From time to time I like to check the job market to see what I'm missing. With the SCN Career Center this is easy: just click the link in the SCN top level navigation and start searching.
First I checked the SAP Portal demand for Brazil. Well, I tried to search for all open jobs in Brazil, but the search form isn't working 100% - search buttons throws a Javascript error. Good news for my employer: no jobs posted for Brazil. This means that either there are no jobs available in Brazil or that SAP Brasil isn't pushing the adoption of the Career center. I opt for the last. As I'm more interessted in the global demand, I searched for all job postings that are related to portal.
What I have observed from looking at the posted job offers:
- ESS/MSS is, together with BI, one of the most used Portal usages
- We get Safari support because Apple is using SAP Portal
- Many companies are searching architects
- There are a lot positions open for developers (WebDynpro Java too)
- Most companies don't understand what they are searching. 10 years of SAP Portal experience? More generic text about the company than about the job.
What does this mean for someone that is a Portal consultant?
- You need to know Java, VC and WebDynpro and how to integrate them
- Knowing only portal is not enough. You need to know how to integrate other product like: ESS/MSS, BI, MDM, SRM.
- This implies that you have a good understanding of SSO, Security, Web (2.0), ESA / WebServices / Rest, Functional and technical aspects of the portal + business package and several SAP solutions that can be accessed by web, basic understanding of ABAP and ERP, UI and UX, follow newest trends like mobile.
- Mobile Portal is nothing companies are searching. My guess is that they don't know that it is a really good idea to use the SAP Portal for mobile SAP access. Hope that this will change.
Does participation in SCN increases your chances to get hired?
Having a permanent work visa is a requisite for the jobs posted for USA. I could work in Europe, but the number of portal jobs posted for Europe is nothing compared to USA. I don't have a visa for USA, the country flag in my business card is set to Brazil, so I don't know if active SCN contributors in the portal area from USA get job offers. I guess that when a company posts a job offering they don't get a list of possible matches from the SCN community presented. That way they could pre-check some users to find out if they fit their need and, more importantly, check their contributions done to know if they have the right knowledge.
BTW: saw a job posting from IBM, Honolulu. Would move to Hawaii today.
