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Journal of Education for Business

ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20

An Examination of Job Skills Posted on Internet

Databases: Implications for Information Systems

Degree Programs

Xia Liu , Lai C. Liu , Kai S. Koong & June Lu

To cite this article: Xia Liu , Lai C. Liu , Kai S. Koong & June Lu (2003) An Examination of Job Skills Posted on Internet Databases: Implications for Information Systems Degree Programs, Journal of Education for Business, 78:4, 191-196, DOI: 10.1080/08832320309598600

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08832320309598600

Published online: 31 Mar 2010.

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An Examination of Job Skills

Posted on Internet Databases:

Implications for Information

Systems Degree Programs

XIA LIU

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FYI.Net,

Inc.

Houston, Texas

LA1 C. LIU

KAI

S.

KOONG

The University

of

Texas-

Pan

American Edinburg,

Texas

JUNE LU

University

of

Houston at Victoria Victoria,

Texas

ince the 1990s, companies and

S

government agencies across the country have been scrambling and struggling with the growing worker shortage in the information technology (IT) industry. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States will need over 1.3 million new information technology (IT) workers to fill newly created positions and to replace workers who have left or will be leav- ing the field from 1996 through 2006 (Williams-Harold, 1999). Though some companies are laying off workers, the current economic slowdown has not eliminated the shortage problem. First, many companies are hiring persons with critical IT skills while laying off

other workers (Armour, 2001 ;

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Gladwin,

2001). Second, the government is fac- ing a mass exodus of IT workers because federal workers are eligible to retire at 55 years of age, and 29% of all government IT workers are over 50. As a matter of fact, the Defense Depart- ment is already trying to recruit and retain top staffers by beefing up bonus- es (Anthes, 2002). Finally, the economy is beginning to show signs of recovery, so it is likely that the labor market for IT workers has hit rock bottom already (Marsan, 2002).

The shortage of IT personnel is actu- ally a worldwide phenomenon. Nations dependent on high technology are all

ABSTRACT. Change is continuously occurring in the IT field. In this study, the authors investigated the types of skills required today by IT professionals and whether these have changed. The study results show how IT skill requirements are changing; the information should be useful to human resources administrators, career counselors, corporate trainers, information systems consultants and students, educators, and those involved in the design

and development of new curricula.

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reporting difficulty in finding skilled computing professionals to fill crucial posts (“A Crisis

...,”

1999). For example, the government of the United King- dom had to reduce barriers to the immigration of overseas IT workers because British firms have been hit by a shortage of persons with high-tech skills. Com- panies from the United States, Ger- many, and the Netherlands have been aggressively recruiting on their turf (Goodwin, 2000). American universities and colleges typically have responded well in meeting the labor needs of the country (Aldoaijy, 1999). However, in the last 10 years, universities and colleges have not adequately trained grad- uates to meet the needs of the IT indus- try. There is “a disconnect between what the market needs and what the colleges are providing” (Selingo, 2001, p. A27). For example, although universities awardid 18% more undergraduate

degrees in 1997 than they did a decade earlier, they awarded 37% fewer degrees in computer science and 24% fewer in engineering. Since 1997, demand for IT professionals has increased at an average rate of 25% a year. In the last 2 years, this shortage has risen to 33% a year (“IT Skills Shortage.. .,” 1999).

The shortage of IT workers has been compounded by continuous changes in cutting-edge information technologies. IT innovations accelerate the obsoles- cence of the existing workforce and fundamentally affect the ways that organizations operate (Lee, Trauth, &

Farwell, 1995). Because of the result- ing changes in IT skills sought by organizations, certified IT professionals are constantly attending recertification programs and lower mid-level employees are returning to school to take addition- al computing and management classes to advance their careers. Many of these professional development opportunities are encouraged and paid for by employers (Brandel, 2000; Jacobs, 2000; Schafer, 2000).

