3 ms·

I've always been frustrated by the promotion of this kind of list. Yes, it matters what the demand for a given skill is but that knowledge is virtually meaningl

I've always been frustrated by the promotion of this kind of list. Yes, it matters what the demand for a given skill is but that knowledge is virtually meaningless without also having information about the supply side! If 1,000,000 companies desire talent $foo which 2,000,000 workers have, it's not going to lead to as many opportunities or as much leverage as talent $bar that 300,000 companies desire but only 50,000 workers have.

NikolaNovak 7y ago
I believe for many years, that kind of supply/demand relative comparison typically determined that COBOL was the skill to have :) I've been on projects with COBOL (yay!:), and there's always a complete dearth of skilled people...
- thewarrior 7y ago
  That would suggest that a better metric would be to look at the supply demand imbalance and also look at the growth rates for future demand. For anyone looking at this list it’s probably the places where demand is growing fastest that you want to target. From those you could split things into stuff that’s mainstream and upcoming. Mainstream would be Python, AWS and JavaScript as per this list. The fastest growing areas as per this list are Machine Learning, Azure and Docker. A common pattern here is that the in demand skills cluster around front end + full stack (including ops) or data engineering + ML
  - AlchemistCamp 7y ago
    > ...and also look at the growth rates for future demand. I would say that looking at the growth rate of future demand is a poor way to go about it unless you're also looking at the growth rate of future supply, for the same reasons mentioned in my original comment.
ianbicking 7y ago
There's also a question of skill liquidity: if there's a very low supply and a low demand - even though the demand might be multiples of the supply - it puts everyone in a tough place. The employee doesn't have the leverage they might hope for because finding a compatible employer is very hard.
- AlchemistCamp 7y ago
  Yeah, this is a huge, issue. Even in cases where there's high demand on all sides, the difficulty of evaluation, the difficulty of firing, etc lead to a lot of poor outcomes for employees and employers both.
mycall 7y ago
You might be able to determine desirability by aggregating how long jobs are posted for or how many times it is extended. This would be a equate to some corelation.
kamaal 7y ago
Actually, they won't even test you on Skill X, if they are hiring for Skill X. They'll just make you take tests on Leetcode. You are just better off skipping all this, and focusing on Leetcode interviews instead.

NikolaNovak 7y ago

I believe for many years, that kind of supply/demand relative comparison typically determined that COBOL was the skill to have :) I've been on projects with COBOL (yay!:), and there's always a complete dearth of skilled people...

thewarrior 7y ago
That would suggest that a better metric would be to look at the supply demand imbalance and also look at the growth rates for future demand. For anyone looking at this list it’s probably the places where demand is growing fastest that you want to target. From those you could split things into stuff that’s mainstream and upcoming. Mainstream would be Python, AWS and JavaScript as per this list. The fastest growing areas as per this list are Machine Learning, Azure and Docker. A common pattern here is that the in demand skills cluster around front end + full stack (including ops) or data engineering + ML
- AlchemistCamp 7y ago
  > ...and also look at the growth rates for future demand. I would say that looking at the growth rate of future demand is a poor way to go about it unless you're also looking at the growth rate of future supply, for the same reasons mentioned in my original comment.

ianbicking 7y ago

There's also a question of skill liquidity: if there's a very low supply and a low demand - even though the demand might be multiples of the supply - it puts everyone in a tough place. The employee doesn't have the leverage they might hope for because finding a compatible employer is very hard.

AlchemistCamp 7y ago
Yeah, this is a huge, issue. Even in cases where there's high demand on all sides, the difficulty of evaluation, the difficulty of firing, etc lead to a lot of poor outcomes for employees and employers both.

mycall 7y ago

You might be able to determine desirability by aggregating how long jobs are posted for or how many times it is extended. This would be a equate to some corelation.

kamaal 7y ago

Actually, they won't even test you on Skill X, if they are hiring for Skill X. They'll just make you take tests on Leetcode. You are just better off skipping all this, and focusing on Leetcode interviews instead.