I get at least two dozen calls a week from Documentum professionals who are neither looking to hire nor are they searching for jobs.  They simply want to know, "How's the market?"

My job, of course, is to find the market - if I didn't have jobs to fill, I'd rustle my network or make cold calls until I found them. So the market for Documentum professionals, in my world, is still pretty good, BUT that's only true if you're excellent. If you're not, sorry, but I'm not too interested in placing you. A recruiter's reputation, on a large part, is determined by the professionals and companies they represent.

And while once upon a time ago Documentum was a commodity skill, that's no longer true. I can find half a dozen mediocre, available Documentum professionals on any given day. Twelve years ago, it was hard to find people who could spell Documentum.

So what makes an excellent Documentum professional? It's not only knowledge of the technology and its modules/components and APIs. It's being a strong developer, architect, administrator, project manager, program manager, business analyst, manager or director INDEPENDENT of Documentum, as well.

You need to be a good technologist at the get go.

And there are a lot of not-so excellent people out there. They can't explain why they did what they did on their last project. They don't know much about the business process their work supported. But they have Documentum training and experience,some of them even are, or claim to be, certified.

On a broad scale these people affect the supply and demand ratios for Documentum professionals and they influence rates.

How did these folks learn Documentum? They attend training programs at places like this*(below) and then they get deployed to companies (not by me.)

(This is a direct cut and paste from an e-mail I got- typos left in tact

"We provide Documentum Training"
Documentum is a leading Conetent Management Tool from EMC. Documentum
is an enterprise level comprehensive platform used for Content
Management, and Business Process Management. To know more about
Documentum go to www.dmdeveloper.com, www.cmswatch.com, www.documentum.com.
About Us
(xxxn...@gmail.com)
(Location:NY/NJ)
We have a team of refined professionals with an excellent track record
in delivering end to end projects in Documentum & training peoples to
get best out of Content Management using DTCM. We also assist in
placements.
Training & Course Details
We have structured our training to develop concepts with more emphasis
given for hands-on. Our training can also be structured to best suite
for individual or a group.
Here is a list of detailed course on offer.
Session I
          Content Manegement Fundamentals
          Documentum Architecture
          Documentum Installation -Server, Documentum Application
Builder & Client
          Documentum Object Model

          Documentum Applications
          Inrtoduction to Webtop
          Documentum Adminsitrator Interface
          DOcumentum Query Language & API
          Documentum Security Model
Session II
          WorkFlows & Business Process Manager
          Document LifeCycles
          WDK Customisations
          Documentum Foundation Classes (DFC)
          dmdeveloper.com / powerlink.com
Session III
          Documentum Business Object Framework
          Custom Jobs & Methods in Documentum
          Registered Tables
          Analysing Documentum Logs
          Tracing
Key Training Features
(1) Practical Assignments with each of the sections.
(2) Complete Documentum installation on Individual Laptops.
(3) Exhaustive reference material and access to related sites
provided.
(4) Job assistance provided.
(5) A real-time case study covered during training session.
(6) On Job assistance.
(7) Training is Ideal for people who have java background and want to
change into the Conent Management or the beginners who want to start
in the field of Content Management.
(8) Trainers averaging 10+ yrs of Industry Experience.
Prerequisites
(1) Must have basic knowledge of Java / C++ and OOPS.
(2) Must have own Laptop.

Why might this matter? Because the "numbers people" find out they can hire "Documentum Experts" who will work for $35/hour or 70k, and in many cases, they use those numbers when they create budgets. Hands-tied managers hire what they can afford and the projects they build function poorly, if at all.

The end result?  Users who say, " I hate Documentum!" They blame the technology and not the people or the processes that built the solution.

So what happens when a new technology comes along that promises to do all of what Documentum does and presents with a familiar, friendly UI?

Companies retire their Documentum applications. And, yes, that is starting to happen.

And each time it does,the demand for Documenum people goes down, the supply of "skilled" talent goes up, and billing rates and salaries fall.

How's the market? For now, it's still holding its own. Hopefully the EMC-software folks are selling Documentum faster than companies are retiring Documentum-based applications and poorly qualified "talent" is entering the market.