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September 17, 2006

Business Intelligence Job Market

There is quite a bit of job movement in data warehousing and business intelligence today, with a couple of high-profile moves making headlines. This happens when there are opportunities and the market is slow to react to the requirements for keeping employees.

Consequently, there may be many readers of this blog who are considering a job change. Many new jobs do not ultimately meet expectations. The major reason is because the job move was done too hastily and the new position was not evaluated carefully enough before it was accepted. So, thinking about all the moves I’ve seen, I’ve provided some tips for making a move a successful one.

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Posted by William McKnight at 3:30 PM | | Comments (1)

November 11, 2005

Management Phobia in Business Intelligence

From interviews with hundreds of BI professionals over the past year as part of my environment assessments, there are a few conclusions I can draw. One of them is that, as compared to previous years, more people don't want to be a manager and this includes managers. I suggest a variety of factors leading to this:

1. Managers have too many meetings

Self-explanatory

2. The people who work for you have higher expectations of what you need to do for them

You get to play counselor, psychologist, motivational speaker and, most definitely, personal advisor. These aspects of the job can be quite a change from the technical work.

3. Recent technology innovations provide an attractive career path on the technical side

Real-time data warehousing, EII/EAI, ERP integration, master data management, managing multi-terabytes of data, diverse and growing user communities, etc. all keep the BI technical professional out of persistent doldrums.

4. Technology changes make it seem difficult that you can get back on the technology track if you wanted to someday.

This has resulted in very careful consideration of the management track on the part of many BI professionals.

5. Long hours as in being told 55 hours per week are not enough

Self-explanatory

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Posted by William McKnight at 9:57 AM | | Comments (2)

November 5, 2005

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot?

According to this recent article in ADTmag.com, citing a survey by Foote Partners, "Data Managers are Hottest of the Hot."

The article says data professionals are in good shape for the next 12 months and only selectively subject to outsourcing or offshoring.

I have subscribed to the Earl Nightingale school of thought, which says you are compensated based on:
1. What you do
2. How well you do it
3. Who you do it for
4. The difficulty of replacing you

Continue reading "Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot?" »

Posted by William McKnight at 2:16 PM | | Comments (0)