Devote 20 minutes to reflect on your career today!
If you can find a few minutes, I recommend you read Jon Reed's latest career advice and career trends in 2010.
Jon Reed is an SCN Mentor and a familiar face to many of you already. His professional experience includes almost 15 years of analyzing the SAP career market. He has also worked as a recruiter for SAP clients so, Jon understands first-hand what makes some candidates more marketable than others. He is also keenly aware of how to use social networks to enhance one's career advancement, and what tactics are most likely to back fire. His perspectives might surprise you!
The document Jon created is divided into two parts.
SAP Career Outlook 2010 - Part One: Creating a Winning SAP Skills Strategy for 2010 It focuses on defining a winning skills strategy for 2010.
- How to stay marketable in any economy
- The convergence of business and technical skills
- How to combine generalization and specialization
SAP Career Outlook 2010 - Part Two: Beyond the Social Networking Hype: Achieving SAP Career Visibili... Part two examines how to market your skills using social networking, and what the "hot" skills are in 2010.
- How to achieve career visibility in 2010
- The do's and dont's of social networking for career success
- "Hot Skills" roundup
Below is a sneak peek:
"Here's an all-too-common mistake:
Do a quick, superficial blog on SCN >> blast the link to that blog out on Twitter >> post my availability as a status update on LinkedIn >> wait for the job offers to roll in
There's nothing implicitly wrong with this approach, except for the fact that it rarely works. It doesn't lead to job offers, and it doesn't get to that deeper question of personal fulfillment either.
When a "quick broadcast" approach like this doesn't work, the most common response is to get new SAP training in a "hot" area and try the whole "blasting my availability" approach over again. It doesn't work with the new training either.
That's why I advocate a totally different approach. Start deeper: approach your SAP career from the vantage point of "thought leadership." Now, some people really hate this phrase and find it pretentious, and perhaps it is. But the phrase is less important than the message behind it.
What I like about aspiring to "thought leadership" is that it challenges us to raise the bar on ourselves, to really become experts, to stand out from the crowd based on our passion for learning and how that translates into visible achievements. In the end, it doesn't matter if we are considered the world's biggest expert in our chosen area. What matters is that we had something ambitious..." - Jon ReedYou can also access the white paper on
Jon Reed's website.