Statement of the Problem

Information technology is the driving force behind the restructuring of many contemporary and competitive organi-

zations (Maier, Clark, & Remington,

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MarcWApril2003 191

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1998). Even though universities have responded many times to requests to revise their curricula for computer information system (CIS) departments, the gap still exists because of the fol-

lowing factors (Kim, 1998; Lee, Trauth,

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& Farwell, 1995; Maier, Clark, & Rem- ington, 1998):

Rapidly changing IT skills Lack of connection and under- standing between educators and practi- tioners

Limited number of courses offered Lack of resources

As a result of the shortage of skilled IT personnel in the labor force, many projects have been set aside or have been delayed. The quality of projects has also decreased. In many cases, the lower quality was brought about by the hiring of less qualified IT workers (Edwards, 2000; Goodwin, 2000).

As e-business and the global e-economy continue to expand and change, the impact of the IT worker shortage prob-

lem could affect the

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U.S. economy and

its leading role i n the IT industry (Aldoaijy, 1999). The shortage could threaten productivity and affect the growth and recovery of businesses

around the world (Cataido, 2000).

Statement of the Objective

The types of skills needed by companies in the new millennium are expected to change as new technologies in computing hardware, software, and net- works are brought into the market. Nev- ertheless, current skills needed by companies are good indicators of the types of IT skills that current and future IT professionals should have to be mar- ketable in a competitive labor market.

Our primary purpose in this study was to identify the types of skills required of IT professionals. Specifical- ly, we examined the types of technical skills needed of new employees as dis- closed in the two most popular Internet job banks, Monster.com and HotJobs .corn, over a 10-week period. The results of this research should be of inter- est to human resources administrators, career counselors, corporate trainers, information systems consultants, labor attorneys, immigration and naturaliza-

tion officers, and agency recruiters. Educators will find the outcomes of this study useful in the design and development of new curricula that can prepare students for the job market. The skills identified will be particularly useful to students in their selection of elective courses and specializations.

Method

We gathered data through a method similar to that used in two previous studies that also examined jobs listed on the Internet (Markey, Liu, & Koong, 2000; Arnett, Litecky, & Prabhakar). Our set of data came from two Web databases containing job listings from around the country. In contrast, the two previous studies used data from local newspapers and job listings from For- tune 500 Company Web sites. The con- tribution of this study is enhanced in that our data set consisted of 300 observations collected over a 10-week period. To investigate IT jobs around the country that were listed in Internet job databases, we decided to use two of the better-known databases, Monster.com and HotJobs.com, which are among the top 10 e-recruiting providers in the world (Boone & Julian, 2001). Together, the two account for over 90% of the on-line new job-seekers’ market (Boyle, 2000).

The number of jobs listed can vary

daily because new entries are added daily and expired listings are deleted periodi- cally. For this reason, the targeted popu- lation for this study is considered infi- nite. We used the following formula and parameters to calculate the required sam-

ple size: n

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=

( z

/

i) A 2

*

p

*

(1- p ) .

The confidence level was set at

Acceptable error

( i ) = .025.

Estimated proportion of job listings that required technical skills @) = .95.

Using all of the above values for parameters, we computed a sample size of 292, which we rounded to 300. We used the larger number of observations to arrive at an equal number of observations from each database each period.

To be consistent with previous studies, we included all hardware, software, and networking skills reported by Wilkins and No11 (2000), Leslie (2000), and 95%, SO

( z )

= 1.96.

Arnett, Litecky, and Prabhakar (1998). We modeled our classification scheme after the works of Arnett et al., with a few minor differences. First, in this study we identified a more comprehensive listing

of job skills that were more reflective of skills needed in the new millennium. This study also involved the following minor differences:

1. JDBC (Java Database Connectivi- ty) skill was added to the Database category. Windows skills were added to the Operating Systems and Environments category.

2. Web Development was added as a new category of skills. Arnett, Litecky, and Prabhakar (1998) classified all Web skills (WWW) into the programming category. However, since then, Web- related jobs have been extended to cover many types of skills.

3. The job skills were divided into five broad categories, and each category was divided into classes of skills. We used the following schematic model to organize the data set:

Programming Languages (C/C++, Java, Visual Basic, COBOL, and others)

Web Development (ASP [active server page], VBScript, JavaScript, DHTML DHTMLmTML [Dynamic Hypertext Markup Languagemyper- text Markup Language], COM [component object model] and SQL [Structured Query Language])

Database (Oracle, DB2, Access, SQL Server, and JDBC)

Networking (Windows NT, WANLAN [wide area networkllocal area network], Novell, and Internet)

Operating Systems and Environ- ments (Windows 95IWindows 98/Windows 2000, Unix, and OS2) We accessed both Monster.com and HotJobs.com every Friday night for 10 weeks, making 30 observations each collection period, for a sample size of 300. We collected half of the total weekly observations needed-or 15 job descriptions-from each Web database.

