The Information Systems Industry: What Abilities Does It Want from Its New Hires? A Look at the Southeastern U.S.

In order to identify the information systems (IS) backgrounds and skills most in demand among employers in the Southeastern United States, the classified ads appearing in the region's major cities during the summer of 1997 were content analyzed. This paper reports the major findings of this investigation and their curriculum implications. It also outlines potential follow-up investigations for this and other newspaper want ad content analysis studies. There are several notable curriculum implications of these findings. First, the results suggest that it is important for IS curricula to emphasize both "hard" and "soft" IS skills. The results also suggest that it is important for IS program graduates to be well-grounded in systems development processes and that the traditional systems development life cycle continues to serve as useful framework for helping students understand the tradeoffs associated with different platforms, applications, programming languages, and data access alternatives. Another important implication of the broad range of technical skills mentioned in the newspaper job listing analyzed is that it is important for students graduating from IS programs to be prepared to develop new technical skills and competencies on an ongoing basis. Eleven tables illustrate results. (Author/AEF)