Why are Cognos Professionals So Hard to Find?

Recently, we spotlighted Jason Rodrigues, one of our superstar recruiters, who talked about how placing a Cognos TM1 Developer was one of his recent, exciting challenges that he overcame.

“Cognos is not the kind of technology background that produces a matching candidate in short time frame [few hours]. Simply put, there seems to be far more open Cognos jobs than there are candidates to fill them,” Rodrigues says.

This article aims to delve deeper into the reasons why Cognos is such a difficult skill to find in today’s job market.

When Rodrigues started looking for his Cognos superstar candidate, he looked for “someone that could work both the technical side and work well on the accounting or finance side,” he says. “The experience I was looking for wasn’t simply a Cognos Developer but more of a Finance Manager with a technical background and experience with Cognos TM1 implementations.”

After using CyberCoders’ cutting-edge matching tech, he found the perfect fit who worked on the dev side but also acted as the “go-to” guy for the finance and accounting teams as well.

We phoned in an expert to demystify the supply and demand of Cognos skills.

Wayne Estrada was with IBM Cognos for almost 10 years and is currently a senior technical instructor who is highly certified on Cognos BI. Here’s what he had to say:

What is the supply and demand for Cognos professionals?

Strong and growing. IBM Cognos is used by every US Government Agency and if not in all, almost all Fortune 100 Companies, and a large percent of Fortune 500 firms. American management is looking for better and faster ways of ‘sharpening the pencil’ in light of international-world market competition.

Any kind of BA/BI/Big Data tool will do that for them. IBM Cognos is the leader in this regard in a very competitive field.

What sparked an uptick in demand?

In addition to the international-world market competition, this declining or flat ‘recovery’ in the USA requires all organizations to be even more efficient in managing their data assets. “Gut instincts” were good enough in the 20^th century, but are not reliable, timely or accurate enough in the new millennium. BI software meets and exceeds this need.

What do the best Cognos professionals need to succeed?

A strong all-encompassing IT view of principles, best practices and available technologies with emphasis on knowledge of Databases/Data Warehouses, Metadata Modeling, network security, and web programming languages and techniques.

They have to know “a lot about a lot.” Overall tech experience in systems management, software development and coding are also super important.  In the pool of IT people in general, only a subset of people have all the tools and experience needed to put together.

Why are good Cognos skills so hard to find?

Good Cognos people are paid very well and worth what they are paid (or more.)  Speaking for myself, I am compensated at a high level so to get me to change would require a significant offer to get me to go to another firm.  That’s something HR and management may not (at this time) be willing to pay to me or others because they don’t realize the value in acquiring top talent in this area and the real tangible benefit they can bring to the bottom line of their business operations.

They still (mistakenly) view Cognos experts as just ‘another IT job position’ and more often than not, price/value it accordingly.

To use an analogy, there are lot of people that play a musical instrument, play in a band, and can happily entertain and please an audience.  But there are just a few performers that can fill concert venues worldwide.

Using this analogy, HR and upper management think that all musicians (i.e. IT folks) are really just all the same

Anything other insights you’ve noticed about the industry?

Any and all BI/BA tools are becoming essentials for success in industries, and there are a lot of excellent software tools out there that can do this to varying degrees.  Other market leaders include Business Objects, Hyperion, Microstrategy, and Tabuleau.

The Gartner ‘Magic Quadrant’ for BI has consistently rated IBM Cognos (now version 10 or “C10.2”) above all these companies and more as the best overall for “Completeness of Vision” and “Ability to Execute.”  That’s why there is both demand and a shortage of good C10.2 people.  There are so many projects in companies that are keeping C10 people super-busy, and not enough man-weeks or years to get it all done.