New IT Skills: Why Communication, Accountability, Initiative
Source: Kevin Casey
Using Bureau of Labor Statistics data and information supplied by CompTIA and Burning Glass Technologies Labor Insights, we've identified eight crucial, non-technical skills that companies are looking for in their IT hires.
When people discuss the IT skills shortage, they're typically talking about the technical chops that set IT pros apart from the rest of the working world: big data and analytics, cloud computing, software development, operations, information security, and so forth.
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They're probably not thinking of things like teamwork.
Yet a recent IT employment report from industry association CompTIA suggested that so-called "soft" skills -- non-technical abilities such as effective written and oral communications or project management -- are a big deal for employers, and a big challenge in the IT labor market. Soft skills ranked as the fifth-largest hiring challenge for the 400 human resources professionals surveyed in CompTIA's HR Perceptions of IT Training & Certification Study (registration required), beating out issues such as salary alignment and competition from larger companies. For comparison, hard skills ranked second, with appropriate work experience as the top headache when recruiting and hiring IT pros.
No matter which side you take in the IT skills shortage debate, hiring managers say obstacles to finding and retaining tech talent are real. In that same CompTIA report, 93% of HR respondents reported challenges in finding the right IT job candidates during the previous 12 months, with more than two thirds of them saying it was "very challenging" to fill their IT job openings.
"There is a fairly tight hiring environment for IT positions," said Tim Herbert, VP of research and market intelligence at CompTIA, in an interview. "When you get down into certain skills, it becomes even more acute."
There are a lot of job openings, too, according to CompTIA's IT Employment Snapshot for Q1 2015. There were more than 850,000 open IT positions in the US in Q1, based on data from Burning Glass Technologies Labor Insights. And, yes, if you're hiring a Java developer, you're going to need to find someone who knows how to write the code, among other abilities. Chances are you're also going to want someone who can communicate with the rest of the business, derive meaning from data, solve problems as they arise, and adapt to changing business conditions.
For example, if you want to be a viable candidate for this current opening for a Java developer at health insurance giant Aetna, you're going to need experience in Java 1.5 or above, object-oriented design, Web containers such as Tomcat, frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, and Junit, among other technical skills. You'll also find this desired skill right alongside those Java fundamentals: "excellent verbal and written communication skills." The listing also includes foundational business skills such as "creating accountability," "turning data into information," and "communicating for impact."
The underlying challenge with soft skills, for employers and IT pros alike is they're often vaguely defined. There are plenty of ways to determine if your potential Java developer knows her stuff: Check references, give a code test in the interview, check out her Github or other code samples, and so forth. But how do you tell if someone has initiative? We all think we know what the term means, especially in a work context, but our definitions probably differ. It's an inherent abstraction. Even the definition of a seemingly clear-cut ability such as problem-solving will vary based on the organization and other variables and, according to Herbert, may be a proxy for a wider set of business needs and employee attributes. The very phrase "soft skills" could use a rebranding -- it sounds vague and even suggests a lack of importance, which clearly isn't the case for many employers.
Indeed, companies can improve how they define what they really want when it comes to skills such as problem solving or flexibility. Likewise, IT pros can do a better job of developing and showcasing such skills as part of their career trajectory. This can be done in a variety of ways, including taking online courses (many of them free or low-cost); joining local tech associations and networking groups; taking advantage of corporate training and education; or getting involved with work projects that will require you to develop skills and give you new bullet points for the resume. For example, if you've been stuck in a functional IT silo, volunteer for a project that will require working with an interdisciplinary team, especially if it involves working closely with other business units such as finance or customer service. Now, you've got credible evidence of "teamwork" -- one of the soft skills employers are definitely looking for.
Skill Shift
Herbert of CompTIA noted a general shift in the role of IT and the skill set required for the future. The days of corporate IT as a back-office or support function are waning as technology becomes more pervasive throughout organizations. Strategic IT pros can no longer simply "work with the business" -- they need to be an integral part of the business. Whether you're pursuing a strategic priority with the CFO or working face-to-face with external customers, soft skills become critical for success.
"[Companies] are so reliant on technology that they have to make the IT side and the business side work more efficiently than may have been possible [in the past]," Herbert said.
Building the right soft skills will help top IT talent stand out in the modern era and, to use our aforementioned example one more time, avoid being pigeonholed as "just a Java developer," a reductive label that likely doesn't reflect your actual value. Using information supplied by CompTIA, which typically relies on a mix of surveys and interviews, Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and Burning Glass Technologies Labor Insights tracking of job postings, we've identified eight crucial, non-technical skills that companies are looking for in their IT hires.
