7 must-have IT skills for job seekers

A career in Information Technology today will require skills which were not so important in the previous generation.

There was time when having basic computer skills like 'E-mail' and 'Excel' were rare and in demand.

A decade ago, you could also list telephony or typing as a skill in your resume and get noticed. But not anymore.

Now that the presence of computer at work place is ubiquitous, having traditional tech skills like hardware support and even Web Development is declining in relevance.

The modern IT executive must be a master of technology he manages and should have a vast knowledge in the field of technology.

So if you are planning to kick start your career in technology or want to switch jobs, here are a few skills that will make you stand out.

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It is listed as one of the fastest growing tech skill in modern era.

Cloud computing has taken over most of the complex process such as infrastructure management, maintenance and support.

The increased use of mobile devices and laptops, need for syncing data across multiple devices and demise of platform -- specific software have been a blessing in disguise for the emergence of the technology.

Companies are now looking for cloud developers, administrators an integration specialists to bring their office environments into the new century.

Social media is one of the most effective ways for a business to get more traffic and generate new leads.

Having a presence on all the major networks is a business necessity these days.

It helps in maintaining a positive public image and be in touch with the general public round the clock, the demand for social media job skills is in hot demand.

Information security is poised to be one of the best paying jobs.

It is the process of defending information from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, etc.

Employers are looking for people who can secure mobile apps and cloud computing environments on a corporate scale.

So if you are one of those people who always seems to have their computer security under control, it's time to transit that into a useful skill.

Web development as a generalised skill might be on the decline, but demand for jQuery, a JavaScript library used for client-side scripting, is booming.

Used by almost all the sites worldwide, jQuery powers the web.

It is used by IBM, Netflix, Microsoft and Google, and its already formidable popularity has nowhere to go but up.

With smartphones rapidly taking the place of traditional desktop machines, demand for mobile apps continues to increase.

Job postings for mobile app development are up 94 per cent over the past year.

While iOS currently holds the lion's share of the mobile apps market, Android is catching up quickly -- meaning that if Apple development isn't your thing, there's an emerging Android market that's primed to explode.

HTML5 is the ubiquitous platform for the web.

Whether you're a mobile web developer, an enterprise with specific business needs, or a serious game developer looking to explore the web as a new platform, HTML5 has something for you!

Also, HTML5 is poised to take the place of Flash in the not-too-distant future.

So it should come as no surprise that HTML5 topped the charts of trending skills in 2011 and is likely to see even more demand in 2013.

While database management skills are nothing new to the IT world, demand for database administration skills is still up 31 percent in the last year alone.

Businesses need certified DBAs (database administrators) to organise and secure the vast amounts of data a modern IT business generates.

It might not be sexy money, but database administration was still one of the top five skills in demand for 2012.