. Perhaps if we knew such numbers and numbers of Advogato readers, we might deduce if we see an overpopulation and should consider real estate or pre-owned car sales instead. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to count such places.

Now, back to work...

Re: Skill levels, posted 19 Nov 2002 at 22:10 UTC by kgb » (Master)

>this is very interesting, but not quite as relevant to Advogato as
>to, say, Wired

Right. Go back and read some of the older articles and say that again. Plus I don't have publishing rights on Wired.

Advogato is filled by people covering a range of experience and many (as evident by some articles and diaries) are dealing with the current employment climate and have had to settle for less until opportunities present themselves. Many of these people are highly experienced and skilled (some more than you I'm sure). Most good jobs are by networking, reference, etc., and the best skills a person could have are not technical in nature. But you also have to accept that a large number of corporations use employment search sites as their means of promoting openings. Even Red Hat does this; I know, I worked with HR on openings. Search sites have functionally replaced newspaper and trade journal ads.

>every word I wrote above is a buzzword. All together they mean >something different

I agree; that is an obvious limitation. Reminds me of filtering spam -- you want as many valid hits as possible without filtering anything desirable. I thought it would be interesting to see what keywords triggered the most responses, and how they compared to each other. I'm not going to defend whether they do a good job.

>It would be really interesting to find numbers of positions which >require, something like porting Linux to Sun MAJC architecture

Yes; but if you were going to locate someone nationally, where would you publish your opportunity of your personal attempts came up empty?

According to my agent..., posted 19 Nov 2002 at 22:52 UTC by nymia » (Master)

I've asked the recruiter and account manager about the job market and they seem to be saying Java skills are most often the ones that surface. Given 30 days a month, there would probably be 10 to 15 requests for Java skills, though.

But most of the requests I hear are ones that have most, including the kitchen sink. Meaning, those who have a lot of skills and experience in all areas. Willing to accept a position with lower pay.

I've also compared salaries of others as well, those from non-computing field and it seems they are still hanging high up there. Some of them even earn 60 to 70 bucks an hour. On the other hand, most IT salaries at the moment seem to be down there. Can't see myself going in that direction, though. Perhaps I'm too picky or just burned out.

I wouldn't sell myself at the level. It's just too far down for me to go there.

Salaries, posted 20 Nov 2002 at 09:57 UTC by chakie » (Master)

60-70 sounds pretty damn good. Over here I don't think too many in the whole country has that kind of incoming cash flood. Here IT folks can get around 15-25e/h (lowish to well paid) for normal non-manager jobs. So don't complain. :)

Fire 10, Hire 1, posted 20 Nov 2002 at 12:53 UTC by hacker » (Master)

This is the recurring theme I keep seeing. I've been out of work for over a year now, after electively resigning from my previous employer (surviving 5 rounds of layoffs, 2 trashed mergers, 3 or 4 new CEOs [I lost count at the third], etc, all in 18 months).

What I'm seeing in the marketplace while looking for work, is that employers are firing entire departments, and then looking to hire one (MAYBE two) people to fill all the positions and skills required to replace that missing department, at 1/2 the salary.

"The successful candidate must be fluent in C/C++, Perl, Java, Exchange, Unix, NT, SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, VB, Flash, XML, HTML, DreamWeaver. MSCE, MSD, CISSP, CCIE required."

It's really pathetic, and tends to push people (like myself) to do consulting to stay afloat. If I finish this final gig, I will have grossed $3,000.00/USD over the last year (that's not a typo).

I've relocated from the Left Coast back to the Right Coast, and the situation is exactly the same. No work. No Pay. No Jobs. Go Away.

Maybe we wait another year?

Re: Fire 10, Hire 1, posted 20 Nov 2002 at 15:49 UTC by kgb » (Master)

Hacker; That is exactly my observation also. In 20 years I have never seen the IT profession so screwy. People are expected to be available 24x7 (without compensation) to make up for the problems caused by poor technology decisions. The manager's secretary typically has a better workstation than the IT/engineering staff. Entry level positions are at an all-time low because companies higher the upper-skill positions rather than send their experienced staff to training. I personally know 4 people, with over 10 years experience each, that within the last 12 months have dumped their IT careers and are now happily doing self-employed work in carpentry, welding, running stores, etc. It would be interesting to find out what "new careers" are proving successful for people that leave the technology field.

Re: Fire 10, Hire 1, posted 20 Nov 2002 at 15:49 UTC by kgb » (Master)

Hacker; That is exactly my observation also. In 20 years I have never seen the IT profession so screwy. People are expected to be available 24x7 (without compensation) to make up for the problems caused by poor technology decisions. The manager's secretary typically has a better workstation than the IT/engineering staff. Entry level positions are at an all-time low because companies higher the upper-skill positions rather than send their experienced staff to training. I personally know 4 people, with over 10 years experience each, that within the last 12 months have dumped their IT careers and are now happily doing self-employed work in carpentry, welding, running stores, etc. It would be interesting to find out what "new careers" are proving successful for people that leave the technology field.

Java, posted 20 Nov 2002 at 19:22 UTC by davidw » (Master)

In the web world, at least, no one wants much else. I am thinking seriously of looking into the import/export industry as an alternative to this crap. I think I have some good ideas about things that would be successful to ship between the U.S. and Italy.

Dream IT Jobs, posted 20 Nov 2002 at 21:44 UTC by kgb » (Master)

http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/careers/recruiting/story/0,10801,47374,00.html

Where did the IT industry go?, posted 21 Nov 2002 at 04:36 UTC by garym » (Master)

Ok, I'm off topic from my own "let's stay on topic" request, but does anyone else notice how the skills discussion thread has annealed to this same issue?

It's really weird in a Rod Serling sort of way -- Homeland Security and immanent war is one thing but that doesn't completely explain why virtually all IT research and development appears to have just vanished overnight. I only know one shop doing quasi-development, and that's Roland Tanglao's group developing basically a clone of PayPal for a Canadian bank. Every thing else I see is VB on a roller-coaster ride to disaster or people butting heads with unfinished SOAP bars, almost as if, like Dave's AT&T insider reports, that they want to see it fail

Ooops , posted 21 Nov 2002 at 04:39 UTC by garym » (Master)

shoot, posted that last one to the wrong thread! It was supposed to go on the end of this thread and talk about the thread going on here. After a while, and with enough sleep deprivation, all these Advogato pages start looking the same :)

security, posted 30 Nov 2002 at 13:40 UTC by nixnut » (Journeyer)

And still no one cares about decent security skills.
Oh well, SQL is still pretty hot.

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