Technology industry Ten outdated skills: SEO, COBOL language, etc. in the column

According to foreign media reports, if you want to understand the technology industry's most scarce skills, you can easily find the relevant information. If you want to know the programming skills most favored by your boss, you can find the answer soon. But do you know what technology and expertise is no longer popular? Do you know what core competencies have been lit up by a red light? Technical Talent Recruitment company DICE the survey report on 1100 technical positions allows us to glimpse.

We have listed the following ten outdated skills based on DICE's investigation and other findings, including an informal conversation with a VP of engineering who is involved in recruiting decisions:

1. Windows XP Management/help Desktop

Many it practitioners, from engineers to help desk support staff to system administrators, have extensive Windows XP experience. Unfortunately, this may not be the highlight of their resume. Windows XP still ranks second in the desktop operating system market share rankings, behind Windows 7. But its fate is destined for it to die soon. As early as two years ago, Microsoft had ceased to sell Windows XP licenses and planned to stop its after-sales service in less than a year.

2. Adobe Flash Developer/Designer

For a long time, web developers, application developers, and designers have relied on Adobe Flash to develop interactive features. However, the prospect of flash, especially in the mobile arena, looks bad. As early as three years ago, Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder, thoughts a stone, explaining the reason for not embedding flash in Apple's iOS in a memo about Flash, a note on some of the ideas about the company. At the time, Flash was in full bloom, and many analysts feared that Jobs ' decision would lead to an impact on iphone sales.

But what they feared did not happen.

A year after the jobs memo was released, Adobe announced that it would stop developing mobile versions of Flash. Now, the former CTO of Adobe, Kevin Lynch, has switched to Apple. The future will belong to HTML5.

3. Software support

The shift of the computer industry from the desktop to the mobile, and the shift of software and services to the cloud, has limited the development opportunities for traditional/integrated software support. Now you need to know how to manage software services and software configurations in the cloud.

4. SEO Expert

Google no longer has a search team, and the team is now called the Knowledge (knowledge) team. This should be a cautionary message for all SEO experts and job-seeking people. In the near future, the value of SEO work may be underestimated. The explosive development of smartphones, applications, real-time geographic information, and the emergence of social media recommendations are reducing the importance of search results. As our integrated, networked computer systems have been able to anticipate our needs, the information we need may be pushed to us before we search.

5. Quality Assurance Specialist and manager

In the dice Company's investigation report, quality assurance is a "less important" position. You can't expect this to change. Now the entire technology industry seems to be emulating Google, turning all users into testers of test products. Users are the ultimate quality assurance staff without pay.

6-9. Mainframe, voice technology, PC computer support and COBOL language

Recent media reports say that a 40-year-old programmer who advises on using the COBOL programming language should re-examine his reasons for being a programmer. These words sound rather bitter. However, the words are not coarse, it is true. Technology will never stop moving forward, and it won't leave you any time to whine.

If you are currently employed as a PC repairman, COBOL programmer, PBX technician, or you are still in charge of developing outdated technologies such as voice technology, this may be fine, but don't expect to see it as your long meal ticket.

10. Some positions that appear to be stable today

The Tiobe Programming Community index lists C, Java, C + +, and C as the most popular programming skills today. However, this is the crux of the problem. In 2009, there was no c. The rapid success of the iphone and the ipad has made the language a big hit. Three years later, the status of the language has basically stabilized.

In today's overheated technology environment, even the most popular and stable skills can suddenly become obsolete. This is the brutal reality of the technology industry. No matter how popular your current skills are, you can't count on it to be safe for life.

Learning is the key

Showing the recruiter your outdated skills may make you less likely to keep up with the trend or make them feel that the cost of recruiting you is too high. Don't expect them to tell you what they really think. More likely, they won't return your calls or simply throw your resume in the trash.

The only way to solve this problem is to keep on learning and to show others your ability to learn. Despite the speed of outdated skills, learning new skills has never been more convenient than it is today. This includes formal skills training and free learning resources, such as Khan College (Khan Academy) and the School of Programming (Codeacademy).

People can not help asking: Since these technologies are new to everyone, why don't companies hire experienced job seekers and choose which college graduates to just graduate? Vivek Wadhwa, a business professor and entrepreneur, said blushes: "Wadhwa.

"This may be a mistake, but you might want to look at it from the boss's point of view." Why would a company spend 150,000 dollars a day to hire a computer programmer with only outdated skills when it can recruit a newly-graduated college student (without any skills) with just 60,000 dollars in annual salary? Even if it takes one months to train college students, it is still a far more technologically skilled one. ”

This is certainly not a question of salary. To prove that you are worthy of your current salary, you will not only demonstrate your existing skills, but also demonstrate your ability to learn. In Silicon Valley or anywhere else, to get a long-term career, you have to demonstrate that you can learn, adapt, and manage a rapidly changing environment.