The information technology sector is no stranger to rapid change. The immediate obsolescence of my high school advanced placement Pascal programming class taught me that right out of the gate, and that was over 25 years ago.

The pace of change is increasing. A recent survey from Gartner, a prominent information technology company, found that corporate IT chiefs were increasingly being drawn out of their operations comfort zones – and of course, forced to drag their staffs out with them. No longer is information technology primarily a function of internal communication, data storage and – oh, yes! A Website! IT departments are now being asked to transform the way customers interact with the business – in ways that go far beyond the standard five-tab homepage and website architecture.

And they’ll have to do it all on a flat or declining budget, at least in the United States and Europe. Gartner’s survey of some 2,300 corporate information technology chiefs found that IT budgets worldwide were increasing an average of 0.5 percent, year over year, for 2012. And how is this spending being allocated? “Analytics, mobility and cloud are the top three CIO technologies,” said Gartner vice president Mark McDonald, in a January interview with the Financial Times.

What does that mean? IT chiefs worldwide (Gartner’s survey spanned 45 countries) are looking beyond short-term cost savings internal to their departments. For example, retailers are seeking ways to circumvent the expensive brick and mortar stores and those annoying salesclerks by doing more business online – cutting facilities costs, staffing, redundancies, and allowing them to inoculate themselves – to some extent, against the Amazon.coms of the world.

Likewise, insurance companies are seeking ways to eliminate the agent, whose commissions and relentless appetite for printed glossy marketing materials adds significant overhead to the cost of doing business.

IT chiefs are also looking for ways to exploit and profit from cloud computing – which enables them to improve the quality and reliability of many projects.

This spells opportunity for those who are quick on their feet. To have the best chance of success, match your skills – and your resumes – up with the top ten information technology priorities according to the Gartner survey:

• Analytics and business intelligence;
• Mobile technologies;
• Cloud computing (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS);
• Collaboration technologies (workflow);
• Virtualization;
• Legacy modernization;
• IT management;
• CRM;
• ERP applications;
• Security.

This last bullet surprised us, too. We had expected security concerns to rank higher. Apparently, the world’s C-level IT managers believe they have security issues decently in hand, though, and are working more on improving customer experiences, outreach and efficiency.

Significantly, some 61 percent of respondents project improving mobile capacity over the next three years. Most companies have a business strategy that involves becoming the market leader, or one of the leaders, in their industry – and will therefore be investing in improving their presence, both via the traditional Web and through mobile marketing as well, including application development and the development of mobile and social networking-friendly websites.

Looking at things more broadly, the Gartner survey also identified the top ten overall business priorities for 2012:

• Increasing enterprise growth;
• Attracting and retaining new customers;
• Reducing enterprise costs;
• Creating new products and services;
• Delivering operational results;
• Improving efficiency;
• Improving profitability;
• Attracting and retaining the workforce;
• Improving marketing and sales effectiveness;
• Expanding into new markets and geographies.

If you’re interviewing for jobs soon, or you want to optimize your resume for today’s important trends, it may make sense to incorporate some of these key phrases into your resume, cover letter, and your interview conversation. Just make sure you have enough information to know what you’re talking about!

Bottom Line
So where are the jobs coming from in 2012? Look beyond internal communications, file storage and data security. Develop your skills in mobile technology, cloud computing and app development. And semper Gumby! Always be flexible, because IT trends change faster than trends in most industries.

Look no further! Best IT JOBS are right here!