The types of skills necessary for a successful IT career

"For Networking Pros, Career Success Lies Beyond Skills"
SearchNetworking.com, February 14

Matthew Moran, the author of the new book The IT Career Builder's Toolkit, discusses the types of skills necessary for a successful IT career. Young professionals should be on the lookout for "career-building obstacles" and understand how opportunities for mentoring and different learning environments can impact future professional growth. In particular, networking professionals need to be able to adapt more to their ever-changing environments and understand how underlying business principles impact technology implementations.

According to Moran, it is becoming harder for networking professionals to develop their careers -- but only because people have unrealistic expectations about what it means to build an IT career. As Moran explains, "It is not, and never has been, about your pure technical talent." Instead, networking professionals should attempt to learn new skills that can then be integrated with existing technical skills, especially since companies are now viewing technology as a tool to help achieve strategically defined business objectives. In addition, Moran suggests that IT professionals make better use of networking opportunities with peers and management outside their direct departments.

Moran also discusses the impact that network management automation is having on careers, comments on the diminishing importance of the network administrator position, and shares his thoughts on the "vital IT skills" that should be part of any IT professional's skill set. Reminding job seekers to maintain realistic expectations about future IT careers, Moran notes that "it's always been a good time to get into IT."

Full Article: http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/qna/0,289202,sid7_gci1057331,00.html

He mentions that XML and Web services are some key vitial skills with of course "The ability to see the similarities between Linux, Windows and mainframes". I should be trying to implement XML and Web servicing programs to build up my skills.