Hypothesis

In this study, we investigated one major hypothesis, which was related to

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the distribution of the different technical skills required of IT professionals:

Ho: Each category will exhibit an equal distribution of job classes.

Class refers to the different types of job skills within a category, and category refers to area of specialty, a major job group. If the percentage of each class of technical skills is not equal in the category examined, the null hypothesis would be rejected. Thus, we could conclude that some classes of skills are more in demand than others. We used a chi-square test to examine the null hypothesis because the statistical test involved the use of predicted frequencies and observed frequencies (Koosis, 1997). The level of significance or alpha level was set at .01 for testing the null

hypothesis.

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Findings

Relying on by Arnett et al. (1998) and Leslie (2000), we placed technical skills into the following major categories: Programming Languages, Web Devel- opment, Database, Networking, and Operating Systems and Environments. In Tables 1 through 5, we show the absolute number of times a skill was indicated in the two databases. The percentage is the percentage of times a skill was listed in the category.

The Programming Languages category was broken down into the following five broad classes: C/C++, Java, Visual

Basic, COBOL, and others. The p value

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(9.87159E-19) generated from the chi- square test was substantially smaller than .O 1. Based on this goodness-of-fit test, the identified job skills were not proportionally distributed among all the five classes. Over 95% of the job skills were found in the first three classes, which dealt with contemporary programming languages.

We made three major observations (see Table 1):

1. Both Web databases showed a similar number of job skills, indicating that the two Web sites were equally good sources to look for jobs related to programming languages.

2. Both Web databases showed dou- ble-digit percentages for all the contemporary programming languages.

These languages are C/C++, Java, and Visual Basic.

3. Both Web databases indicated that there were very few jobs requiring other languages. There were only seven COBOL-related jobs listed during the 10 weeks, and the one job classified under “others” listed Pascal as the required skill.

The Web Development category was broken down into six broad classes: SQL, DHTMLMTML, ASP, JavaScript, VBScript, and COM. We made two major observations about the skills identified in this category:

1. Both Web databases showed a similar number of job skills, indicating that the two on-line job banks were equally good sources to look for Web-development-related jobs.

2. Both Web databases showed similar trends. The first two classes, SQL and DHTML/HTML, accounted for about 57% of the skills in this category. The last two classes, VBScript and

COM, accounted for less than 10% and thus were apparently less in demand.

Again, the p value (1.37 197E-09) gen- erated from the chi-square test was substantially smaller than .01. As in the case of programming languages, the identified Web development skills were also not equally distributed among all the six classes. Over 50% of the job skills were found in the first two classes. Less than 10% of the skills were from the latter two classes. We present the rest of the information in Table 2.

Like the Programming Languages category, the Database category was also divided into five broad classes. The five classes were Oracle, SQL Server, Access, JDBC, and DB2. The identified skills in the database category exhibited the same trends that were shown in the

former two categories. The p value

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[image:4.612.221.568.390.711.2]

(1.3 1047E- 12) generated from the chi- square test was again substantially smaller than .01. We concluded that the skills in this category were also not proportionally distributed among all the

TABLE 1. Programming Languages Category: No. of Times Each Skill Was Listed on Web Sites

Visual

Web sites C/C++ Java Basic COBOL Others Total

Monster.com 30 31 15 3 1 80

HotJobs.com 29 25 25 4 0 83

Total 59 56 40 7 1 163

% of category 36 34 25 4 1

TABLE 2. Web Development Category: No. of Times Each Skill Was Llst- ed on Web Sites

Skill DHTML/

Web sites SQL HTML

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ASP JavaScript VBScript COM Total

Monster.com 27 18 12 8 3 4 72

HotJobs.com 17 18 14 14 6 0 69

Total 44 36 26 22 9 4 141

% of category 31 26 18 16 6 3

Note. SQL is Structured Query Language, DHTMLMTML is Dynamic Hypertext Markup Lan- guagemypextext Markup Language, ASP is active server page, and COM is component object model.

