App Developers Top Hiring Managers’ Wish Lists

Hot areas of technology don’t necessarily translate to huge job opportunities, according to InformationWeek’s 2012 State of IT Staffing survey.

The biggest plans for hiring among the 1,391 business technology pros surveyed were for application developers, with security, application delivery and help desk high on hiring managers’ list, too.

With mobile skills so hard to find, many companies plan to retrain existing staff for those skills. Amid all the hullabaloo about Big Data, the poll found no big hiring push to go along with it. The respondents acknowledged, though, that they’ll have to shell out the bucks for the few people they plan to add.

And despite the popularity of social media, tech hiring for social media isn’t a priority for most. About a third expect to fill those positions easily and not pay a big premium to do so.

Only 9 percent said they’ll be adding staff in social media either through hiring or “reassignment” of staff with those skills. But among companies making social networking a priority, though, some reported increasing staff by 30 percent in the next two years.

Matt Ripaldi, senior VP at IT staffing firm Modis, reported an uptick in social media jobs in four areas: content, strategy, community and the IT jobs in application development.

A separate story calls social networking a new career path for IT pros as more marketing departments have dedicated IT staff. But the survey showing social media on the back burner at many companies — and the fact that marketing departments felt the brunt of layoffs in the recent recession — might make IT pros think twice about that.