Certification Magazine - December 2007 - (Page 42) a computer science degree from an engineering school, but they get the same type of stuff.” Strictly Business John Estes is vice president of Robert Half Technology, an IT staffing firm. As such, he knows a great deal about what skills employers look for in hiring IT professionals, as well as what types of educational backgrounds within IT spark demand and, therefore, higher pay. And Estes knows exactly what type of graduates he would tell computer science schools to produce. “If I could talk to university administrators, I would tell them, ‘You need to get your IT and computer science people blended with as much business education as you can get,’” Estes said. “If I could address a computer science class, I’d say, ‘Take as many business electives as you can, because that’s the way the world is going.’” Robert Half’s clients are telling the firm they want technical people who think like businesspeople and have business and project management skills. Estes said although most industry forecasters view this blend as the future of IT, demand for such hybridization is here now. “When we get [staff] orders now, it’s already started,” Estes said. “[Clients] are wanting to know more about what projects this person has worked on, what their return on investment from this project is, and these are terms and phrases that you never heard back in the ’90s. Back then, it was all about building a better mousetrap and all about infrastructure, and now it’s all about business outcomes.” All of this, of course, has implications in terms of salary. Estes said IT students who integrate business training in their educations are likely to earn more. “For the short term, when someone’s just starting out, it would be more along the lines of heavy technical skills, but certainly in the long run, technical people with business education are going to come out on top,” he said. Probably the most direct way to integrate business skills with an IT education is to major in a business-oriented program and minor in IT. Computers now control everything, to such an extent that many business majors might amount to IT education anyway. Estes cited accounting as a good example. “Years ago, accounting was accounting and was pretty much separate from IT,” Estes said. “Nowadays, we get all types of requests for it, because companies want accountants to have a lot of IT experience. Sometimes, we even get orders for a particular individual, and it’s hard to tell if [the client] wants an accounting person within IT or whether they want an IT person with some accounting. And, in fact, we’re seeing a lot of With Transcender practice tests you’ll be prepared to ace that certification exam. No other software product prepares you better. In fact, we back it up with an industry-best, 100% guarantee. Give us a try. We’ll teach you everything we know. Visit www.transcender.com or call 1-866-639-8765. © 2007 Kaplan IT, Inc. All rights reserved. TRANSCENDER ® Kaplan IT, Inc. All rights reserved. http://www.transcender.com http://www.transcender.com
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