I have 15 years of experience in the Information Technology profession. The times for IT professionals are a lot different than when I started as the network administrator for the Industrial Engineering building for Kansas State University. It was exciting. The university was paying me $100 per week to support the Novell network and several hundred engineering students. Pretty cool!

In the beginning of my career, the network administrators, server administrators, and application developers were making the big bucks. Every company seemed to be hiring for these positions. Now some businesses haven't had an open requistion for a technical resource in 5 years.

The skills that IT departments are looking for today are project management, business analysis, and ability to manage outsource contracts. Not that these are bad skills; they are actually very good. They help you deliver business capabilities more effectively. However, the trend is to leverage resources outside the internal IT department or strategize to purchase applications verses develop them.

Make vs Buy Strategies are good for businesses. They must be effectively aligned with business objectives and clearly communicated to the employees.