Not too long ago, I wrote about how increasing numbers of IT workers are delaying retirement for financial reasons. Now job search site CareerBuilder.com has come out with a study to confirm this ongoing trend for mature workers – Baby Boomers aged 60 and up.

Of the 792 U.S. workers in this category who were interviewed, 72 percent of those who said they are putting off retirement claimed they are doing so because it's not financially feasible for them to retire just yet.

Other reasons for delaying retirement included:

• enjoying the job or place of employment and not wanting to leave (71 percent);
• the need for health insurance or other benefits (50 percent);
• the fear of boredom during retirement (24 percent);
• enjoying feeling needed (15 percent).

Whatever the reason for delaying retirement, research is suggesting that the impact of the aging workforce on the tech industry may be different from what experts predicted a few years ago:

• Older workers who stay in the workforce longer will have to freshen up their technical skills in order to remain competitive.
• If fewer retirees leave the workforce at the same time, we won't experience such a rapid widening of the IT skills gap, which is good news for employers, who have been worrying about how they will find enough technically-skilled people to fill positions when all the Baby Boomers leave.
• Of course, that could also mean the resulting number of new tech job opportunities will be lower than anticipated – at least for a little while.

By now, hopefully you've figured out why employers conduct interviews over the phone, and what kinds of things they're looking to find out about you during this initial stage in the hiring process.

But if you've already got a phone interview lined up, you may be wondering what you can do to prepare for it and come out looking (or sounding) your best when you talk to a prospective employer.

The key thing to remember is that you and the interviewer are not able to see each other while you're talking. Since you can't take any cues from body language or facial expressions, you're relying entirely on what you hear – which makes it absolutely imperative that you listen very carefully to what the interviewer is asking or telling you. Most of your preparations will need to be focused on maximizing your listening abilities during the phone interview.

Here are some more tips for successful tech job phone interviews to help you prepare yourself so you're able to make the best possible impression – and hopefully get invited to an in-person job interview.

_{Image Copyright: Eduardo Siqueira Filho}

Yet again, information security is being touted as one of the most lucrative fields of tech employment.

The (ISC)2 – the organization that offers popular security certifications such as CISSP, CSSLP, CAP and SSCP – recently released a report stating that more than half of the IT security pros it surveyed across the globe received a salary increase in 2009.

Meanwhile, fewer than 11 percent of respondents saw their salaries and/or benefits cut, and fewer than five percent were laid off.

Of the respondents who said they were responsible for hiring, more than half cited plans to take on more permanent and/or contract employees this year. And 40 percent of those who planned to hire said they would employ three or more new information security pros in 2010 – a huge jump from the 13.1 percent of respondents in that category who said the same thing last year.

According to the survey, here are the top five skills sought by companies planning to hire IT security pros this year:

• operations security;
• access control systems and methodology;
• information risk management;
• applications and system development security; and
• security architecture and models.

Green technology job creation is getting a lot of attention these days; in fact, some people are banking on it as one of the keys to economic rebound.

A U.S. senator recently went on record about how creating new jobs in the green industry is the "greatest market opportunity of our generation," since so many people are still unemployed, and since the global warming problem is not going away anytime soon.

The L.A. Times also recently reported that "trendy technology" such as green tech could encourage job growth and help with economic recovery. People who have held semiconductor jobs could easily transfer their skills and knowledge to the green industry, the article said.

That same article also noted that job search engine SimplyHired.com has seen its listings for green tech jobs increase by 141 percent over the last two years.