Communication & Coordination
Communication, both written and oral, has long been a given soft skill in a wide variety of jobs. It's now a clear must-have in a range of IT roles. "Communication & Coordination" ranks as one of the top skill clusters in security-related job openings, according to Burning Glass data, appearing in more than 14,000 postings. For context, that's second only to the actual network administration and security skills cluster. Communication & Coordination also commonly appears in software, database, support, and data-mining and analysis job descriptions.
Problem Solving
Problem solving is a perfect example of the soft skills conundrum. It seems like a no-brainer: Identify problem, likely technical in nature, and solve it. Yet, CompTIA's Herbert pointed out that even a fairly literal trait such as problem solving may be a stand-in for a related set of terms, including initiative (which you'll find later on this list) or innovation. Sure, problem solving covers situations such as troubleshooting a failed virtual machine, or patching a security hole. But employers most likely have a broader intention in mind: They want modern IT pros who can identify business problems and apply technology solutions to them, helping to drive innovation and create new opportunities in the process.
The "Problem Solving" skill cluster ranks highly across the board in existing IT job openings, according to Burning Glass. For example, it appears in nearly 100,000 postings in the software applications category.
Project & Process Flow
Understanding project management and business processes continues to go hand-in-hand with certain IT roles. The "Project & Process Flow" skill cluster appears frequently in job postings, though it tends to trail communication and problem solving in terms of frequency. This could be a result of larger enterprises that have a separate project management organization embedded within IT or elsewhere in the company. Regardless, project management know-how remains highly valuable.
Business Environment Skills
How's that for abstract? Indeed, CompTIA's Herbert acknowledged that the phrase requires further definition. Here's his: "I usually interpret that as having some type of industry vertical expertise or familiarity," he said, offering healthcare or retail as examples. In other words, you don't simply understand cloud computing or virtualization, for example, but also how those technologies can create opportunities and address business challenges or requirements in specific industries or sectors. "Regardless of the sector, [it's] having some familiarity with how the technology aligns with business objectives." As a skill cluster, "Business Environment Skills" ranks highly across job categories in open postings, according to Burning Glass.
Teamwork
Teamwork sounds like a good thing in any work environment, right? But what do employers really mean by it? It's a tough one. At a basic level, it means you can't be the curmudgeon in the server closet with whom no one wants to work. Increasingly, though, it means the ability to shed traditional IT stereotypes and work strategically with a wide range of job roles and teams. Within IT, that could mean evolving from old-school silos into a DevOps environment -- no small change for large enterprises that have done things a certain way for decades. It could also mean working seamlessly with a wide variety of other departments, partners, customers, and other stakeholders. If you've not done much of that in the past, throw your hat in the ring for opportunities to do so.
"Teamwork" is listed as a critical soft skill for IT personnel by nearly half of the 125 US executives polled in CompTIA's 2015 International Technology Adoption & Workforce Trends Study (registration required), which was published in April.
Work Ethic, Motivation & Initiative
Good luck finding any employer that seeks to hire lazy, unmotivated people. Terms like work ethic, motivation, and initiative sound obvious, in a way. But if you've been in the workforce for even a little while, you know they're not always a given. All three terms rate as having great importance for the 125 US survey respondents in CompTIA's International Technology Adoption & Workforce Trends Study. Moreover, these terms don't necessarily serve as counterbalances to laziness and mediocrity. Rather, employers are looking for IT professionals who can help identify new products, cost efficiencies, productivity drivers, and so forth, in a proactive manner. In fact, respondents in the CompTIA study listed "lack of innovation/new product development" as one of the top consequences of skills gaps as a whole.
Customer Service
Wait, isn't that what the people in the call centers do? Not quite: 41% of the 125 US employers surveyed in CompTIA's International Technology Adoption & Workforce Trends Study listed customer service as an important soft skill. That makes it one of the top non-tech skills, alongside project management, flexibility & adaptability, and teamwork, in that particular report. The ability to think like a customer -- internal or external -- and keep their needs close at hand when, say, building new applications or developing the company's information security strategy is increasingly sought after in IT. No more throwing the code over the fence and running away.
Flexibility & Adaptability
The modern pace of business and technology evolution is so fast that a rigid, "that's not in my job description" mindset simply isn't going to get you very far. In fact, flexibility and adaptability are soft skills that are crucial for ensuring you've got the right hard skills for the duration of your career. If you don't remain flexible and adaptable, there's no way to keep up with new and changing programming languages, frameworks, devices, computing paradigms and platforms, security threats and mitigation strategies, and on down the list. Specialization can be good, and there's certainly such a thing as being stretched too thin, but a willingness to learn and embrace new technologies and opportunities is a must. And, again, as you develop a track record of doing so with your current employer, you're making yourself that much more attractive to your next employer. "Flexibility & Adaptability" rated as the second-most important IT soft skill among US executives in CompTIA's International Technology Adoption and Workforce Trends Study.
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