You could be the IT professional businesses are looking for, and you’re not even in IT. This was the unfortunate realization uncovered in “Choosing IT as a Career: Exploring the Role of Self-Efficacy and Perceived Importance of IT Skills” written by K.D. Joshi and Sterling McPherson of Washington State University, and Eileen Trauth, Lynette Kvasny, Sadan Kulturel-Konak, and Jan Mahar of Penn State University. There’s a pervasive stereotype that to be successful in IT you should only have necessary technical skills. There's also the belief that if you posses business savvy and acumen, you should focus on that area instead of IT. Instead, they should go into marketing or management, Joshi said. People who are high achievers, who have good soft skills, think that IT is just sitting in front of computers. But it’s not, Joshi continued. As evidenced by the many interviews I did with CIOs, successful IT people have good human and business skills. But what Joshi and McPherson’s team discovered is that people who do have these non-IT-centric skills don’t think IT is right for them. The profession is bigger than people stereotype, said McPherson. The career paths in IT are very diverse and aren't only about . It’s not just about in-depth math and programming skills.