MarcWApril2003 193

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five classes. The leading type of required database skill was Oracle, with almost 50% of the job skills related to it.

The two Microsoft products, SQL Serv-

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er and Access, accounted for about a third of the identified database job skills. We present detailed information about the different classes of skills in the Database category.

We found 106 jobs indicating some form of database skills and made three important observations (see Table 3).

1. Even though we extracted 10 more jobs from the Monster.com database than from the HotJobs.com database, both sites listed a similar number of jobs skills sought by employers. Thus, we concluded that the two Web sites are equally good sources for searching for database-related jobs.

2. Both Web databases showed that Oracle is the leading database-type skill needed by employers. Skills related to the Microsoft products SQL Server and

Access were the second and third most sought-after job skills, respectively. These three products account for about 84% of all the job skills identified in this category.

3. Both Web databases listed only a few jobs requiring JDBC and DB2 skills. Both types of job skills showed single-digit percentages.

The Networking category was broken down into four broad classes: Windows NT, WANLAN, Internet, and Novell. We provide detailed information about these four different classes of networking skills in Table 4.

As shown in Table 4, we found 91 jobs requiring some form of networking skills. As in the first three cases examined, the identified job skills were also not proportionally distributed among all

four classes. The p

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value (5.54304E-35)

generated from the chi-square test was again substantially smaller than .O 1. Windows NT dominated this category, with over 80% of the job skills requiring this networking skill. We made several other interesting observations:

1. Both Web databases showed a similar number of job skills, indicating that the two Web sites are also equally good sources for searching for networking-

related jobs.

194 Journal of

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Education for Business

2. Both Web databases showed that employers were only looking for IT pro- fessionals with either Windows NT or WANLAN skills. Surprisingly, there were no jobs listing the need for Internet and Novell skills.

The Operating Systems and Environ- ments category was broken down into three broad classes: Unix, Windows (all versions), and OS2. In Table 5, we provide detailed information about the different classes of skills involving operating systems and environments.

Again, the p value (1.4559E-22) gen-

erated from the chi-square tests was substantially smaller than .01. As with the other four categories examined, we concluded that the identified job skills in the last category also were not proportionally distributed among all the classes. Over 80% of the job skills listed in the Operating Systems and Environments category involved skill with Unix. We made a few other major observations:

1. As in all four previous categories, the two Web databases listed a similar number of job skills. Again, the two Web sites appeared to be equally good

TABLE 3. Database Category: No. of Times Each Skill Was Listed on Web Sites

Skill

Web sites Oracle SQL Server Access JDBC DB2 Total Monster.com 27 13 8 6 4 58

HotJobs.com 23 15 3 4 3 48

Total 50 28 11 10 7 106

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% of category 47 26 10 9 7

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Nore. SQL is Structured Query Language, JDBC is Java Database Connectivity, and DB2 is Data- base 2.

TABLE 4. Networking Category: No. of Times Each Skill Was Listed on Web Sites

Skill

Web sites Windows NT WANLAN Internet Novell Total Monster.com 39 1 1 0 0 50

HotJobs.com

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35 6 0 0 41 Total 74 17 0 0 91

% of category 81 19 0 0 Note. WANLAN is Wide Area Networ!dLocal Area Network.

TABLE 5. Operating Systems and Environments Category: No. of Times Each Skill Was Listed on Web Sites

Web sites Unix Windows o s / 2 Total Monster.com 36 9

HotJobs

.

com 41 10

Total 77 19

% of category 80 20

0 45

0 51

0 96

0

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sources for searching for jobs related to operating systems and environments.

2. Beside Unix, the only other “operating systems and environments” skills listed involved use of the Microsoft Windows products Windows 95, Win-

dows 98, and Windows 2000.

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3 . Unlike previous researchers (Ar-

nett et al., 1998; Leslie, 2000), we found no OS/2 skills needed. In other words,

during that 10-week period neither Web site indicated any demand for IBM- related operating systems skills.

In summary, during the 10 weeks we found about 597 job skills listed in the two on-line data banks, 305 in the Mon- ster.com database and 292 in the Hot Jobs.com database. As in the case of in- dividual categories, the proportions of job skills identified were not equally distributed among all the five categories. Over 50% of the needed job skills were in the first two categories. Both the Networking and the Operating Systems and Environments categories showed fewer than 100 needed job skills each.

