December 2006 Archives

Wall Street resumed its fourth-quarter rally this week, with the Dow Jones closing above 12,400 for the first time, riding a wave of strong company earnings reports and a drop in unemployment claims.

The trend will also boost the IT jobs market, one expert tells my colleague James Maguire, managing editor of Datamation and eSecurity Planet. Scot Melland, CEO of tech job site Dice, told Maguire in his Datamation story that the IT job market is “very attractive right now.”

Melland told Maguire that, “Over the last two years, the number of IT job postings on Dice has grown by some 62%, with 18% of that growth occurring this year.”

The are several areas of the job market that are smokin’ hot:

The IT sectors with the most openings are those that make up the core of infrastructure building and maintenance: software development, DBAs, projects managers, and security. Also seeing dramatic growth are positions requiring Linux and open source expertise.

Tellingly, software developers continue to be in demand in spite of the blaring headlines that warn of overseas offshoring. Dice has about 15-20,000 software development jobs posted, Melland says. (In total, there are about 90,000 tech positions listed on the site.)

Melland also gives great advice for job seekers, the kind of advice that employment searchers in the Internet age need to hear more often: It’s crucial to not just peruse posted jobs, but to post your resume.

This is because “Many positions -- some of the best positions, you could argue -- are never even listed,” Melland says. Employers simply search the Dice job bank of resumes, contacting staffers whose resume matches their needs.

It was a big year for blogs, wikis, RSS, collaboration software, corporate intranets in general, and instant messaging (the latter got a huge help, you’ll recall, from some infamous archived IMs sent by one M. Foley.)

Because of these rapidly growing technologies, the editors at Intranet Journal think it's time to honor some of the best products of the year. Awards will be given out in six categories:

Best Intranet Design Software

Best Hosted Intranet Solution

Best Blogging Software

Best Wiki Software

Best Document Management/Collaboration Product

Best Enterprise Search Software

The awards are a three-part process. First, pick your favorite candidates. This link takes you to the product nomination form, plus more information about the Intranet Journal 2007 Product of the Year awards.

Nominations will be accepted through January 5, 2007. We’ll announce winners in February.