As pretty much all of you already know, SharePoint professionals are not exactly a dime a dozen. There are tons of SharePoint jobs out there (particularly admins and even more so for developers), and not even close to the right amount of eligible candidates to fill those roles. This shortage becomes even more magnified in the market of SharePoint positions that require government security clearances.
Microsoft has done one hell of a job selling SharePoint to customers far and wide, in both private and public sectors, large and small businesses (small businesses are really beginning to latch onto Office 365 offerings). Microsoft has sold a wonderful product, creating more jobs than there are people to fill them, because most companies "ooooo!!!" and "aaaahhhh!!!" at SharePoint and buy it before they have anyone present in-house to support their large investment in the technology.
So... what does this mean for you as a recruiter for these positions?
While pay is not everything, it certainly helps. As with any job offer, the bottom line matters. The salary, benefits, cost of those benefits, other fringe perks, etc.
So your company may not have the greatest pay scale or benefits... what do you do?
First, remember SharePoint is an acquirable skill. Anyone with any basic knowledge of logic and computer programming, queries, etc. can learn the ins and outs of SharePoint. Yes, you may have to send a member of your existing work force to training (expect at least a week of a typical SharePoint bootcamp, probably in the neighborhood of $3k per week), but many people will be willing to learn SharePoint if they are aware of the demand for the skillset and the job security it will ensure for the candidate. Use this scenario to train individuals at a less-than-premium salary if you have a little bit of time to ramp them up. An existing .net developer can learn the SharePoint framework and object model. An admin experienced in setup and configuration of an open-source content management system can be trained to be a SharePoint administrator. A person who understands queries and basic html, the concept of inheritance, and a little bit of OOP (though optional) can be trained to be a power user or site collection administrator.
In the case where you need an expert to come in, hit the ground running, and be a rockstar, I can only tell you to be ready to pay the piper. This includes power users / site collection administrators, farm administrators, and developers.
Microsoft has done one hell of a job selling SharePoint to customers far and wide, in both private and public sectors, large and small businesses (small businesses are really beginning to latch onto Office 365 offerings). Microsoft has sold a wonderful product, creating more jobs than there are people to fill them, because most companies "ooooo!!!" and "aaaahhhh!!!" at SharePoint and buy it before they have anyone present in-house to support their large investment in the technology.
So... what does this mean for you as a recruiter for these positions?
While pay is not everything, it certainly helps. As with any job offer, the bottom line matters. The salary, benefits, cost of those benefits, other fringe perks, etc.
So your company may not have the greatest pay scale or benefits... what do you do?
First, remember SharePoint is an acquirable skill. Anyone with any basic knowledge of logic and computer programming, queries, etc. can learn the ins and outs of SharePoint. Yes, you may have to send a member of your existing work force to training (expect at least a week of a typical SharePoint bootcamp, probably in the neighborhood of $3k per week), but many people will be willing to learn SharePoint if they are aware of the demand for the skillset and the job security it will ensure for the candidate. Use this scenario to train individuals at a less-than-premium salary if you have a little bit of time to ramp them up. An existing .net developer can learn the SharePoint framework and object model. An admin experienced in setup and configuration of an open-source content management system can be trained to be a SharePoint administrator. A person who understands queries and basic html, the concept of inheritance, and a little bit of OOP (though optional) can be trained to be a power user or site collection administrator.
In the case where you need an expert to come in, hit the ground running, and be a rockstar, I can only tell you to be ready to pay the piper. This includes power users / site collection administrators, farm administrators, and developers.
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