Reed: Let's shift focus now to individuals who might want to use the Career Center and can maybe benefit from some of this visibility with their own SCN contributions. How can an SCN member start to make use of the Career Center?

Lagerholm: The benefits for the employer and for the applicant are actually very similar in terms of being able to be very focused. The Career Center is only for SAP-related positions, so the folks searching for positions will also not get a lot of the clutter they might get from other sites.

And, it allows them to stand out from the crowd. Somebody who is an expert in NetWeaver can say to the employer, "I'd like to use my contributions on SCN as proof of what I know." This is not a formal endorsement, but an employer can certainly tell someone who can walk the walk, not just talk the talk, by looking at their contributions in the community.

Reed: Confidentiality is really one of the biggest things that can prevent job seekers that I have worked with in the past from using certain job boards. How do you address confidentiality when you developed the Career Center?

Lagerholm: Confidentiality is a huge concern for a lot of job seekers. When you upload your resume to the Career Center, you are asked to remove your name and your personal contact details. When an employer searches the resume database, they'll be able to find resumes that show a person's experience and education but not their name. In order to get their name, the employer needs to submit a request to the applicant, and the applicant can decide whether they want to talk to the employer or not.

From that perspective, the applicant's identity is protected, and the applicant decides which employer they are interested in interacting with. Once the employer receives the name, that's when they can actually do a search on SCN and look at the contribution. But they do need the applicant's permission in order to have their name. That is a part of the confidentiality concern, and we do make sure that we address it.

Reed: One thing we hadn't talked about that struck me was when you mentioned the notion that job postings are not really appropriate in the discussion forums. The Career Center does kind of resolve a long-standing dilemma around how to handle the opportunities that aren't really a fit in other areas of SCN, but then you've seen some discussions that a career center wouldn't really work out on SCN. When you were working on developing the Career Center, did you grapple with that a little bit? How to make it fit into the community as opposed to something that would make it seem like it didn't fit?

Lagerholm: Well, we really see it as a natural extension. We know there's a demand out there, and we really want to provide a service to the employers but also to the applicants. The downturn in the economy has impacted a lot of very qualified, very experienced folks who are part of SCN. We know those people are looking for jobs and, at the same time, we are hearing from our partners that they are still having a difficult time finding qualified talent. So we felt this was really a natural extension to SCN.

Reed: When we were talking about this podcast, you had an important point to share with our listeners about SAP not using the Career Center for their own internal recruitment. Can you tell us more about the thinking behind this?

Lagerholm: We'd like to keep it separate, so this Career Center is really just for our ecosystem. SAP is going to continue recruiting on SAP.com and other sites that SAP HR uses. This really prevents any kind of conflict of interest between SAP and our partners and our customers.

Reed: The Career Center is just about to go live as we're taping this podcast. Do you want to tell us about some future plans? I'm sure folks will be visiting and wondering what other things you'll be rolling out over time.

Lagerholm: We are looking to make it more collaborative and add more services over time. I also wanted to mention that the career site is available as part of our University Alliance, so it's not just available to experienced professionals but also for new graduates.

We're going to be working very closely with the University Alliance, and we really want to be of service to new graduates. We know there are a lot of technical folks graduating from colleges around the world, and we hope that we are going to provide a service to them as well.

Reed: Do you think you're going to get some jobs on the Career Center that are not looking for the senior types of resources but folks who might be young and ambitious and looking for that first break?

Lagerholm: Yes, in fact, we're also looking to post internships for university students. We'd like to provide service for the entire spectrum, from folks who are just getting started to very experienced professionals.

Reed: If you accomplish that, I'll have somewhere to send some of these folks. I hear from a lot of talented people who have trouble getting that first SAP opportunity, so this will be a nice resource to tie into the alliance that you have with universities.

We've talked about the Career Center from the employer's perspective and the job seeker's. Are there any other points you wanted to share with our listeners?

Lagerholm: I would just emphasize for everyone to try it out. It's free of charge to the applicant, it only takes a few minutes and we'd love for you to try it and give us your feedback.

Reed: If they do have feedback, what would be the best way to relay that?

Lagerholm: We have a forum for the Career Center, and I would say that's the best way.

Reed: Okay, sounds like a plan. Thanks for joining us today and giving us this exciting preview to what's about to go live.

Before we sign off, I do want to give listeners the URL that you'll be able to type in for this Career Center while you're listening to this podcast. It's scncareercenter.sap.com. If you're not yet registered with SAP's online communities, you can register for all three, the SAP Developer Network, the SAP/BPX Community and the SAP Business Objects Community at the same time. You'll have access to the Career Center through any of those communities.

You can click on the Career Center from a couple different directions: from the tab on the horizontal menu running across the top of all three communities or through the University Alliances section of SCN as well.

On that note, I would like to thank our listeners for joining us today for this SAP community podcast. This is Jon Reed of JonERP.com signing off. We'll see you online soon at scn.sap.com.