Seven keys to job security

Strategies to give your company - and yourself - an edge.
By Richard Gincel, Infoworld

Wondering how to prevent your job from being downsized, marginalised, or
outsourced? There's no magic formula, but these strategies will help make
you more valuable. To put it in glossy-magazine terms, "Old and Busted" is
routine work and technology that is not critical to business strategy. "The
New Hotness" is the ability to manage a coherent set of business processes
and services that contribute materially to the company's efficiency or
competitive edge.

Sharpen your business skills - As IT departments are increasingly relied on
to deliver a substantial part of the business value of their organisation,
hiring managers are emphasising business skills. Volunteer for tasks that
put you in close contact with the business drivers of your company. Look for
ways IT structure can be more closely mapped to what the company needs to
accomplish. If you want to brush up on your skills, consider taking
management-related courses in person or online.

Get closer to the customer - If a job requires frequent face time with
clients and customers, go for it. Even highly tech-reliant companies depend
on personal relationships to keep current customers happy and to attract new
ones. Customers don't buy six-figure platforms or services over the phone;
they buy based on the advice of smart, technical people whose judgement they
trust. Become one of those people.

Diversify your management portfolio - Management skills will be needed on
several fronts: vendors, contractors, outsourcers, employees - all in a
distributed environment. Broad management experience across a variety of
business relationships will prove to be a valuable asset in the years to
come.

Align your job with the core - Jobs related to core business functions are
more likely to stay put than those that can be easily farmed out to a third
party. Technology activities that are tightly connected to corporate
strategy are more highly prized - and so are the IT teams that run them.

Be a person of ideas - Projects that require creativity, insight,
innovation, and thinking outside the box are more difficult to outsource.
The same is true of jobs that require knowledge of process design and
business analysis. Strive to become an "exception handler" to whom the
company turns for non-routine decisions.

Seek out complexity - The mantra among many industry analysts is "heads-down
coders beware." Large-scale system-integration projects, highly iterative
development processes, and work that crosses multiple disciplines stand a
better chance of remaining part of the home team. Beware, however, of taking
leadership of a project doomed to failure.

Go vertical - Every industry has its particular set of IT challenges,
requiring people who understand not only technology but also the special
needs of the company's niche. Seek out projects that will give you a deeper
understanding of the sector your company occupies. Not only will that
provide career insurance as your company grows, but what you learn can often
be applied in interesting and novel ways, even if you choose to change
industries later.