We rejected the null hypothesis when we tested it on all five categories. The class proportions were not equal in

every examined category of skills. The p values were all substantially less than the .01 level of significance used for testing the null hypothesis. As a matter of fact, in some cases, there was absolutely no demand for certain types of class skills; this lack of demand was especially notable in the Network and Operating Systems and Environments categories. According to the chi-square test results, we can conclude that certain skills were more in demand than others in every category examined.

The category proportions were also not equally distributed. To be considered proportional, each category had to show an average of about 20% of all the skills listed. However, the first two categories indicated over 20% (27% and 24%, respectively) of the skills, and the latter three categories indicated 20%

each (18%, 15%, and

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16%, respective-

ly). According to the tallied results and computed percentages, substantially more jobs were available in two of the categories than in the others. Fifty-one percent of all the skills identified applied to progamming language and

Web-development jobs. The remaining 49% of the job skills were in the

remaining three categories.

Conclusions and Implications

Our study results bear many similari- ties with those of previous studies. Many job skills identified in previous research (Arnett et al., 1998; Leslie, 2000; Markey et al., 2000; Wilkins &

Noll, 2000) were listed in the job descriptions that we extracted from the two databases used in our study. How- ever, in comparison with the previous studies, we found a greater demand for contemporary programming language and Web-development skills and less demand for traditional programming skills. These results indicate that demand for these skills apparently has changed over the last several years. Thus, educators who already have inte- grated the contemporary programming tools into the curriculum may need only updated versions of those instructional systems. On the other hand, institutions whose core curricula entail traditional programming tools such as Pascal and COBOL may want to offer these in elective courses or remove them alto- gether. Given the trend reported in previous studies and in our study, the demand for these courses is expected to decline in the future.

For faculty members teaching courses in computer systems organization, hardware and software evaluation, networking, and data communications, the results of this study suggest that there may be a need for aligning course con- tent with technologies whose impor- tance is increasing. In the 300 jobs extracted, Unix and Windows (NT, 95, 98, and 2000 versions) were the two operating systems in demand by employers. There were no job postings that required Novel1 and OW2 skills. These trends can be expected to continue because Unix is a portable operating system. In addition, Microsoft Win- dows’ market share is also expected to grow in the coming year because its next operating system, Windows XP, has dynamic capabilities and is extremely user friendly.

We extracted 597 types of skills from the 300 jobs examined. This number

computed to approximately two skills listed for every one job examined. In other words, many of the jobs listed required the ideal candidate to have multiple classes of skills or multiple categories of skills. This trend, similar to that found by Markey, Liu, and Koong (2000), may indicate that job applicants with several categories of job skills have greater marketability. Current students in information systems and computer- related degree programs may want to prepare for the job market by taking courses that require them to master a diversity of job skills and tools. Ideally, students should have a working knowledge of contemporary programming languages and Web-development tools because these two categories of skills were indicated in 51% of the job descriptions.

From a recruiter’s point of view, our

results indicate that there are many jobs available for persons with the right types of skills. Corporate managers may need to devise strategies for current employees to attain the types of knowledge and skills needed to complete projects in the two areas that are in high demand. One solution is to form partnerships with nearby educational institutions that have the faculty expertise to provide custom-tailored consulting opportunities. On the other hand, the demand for other skills has decreased. Thus, companies running applications requiring those skill areas-such as COBOL and Pascal programming skills-should have no problem filling their vacancies and may be able to offer relatively low wages.

Finally, we found that both of the online databases apparently were equally good sources for finding computer- related job information. We found a relatively equal number of job skills listed in each database. However, each had its respective areas showing a slightly greater number of jobs listed. Mon- ster.com listed slightly more jobs involving Web development, database, and networking skills, and HotJobs.com listed more vacancies requiring skills in programming languages and operating systems and environments. However, given the 300 jobs examined and our 1 O-week observation period, the slight difference could be only incidental. The

MarcWApril2003 195

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important fact is that there are many e- recruiters using the new technology for targeting job candidates. The Web is the new medium for IT applicants and employers to reach each other. When advising students about career opportunities, educators may want to encourage inclusion of this medium in job search

strategies.

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