2. Project management prowess

DHL boldly asks on national TV, "Whatever happened to customer service?" The answer, offers Niemann, lies partially in the current dearth of project ownership. "For us, project management is a skill we consider a core competency and one we demand of all of our senior IT people around the world," he says. "It used to be the case that we would hire a program manager and that would be it. Now we realize this is a skill set we all need to have."

Applicants looking to become agile project managers should cut their teeth in the real world, not in the classroom, advises Andrew Field, CEO of PrintingForLess.com. "If I were to make a recommendation to an IT person trying to sharpen skills, it would not be to run out and get an MBA. It would be to lead a project team and get something like that on your resume," he says. "Even if it is a small team, just prove not only that you can do things yourself, but also that you can get others to do things for you."

Self-starters will likely take the lead in the enterprise quest to blanket an IT shop with project management know-how, adds Brendan Courtney, senior vice president and group executive of IT recruiting firm Spherion Professional Services. "Volunteer for a project; get involved in business networking groups; perform work beyond the job you were hired to do," he suggests.

3. Critical thinking

With data warehouses bursting at the seams, enterprise IT shops are crying out for business analysts and others able to link IT efforts with corporate missions. "There is so much data available everywhere that we need business intelligence analysts. There will also be a greater need for high-level business relationship managers," observes Eric Fowler, a senior corporate recruiter on the human resources/talent acquisition team at Aflac, a Fortune 500 health insurance company.

"Critical thinking is also very important to us," says Niemann. "We are looking for people who can execute what you ask them to execute. We want them to have an opinion, speak up when they may not be going in the right direction, tell us to take a left here instead of a right to get there faster. Rote workers are not what we are looking for."

4. Security sharpness

High-profile security breaches and the specter of security audits that stem from daunting new regulations have hiring officials scouting for talent with sound security credentials and experience, says Carly Drum, managing director of Drum Associates, a New York-based executive recruiting firm.

"Since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 passed its fourth anniversary in July," Drum says," the need for security, risk management and compliance specialists has put executive-level information security officers in even greater demand. These positions can't be offshored and require an underpinning in security as well as good analytical and program management skills."

The stepped-up hunt for job applicants with security experience is tied to the ways corporations now house and share information, says Larry Bruce, vice president of U.S.-based IT staffing firm Sapphire Technologies. "Security jobs are in very high demand right now, and we expect this trend to continue. As businesses increasingly rely on Web-based information sharing, security replacements are remaining high on corporate priority lists," he says.

Bruce notes that savvy security staffs must also keep up with new means of stealing sensitive corporate data. "The proliferation in the use of iPods, PDAs and smart phones has forced businesses to safeguard their networks from internal threats as well," he says.

Having credentials blessed by the federal government is a surefire way to prove security prowess to potential employers. "Someone who has an active government security clearance along with other core skills is going to have an easy time finding employment," says Scot Melland, CEO of Dice, a company that runs specialized career sites and career fairs for high-growth vertical sectors.

Although keeping employees at all levels tuned in to new risks is important, overall security responsibility should rest with an organization's top IT executives, advises DHL's Niemann. "Security is obviously a growing need for all companies. There is also the realization that security is of such importance that people in high-profile, director-level positions should be monitoring risks to an organization," he says.