All of the acronyms in IT can make for quite a bit of alphabet soup. When you are trying to find a job you might come across even more of these acronyms that might complicate understanding the posting and its requirements. Of course, you have common languages and technologies like XML, HTML, SQL, and PHP as well as positions like DBA, CIO, and CTO but there are even more acronyms beyond that. I searched IT job listings using Dice since it focuses on technology jobs to find examples of the less common IT buzzwords and find the number of postings that used each keyword.
| Term | Dice results | Category | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| AD/Active Directory | 3632 | Technology | Active Directory is Microsoft’s LDAP-capable directory services. It is typically used to coordinate users, computers, and groups of both of those objects. |
| API | 3622 | Technology | Application Programming Interfaces allow software and services to interact with each other with authentication and other rules in place. |
| AS400 | 247 | Technology | AS/400 is a midrange computer from IBM, falling somewhere between mainframe and common desktop computer, with its own operating system, programming language, and instruction set. |
| AWS S3 | 99 | Technology | Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service is Amazon’s “cloud” storage for files. It’s nice because anybody could purchase or even use their free tier to gain familiarity and experience with the platform. |
| BA/Business Analyst | 12746 | Position | A business analyst is an invidual that knows the business side as well as the technical side of an organization and can bring solutions using their knowledge of both worlds to improve the organization. |
| BI/Business Intelligence | 5131 | Technology | Business Intelligence software takes raw data and processes it into something useful to aid managers and executives with decision making. |
| CISSP | 1252 | Certification | Certified Information Systems Security Professional is a common certification sought for people in information security. CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor), CISM (Certified Information Security Manager), CWSP (Certified Wireless Security Professional), and GIAC (Global Information Assurance Certification) are other certifications commonly listed with CISSP as a plus on your resume. CISSP-ISSMP and CISSP-ISSEP are specialized certifications to strive for after achieving CISSP. |
| De-duplication | 45 | Technology | Data deduplication is a feature being included in storage solutions to remove duplicate copies of files in order to save space along with making backups smaller and more manageable. |
| DR/disaster recovery | 2593 | Other | Disaster recovery consists of planning a process for business continuity after a disaster. |
| EMC | 1337 | Technology | EMC is a company that builds infrastructure and virtual infrastructures. Businesses look for people with EMC experience for positions that manage storage, cloud integration, and other enterprise solutions. |
| ERP | 3990 | Technology | Enterprise Resource Planning systems like NetSuite OneWorld tie internal sources of information into a single interface to assist business management and often works with external systems so suppliers and distributors can be included in inventory information. |
| IPv6 | 234 | Technology | Internet Protocol version 6 is the latest in networking information and changes a few things to address all the devices we have connecting to the Internet. |
| ISO | 891 | Other | The International Organization for Standardization manages several standards including quality management, risk management, and many others. |
| ITIL | 2295 | Certification | Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a set of practices for the management of IT Services. As a set of best practices, several tools like ticketing systems are aligning themselves with ITIL recommendations and someone certified understands the practices. COBIT and eTOM are other business framework with principles, practices, tools, and models that focuses on governance of enterprise IT. |
| MDT | 108 | Technology | Microsoft Deployment Toolkit is a free solution accelerator from Microsoft to assist deploying the Windows operating system. Experience with this software is great to have for any desktop role. |
| NGINX | 208 | Technology | Pronounced “engine-x”, this web server is known for its speed and often replaces Apache for higher performance websites. |
| Petabytes | 58 | Technology | Petabytes are the storage unit that comes after Terabytes. When dealing in petabytes, you have a lot of data. There were no results for jobs with ‘yottabytes’ the unit that comes next. |
| PM/Project Manager | 18001 | Position | Project management is becoming a common approach to IT management to keep things on track with better results. A project manager keeps it all coordinated and is responsible for the final product. |
| PMP | 2275 | Certification | Project Management Professional is the industry-leading certification for project managers. |
| REST | 3316 | Technology | Representational state transfer is a software architecture that has become more popular as APIs on the web have also increased in popularity. |
| SaaS/Software as a Service | 1738 | Technology | Software as a Service is your applications in the cloud. |
| SAN/NAS | 8958 | Technology | Storage Area Network and Network-Attached Storage, respectively, provides the hardware back-end for storage solutions. |
| SCCM | 611 | Technology | System Center Configuration Manager is a suite from Microsoft with a variety of solutions for enterprise IT. |
| SDLC | 7195 | Other | The Systems/Software Development Life-Cycle is an understanding of the process of developing and maintaining systems/software. For a team-based environment, it will also be important to be familiar with specific methodologies such as Agile, scrum, rapid prototyping, or others. |
| Six Sigma | 901 | Other | Six Sigma is a set of tools and practices for quality management traditionally applied to manufacturing. |
| SOW | 349 | Other | A Statement Of Work is a document that defines work activities, deliverables, and timeline. Companies can implement these when going out for bid or even require them for internally proposed projects. Either way, being familiar with the format and styles of SOW templates will help you meet expectations, especially if you receive a SOW from a client. |
| VDI | 219 | Technology | Virtual Desktop Infrastructure consists of the hardware and software related to deploying a virtual desktop solution. These can be commonly implemented with desktops, tablets, and thin clients. |
If you understood and knew all of those terms, I have good news for you. There are plenty of jobs out there and the pay rate is commensurate with experience. It will be interesting to run these terms through a job search again a year from now to find the changes in preferred technologies. If you are job hunting, good luck!