The Society for Information Management recently released a study of what managers look for when hiring IT professionals. They claim that 5 of the top 10 things that managers look for are business skills, not technical skills. In another part of the survey results, they state:

“Communication was the skill most lacking in entry-level hires.”

Clearly, there’s an opportunity here. First, if you’re looking to get an entry level job, by all means work on your communication skills! Second, for those of us past the entry-level positions who have good communication skills, there is probably lots of opportunity to establish training programs and publish books on the topic.

You have to be a member of the SIM to get the full report, but you can get the executive summary from their site.