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Undefined IT skillsets - the NEW generation
of skills?
Posted by: OS GIKEN on Feb 12, 2010
I often find myself looking at jobs online and in newspapers for no apparent reason other than to compare skills and see what the workforce out there looks like. The main dominators in the IT category are the guys with one specific skill set, C# or ABAP or JAVA or on rare occasions, all mixed together. Most people look at a job ad according to their known skills, so if they are a salesperson in IT applications, they will look for sales jobs from application development companies etc.
This proposed new skill sets I've come across recently don't even have a specific name to distinguish it from any other job function; it has a description in the heading!
I don't have a specific skill, you can narrow my skill down to my field of work, and that's about it. Lately I've been doing allot of execution jobs, executing IT projects specifically related to IT infrastructure. So I analyze the designs and I meet with clients and other recourses and I execute the project according to the "spec'd" design, and along the way I make sure everyone's happy and the project has all other relevant needs taken care of. So if it all flops they don't run to the project manager, they run to me.
I've found it hard to describe what I'm doing in one word, here at work they call it an Engineering Lead, so I engineer the project by taking the lead technically and make sure the project is done successfully. I've looked everywhere and could not find an Engineering Lead role in IT other than in Sasol. I guess we also have to take into consideration the fact that non-IT organizations don't have or need specific skills, but rather people who manage suppliers with that needed/required skill.
So to make myself feel better I dubbed these non-explanitory-in-one-word-set-of-skills a new generation of skills! I've spoken to many people and they frown upon my mention of what I do, “so you are a Business Analyst?” No, “oh ok, you're actually a Project Manager?” No, “erm, then you must be a...what did you say you do again?”
I just explained it, its a new generation of vital skills needed to make sure IT projects are executed as intended, RIO's depends on this type of skill, if you don't possess it, you better start looking for it!
OS over and out – “seriously now, what do you do?” |
