Thanks for your kind comments about my site. I've been meaning to post a comment to your blog for a while and this is certainly a relevant topic. :)
To give your readers something useful, I can tell you that my approach to analyzing SAP market trends is to combine a view of the future of SAP with a realistic look at the skills that are in demand in the present. This is not always easy to do, because sometimes the most-hyped skills (like eSOA skills for example), are not in huge demand on today's projects, but they remain important skills, in my view, to work towards for the future.
You're totally right about getting a gut check on job demand simply by searching job engines. SearchSAP uses the Dice.com search engine. I prefer Dice.com (or SearchSAP which is the same) over other job boards because I believe that the best volume of SAP contracts is found on Dice. When you do keyword searches on Dice, you can get a reality check on what skills are truly in demand. For example, for all the hype about SAP Duet, a search of Dice.com as of tonight shows only two Duet-related jobs, out of 55,000 IT jobs/contracts. This tells me that even though Duet is having some market acceptance (which we know for a fact), we also know that it's not a skill that's being contracted out currently. One more distinction I would suggest on Dice.com is to vary your searches between a full job description search and a job title search. For example, NetWeaver PI appears in 41 job descriptions, but it does not appear in any job titles in a "job title only" search. This is a way to learn which skills are currently part of a broader skill set, versus an SAP skill that has become important enough to stand on its own at the center of a job description. (and yes, I haven't overlooked xi - netweaver xi appears on 61 more job descriptions but only in one job title). At any rate, we can draw some important conclusions here about the skills in demand currently in the SAP world.
You're also right that while I do have some "hot SAP skills" list, I tend to be a little skeptical about hot skills lists in general, and I include a disclaimer in each list about the flaws of such lists. There's always a flaw in chasing hot SAP skills rather than building on your core competencies. Perhaps one of the only benefits of the economic downturn is that we are no longer hearing those breathless reports of SAP skills shortages. Even a year ago, I was trying to tell people that SAP skills needs were NOT across the board. There is still demand for certain SAP skills profiles, but it requires a combination of deep SAP experience topped off with the latest SAP technology exposure and some consulting polish. I write in detail on these various skills combinations on the site.
OK, I could go on but this is getting kind of long.
As one more benefit to your readers, I wanted to share my podcast feeds that I usually only share with my registered members on JonERP.com. I now have 39 podcasts pertaining to SAP skills and the "human side of SAP implementations" on JonERP.com - all of these are on the RSS feeds. The vast majority are interviews with key SAP experts or analysts. Perhaps you and I can do one of these sometime.
My RSS podcast feed for RSS readers (works well with Google Reader or podcast RSS players):
All Comments
Thanks for your kind comments about my site. I've been meaning to post a comment to your blog for a while and this is certainly a relevant topic. :)
To give your readers something useful, I can tell you that my approach to analyzing SAP market trends is to combine a view of the future of SAP with a realistic look at the skills that are in demand in the present. This is not always easy to do, because sometimes the most-hyped skills (like eSOA skills for example), are not in huge demand on today's projects, but they remain important skills, in my view, to work towards for the future.
You're totally right about getting a gut check on job demand simply by searching job engines. SearchSAP uses the Dice.com search engine. I prefer Dice.com (or SearchSAP which is the same) over other job boards because I believe that the best volume of SAP contracts is found on Dice. When you do keyword searches on Dice, you can get a reality check on what skills are truly in demand. For example, for all the hype about SAP Duet, a search of Dice.com as of tonight shows only two Duet-related jobs, out of 55,000 IT jobs/contracts. This tells me that even though Duet is having some market acceptance (which we know for a fact), we also know that it's not a skill that's being contracted out currently. One more distinction I would suggest on Dice.com is to vary your searches between a full job description search and a job title search. For example, NetWeaver PI appears in 41 job descriptions, but it does not appear in any job titles in a "job title only" search. This is a way to learn which skills are currently part of a broader skill set, versus an SAP skill that has become important enough to stand on its own at the center of a job description. (and yes, I haven't overlooked xi - netweaver xi appears on 61 more job descriptions but only in one job title). At any rate, we can draw some important conclusions here about the skills in demand currently in the SAP world.
You're also right that while I do have some "hot SAP skills" list, I tend to be a little skeptical about hot skills lists in general, and I include a disclaimer in each list about the flaws of such lists. There's always a flaw in chasing hot SAP skills rather than building on your core competencies. Perhaps one of the only benefits of the economic downturn is that we are no longer hearing those breathless reports of SAP skills shortages. Even a year ago, I was trying to tell people that SAP skills needs were NOT across the board. There is still demand for certain SAP skills profiles, but it requires a combination of deep SAP experience topped off with the latest SAP technology exposure and some consulting polish. I write in detail on these various skills combinations on the site.
OK, I could go on but this is getting kind of long.
As one more benefit to your readers, I wanted to share my podcast feeds that I usually only share with my registered members on JonERP.com. I now have 39 podcasts pertaining to SAP skills and the "human side of SAP implementations" on JonERP.com - all of these are on the RSS feeds. The vast majority are interviews with key SAP experts or analysts. Perhaps you and I can do one of these sometime.
My RSS podcast feed for RSS readers (works well with Google Reader or podcast RSS players):
http://www.jonerp.com/rssfeeds/podcast_rssfeed.xml
My iTunes Store feed (all free podcasts):
http://www.jonerp.com/rssfeeds/podcast_itunesfe...
Martin, keep up the great work on the blog and I look forward to contributing further.
- Jon Reed -