SMARTER STRATEGIES

Getting Cloud Skills Might Mean Staff Development Investment

Judy Mottl | Date: 01-19-11 | Comments

Cloud computing skills aren�t as rampant as cloud computing projects. IT leaders may have to delve inside staff ranks to get needed skill sets in place.

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Getting Cloud Skills Might Mean Staff Development Investment
A new report from employment and job search company Dice shows that cloud computing skills are the most in-demand IT capability when it comes to hiring. That�s little surprise, given the increasing adoption of cloud services, applications, systems and infrastructure. There has been a 294 percent growth boom in job postings since last year, which is also driving greater hiring around JavaScript (up 98%) and HTML (up 85%), says Dice.

The problem, though, is that not many tech professionals are skilled to develop, manage and innovate when it comes to cloud computing strategies. In fact, another recent survey showed that nearly a majority of tech professionals aren�t even sure about the true definition of cloud computing and the virtualization connection.

That�s not great news for IT managers and HR leaders tasked with luring in needed professionals.

But there is one viable hiring approach, says Tom Silver, Dice�s Senior Vice President- North America. That option is to canvass the current IT rank and file for staffers who have skills that can easily transfer to the cloud computing realm.

The first place to look is at the data center operation, says Silver.

�On the cloud side, anyone who has managed a data center, worked on server and data migrations, researched and selected hosting facilities, and has worked to build out a co-location environment setting failover policies and procedures, will have no trouble migrating to the cloud,� Silver advised in an e-mail interview on how CIOs can go about finding cloud computing professionals.

It would also behoove today�s IT workers, who have such data center and hosting knowledge, to explore how to advance their career, and role potential, by moving into the cloud computing work environment.

�Cloud computing is really about managing scale and (hopefully) paying for it when you need it, versus all upfront,� says Silver.

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