Starting the Report Studio Advanced course....how does the future look like?

[Beeso]

Dear experts,

i've recently finished the Cognos report studio fundamentals course and now starting the advanced one.
meanwhile I'm keeping an eye on the job market and i see that all Cognos related jobs are asking for many years of experience with Cognos which unfortunately i currently don't have.
i was planning to finish the advanced course then start the Data warehouse developer course...but again i fear to be faced with the same issue (experience) when the time comes to find a job.

do you have any advise ? shall i go for the DW course or just hold on for now and try to find a job as Report Author first  ?

Thanks so much in advance, any advise or suggestion's highly appreciated. :-\

[blom0344]

Were are you from? What is your background? What is your ambition? Are you after a permanent position? Hard to give advice.. Asking for many years of experience is a bit of a reflex. Understanding the customers business may be a major advantage..

[Beeso]

Hi blom0344
thank you so much for your reply
I'm currently working in Australia, i've 10 years experience in Application Support, ERP support and Reporting , Oracle DB support , Oracle OCP certified, MCTS Business intelligence certified and was recently involved in a BI implementation project.
my ambition is to start a strong BI Career as i really love everything about it.
Permanent or Contract doesn't matter as long as i'll be working in BI and 'll keep growing there, i can easily find a job as Application support or ERP support due to my experience But i want to start in BI and Work in BI.
just what worries me the most 's that every BI job's asking for years and years of experience.

[bdbits]

I am in the US so things could be different there. Oftentimes job descriptions here are built by HR people who love boiler-plated job descriptions. These often lay out a skill set that maybe three people worldwide might be able to match. So the trick is to get through the HR filter so you can actually talk to IT people who hopefully know something about the actual work. Don't be dishonest, but don't be afraid to point out similar experiences where you do not have an exact match. Sell yourself. Apply for some positions now, and see what response you get. If you get an interview but not an offer, ask them what you could have done to overcome a lack of experience and land the position.

Personally, in my geographic location, BI people are hard to come by. So when our manager opens a position, while BI experience is great, we also look for people with related skills, e.g. database, SQL queries, ETL or similar experience, reporting tools, and general technology skills. We can teach people like this how to use a particular toolset like Cognos. It is much harder to train the underlying skills. It sounds like you have a lot of enterprise-class experience, and this counts for a lot in my book.

[Beeso]

Thanks a lot bdbits for taking the time to reply and thanks for your Kind and encouraging advise
it's exactly the same here, HR and Recruitment agents are the ones putting the Ads and filtering the CVs , some of them just scan for words and don't read the full thing and others don't even know what some terms mean.
My current job for example i was contacted by 2 agents after i already got the job and both of them told me ...Hmmm..i think this's not the job for you..i replied....Thanks anyway for calling i already got the job   :D

I'll finish the courses and obtain the certificate as well just to prove my skill set and start hunting for a Job..it's Christmas soon anyway and the market 's very slowly moving.

Thanks again  ;)

[blom0344]

I am in the US so things could be different there. Oftentimes job descriptions here are built by HR people who love boiler-plated job descriptions. These often lay out a skill set that maybe three people worldwide might be able to match.

Believe me, the same goes for job descriptions over here in the old world.  ;)

[Lynn]

...

Personally, in my geographic location, BI people are hard to come by. So when our manager opens a position, while BI experience is great, we also look for people with related skills, e.g. database, SQL queries, ETL or similar experience, reporting tools, and general technology skills. We can teach people like this how to use a particular toolset like Cognos. It is much harder to train the underlying skills. It sounds like you have a lot of enterprise-class experience, and this counts for a lot in my book.

I live in the NY/NJ metro area and I would say that there are lots of BI people around ... but *good* ones can be hard to come by. It is very often the related skills, and business acumen, that make someone stand out in the crowd.

There are many larger organizations that have BI teams comprised of junior as well as senior level resources. They may post a huge list of senior level skills and experience required but intend to only pay a junior level rate, so they tend to adjust expectations accordingly. I've assisted clients in the interview/search process and generally find their reality check comes after the first batch of resumes and interviews.

Good luck!

[Beeso]

Thanks Lynn

and thanks to everyone who replied , your replies are really a confidence booster and it shows me i'm on the right way  ;)

it's BI and no turning back  ;D