ZDNet: Tech Specialist + Business Consultant rules
Need a job? The growing technology services industry is hiring.
But services employers these days want more than the programming chops of unemployed software developers--they're looking for business smarts as well.

Services companies like Accenture and IBM used to be more content to hire tech specialists separately from business consultants, but now they're looking for broader skills and more versatile workers.

"What they are looking for is a professional who can understand the technology issues that a company faces...and also understand what the business issues are, and be able to link the two,"

Longtime computer programmer Bonny Berger is trying to adapt to the era, in which software skills alone don't always cut it. The New Jersey resident worked for AT&T and IBM for 24 years before getting laid off in 2002. Since then, she's landed two consulting jobs that have tapped her expertise in accounting--a field she majored in as an undergraduate years ago. When she markets herself these days, it's as a business expert first, computer specialist second. "My heading on my resume is not computer programmer or software engineer," Berger said. "It's accounting and billing analyst, with a subheading of computer applications experience."