Hello

I am from the UK and have been living here for 6 years so can speak German and Swiss German. I left for a year after my company closed and went back to the UK to find work but although interviews were easy to get, the majority of companies preferred graduates or shuffling staff to keep the wage bill low - money appeared to be too tight to mention. I worked as a business analyst for 6 months but have decided to return here last month as my wife is local and wanted to return to work.

If you were to study something in IT where there is a high demand for in Switzerland, what would it be? I have experience in supporting and project managing in SAP, gathering requirements and programming in SQL. After applying for contracts recently, I was told that there were >80 applicants in 3 hours for 1 role so I need another plan.

I have kind of the same background as you (SAP projects, front end developer but no strong technical profile) and had to wait 15 months before landing something. Judging by talking to people, it seems the market is oversaturated with people who can lead but not do things.

The last years of outsourcing has meant that the technical skills are in Eastern Europe or India while layoffs here have resulted in plenty of available labor.

Although you have not specified what you want to do, my advice would be to find that out first, be patient, work on writing a killer CV and cover letter, get in contact with as many recruiting companies as you can (20+), talk to people to get a network, don't limit yourself geographically and in the end you will get lucky.

You mention what there is demand for. If you would like to stay in the SAP world, learning ABAP is good. You can also take a look at open.sap.com for free courses in SAP technologies. HANA is big but often implementation experience is required. Business Objects is big and the new product SAP Boardroom have some interesting aspects for a person like you but is not big in the market (yet). I know EY are looking at this product in order to push it to customers. As it is new, not many have skills in this area.

Hello CB

Thanks for your comments.
Good to hear that you got sorted with work, waiting for 15months must have been a nightmare. I am a certified PRINCE2 Practitioner but from job hunting, a lottery win seems more likely than a PM job. I have been applying as well for application support, Project coordinating and data maintenance work.

I would like to be better at ABAP but the problem I have is that I don't have a system to play around with to improve before finding a job. I will have a look at BO, HANA and SAP Boardroom.

No worries

Sure, it wasn't fun at all. You are in a better position I would guess due to you speaking German. It seems as if most SAP jobs are in the German speaking part. I work in the German speaking part now.

I also did courses online with Coursera. They have some decent courses in interesting areas, e.g. data science and Business Intelligence, which could be something for you as well. I think they charge around 50 CHF per month. You have to put some hours in though.

My two cents: You will read lots of confusing statements on the Swiss IT market. I met even banks and financial companies complaining how hard it is to get good technical staff in Switzerland. I work at a IT services company and say "hey, we got some... what are you willing to pay?" and that's where the fun starts. I know a leading bank in Zurich which wants to pay 110 CHF for experienced technical resources an hour. I am not talking about freelancers, but technical resources working in projects, employed by Swiss companies, earning a regular Swiss salary and ideally be Swiss... that person should of course know all the latest tech and be a top performer. My garage charges 240 CHF per hour for a technical expert fixing my car... an 18yr old electrician fixing some wires for us costs more per hour than what the bank is expecting to pay for an experienced expert with an academic background.

So everyone will complain but few put their money where their mouth is.

I don't know a two week course that will score you a job immediately. But if you have an SAP background: I went to the SAP forum in basel in April and had a good look at the Swiss landscape. I had the feeling that pretty much all customers are looking into S4/Hana, but the service companies aren't ready for it - they rather cash in on billable hours as long as they can than to train their staff on the significant technical changes. But that's my very personal view...

Would doing administrator and HANA training together be advisable? I had a look at a few Swiss job agencies and both seem to be popping up a lot.
Having worked at a garage before, the mechanics aren't earning much. The overheads are incredible compared to an office but agreed SAP consultants need to earn a lot to cover the cost of courses, a 10 day course in Walldorf, Germany is €6900..

I'm currently looking for something and I'd have to agree with you. In fact I've had a two agents come back to me with comments along the line that their client could not find someone cheap enough so they are cancelling the recruitment drive!

Same as the others I'm afraid - market absolutely oversaturated with IT talent and I can see a genuine recession on the horizon.

My garage charges 160 an hour!

Unfortunately companies in Switzerland are looking to reduce costs and at the company I work at they are outsourcing everything they can.

It is not just IT it is HR + Accounting ...

I really cannot tell the story about the accounting but it is so funny and the HR is tragic, it got outsourced and outsourced and lost employees personal files and caused complete chaos ...email back but you never told us ... me here is the email from a year ago.

What is the true cost?

They will all come back sooner than later with an overblown cost to the business and reputational damage.

The stories are countless of how outsourcing in IT doesn't work, just check the latest on the news this week: BT.

The British Airways was a classic but they are trying to deny it was an IT failure

Yes become a consultant on back shoring the IT after they have true messed up

I have been looking for some time already 19 years in IT BI, Data warehousing, cannot find anything, I am looking from the US but I am EU citizen, I got offer for an interview with a company in Basel for 70k/year yes, 70.000 a year for a experienced BI with SQL server SSAS, SSIS, SSRS and so on, another UK recruiting company called me that has subcontract from Tata for a Power BI in Zurich, I was told that candidates are willing to work for 500/day, I said thanks
I think it is the worst I have ever seen and since indians trying to overtake the market like they did in the US it is not gonna be any better

Indeed it wasn't an IT failure; their backend worked exactly as designed.

What it was a failure of was management, who failed to put a system in place that had even the most basic redundancy and replication.