“On the subject of meaningful acquisitions, it will be interesting to see if SAP can have the same success pulling Sybase’s mobility tech and in-memory know-how into the mix across the company. We see clear signs of this from the product enhancement side, however, Sybase executives are notably absent from SAP events and some of us have speculated that Sybase’s culture is not as open and transparent as compared to BusinessObjects. Whether or not that is valid, SAP and Sybase have missed the opportunity to make Sybase’s presence felt in the show interactions for several consecutive shows now (TechEd, Influencer Summit, BI 4.0), and in each case, I had key (ahem) “thought leaders” tell me of their frustrations trying to dig into the Sybase part of the story. SAP has to address this for SAPPHIRE Now Orlando or the criticisms will be fierce. I don’t want to hear the defense that this show was about BI 4.0 and not mobility – not with all the waving of iPads on stage during the event.”

I feel SAP Education is still not sure about the role they have to play in terms of transforming raw talent(aspiring SAP Professional) into value generating SAP Consultant through their training/certification programs.

SAP Education’s Associate level learning maps are incomplete (i believe they should have ASAP, SOLMAN, and BPM 101 courses in it) and Professional level learning maps doesn’t even exist in ERP section.
Master’s level is not final yet and I believe SAP Education was not sure even couple of year back about what comes in the scope of Master’s level and in my view they were unrealistic with their previous master level certification criteria. Now they are more realistic that 8 yrs experience and the ability to layout an IT vision/strategy for a client should be the skill a Master level consultant should have.

I believe SAP Education should use Associate and professional level learning maps and certifications for BPX as a template. BPX learning maps are “appropriate” a most importantly “make sense” by putting foundation knowledge at associate level and building advanced layer at professional level.

In my view in Certification5 Paper, SAP mentors focused more on the certification questions instead of the overall traning(read learning maps) and certification process. Having scenario based questions and written answers instead of MCQ’s on certification exams is only one piece of this puzzle. I agree with you when you say SAP certification program doesn’t need improvement, it needs an OVERHAUL.

I am not sure how I would have been able to come up with a strategy for my SAP career without you expert mentorship which I get from your strategic writings e.g SAP consultant Handbook or the Core and Edge skill strategy you advised in last year’s paper.
I am preparing a SAP Skills Strategy for a functional consultant inspired by your thinking and advice and will be sharing with you during this year. It is a learning skills repository and the distribution across associate, professional and masters level.

But at the same time I agree with the Jon’s last statements of the blog.
He is saying that - “if you don’t make a commitment to understanding the latest generation of modeling tools, you are going to be left behind.”.

There is no alternatives to learn new techniques, so whatever is Jon wants to share is hundred percent true.

Jon I think this will be a great blog for those who are really afraid to be in ABAP.

Thanks for your blog and explanation.

I have one thing to ask you -
Jon if you can emphasize on what one should look into while working on ABAP, I am an ABAP consultant and want to look after some functional module. Can you please shade some light on doing what will help me/people like me in future?

Thanking u in advance.

Regards,
Ravi

As for: “Even if SAP had been officially invited, I doubt it would have shown up.” Hopefully if/when there is a next time, they will be invited and then we’ll see what’s what.

- Jon

The Sapience conference was not aimed at analysts or bloggers. Any event which aims only at that audience would go broke since you know we expect freebies. It was aimed at SAP customers. Analysts and bloggers who see something insidious about the timing need to get off their ego trips and realize that the world does not go around trying to brief only them. So scheduling at same time as the SAP analyst summit was not that scandalous a decision. It was a poor one - and I told Helmuth that - to have it in Boston in December given the weather issues you know well living there

Even if SAP had been officially invited, I doubt it would have shown up. Jeez, it’s been years of BYD behind curtains. They are just not ready to have it in a shootout.

A demo done by an SAP professional would have made it look better. But I would have rated it tougher. I gave it the benefit of the doubt in my scoring. So end result would have been a wash or a lower score, not higher

People are making excuses about thousands of users hitting the trial SAP system. If it cannot support that how will it support thousands of customers with 50, 100, 500 users each?

A demo does not factor that SAP has only 100 customers, NetSuite has over 6,000. NetSuite has gone through a decade of issues SAP likely has not even thought about. I would score SAP a 2 and NetSuite a 8 on a scale of 10 on that experience factor. Should that be 10,20. 30% of the score?…it would be in a client eval - as you know references and body of experience matter in the real world.

Instead of woulda, coulda, how about us all encouraging SAP to start showing off BYD more - let external folks kick the tire via shootouts, more trial subscriptions etc. They have sheltered the product too long.

I got certified recently in SAP ABAP. Ever since I enrolled for the course I’ve been checking out for opportunities in the same, but I can only find opportunities for experienced candidates. This has put me in a state of shock. I mean, the candidates who are experienced now would have been newbies at some point in time. Does no one require inexperienced certified guys? What should be my strategy? Please help.

Nandesh Nair

Regards

Thanks for sharing your step by step career progression, this is exactly what I was writing about. This is something many people have trouble understanding. I clearly grasp why people want to “shoot the moon” and get everything they dreamed of in their next job, but too often it is self-defeating. I hope others take a note of your progression.

- Jon Reed -

I’m not going to repeat all my advice for breaking into SAP in this comment section, I have written about that in other blog entries (click on the “breaking into SAP” category tag to read more on this), and it’s actually a pretty involved topic not easily answered in a comment.

But with that said, your questions:

1. how do i construct my CV to enable me to be employed

Customize it to the expectations of the companies you are applying for, emphasizing proven experience that will be relevant to their particular industry or project.

2. With any reference to experience on my CV, my feeling is that job agencies will automatically delete my CV…how do i prevent this?

You can’t prevent it, but many agencies do hold onto resumes because they want to keep tabs on folks who will eventually broaden their existing skills. However, it’s highly unlikely you would get your first SAP job through an agencies. Agencies are hired to find experienced sought after SAP talent. You’re better off going direct to companies wherever possible.

3. I have been told on a couple of occasions by people already in SAP, to exaggerate my CV, i.e, mention that i have experience even though i don’t. the logic being that without the mention of having experience, recruiters wont look at your CV…

Terrible advice. Again, I don’t see you getting your first SAP job through a recruiter. Referring back to my post above, I think you are skipping some steps. You need to get deeper hands on SAP implementation experience, including SAP configuration skills, before dealing with agencies.

Exaggerating experience is never a good idea - if for any reason you got caught it could taint your entire career. Remember that most companies are pretty savvy with their technical phone screens. It’s not like you can jump from a resume to getting hired. There’s at least one, usually multiple interviews in between you and a job and the tech screening will take place.

Having said that, I do think there is value in emphasizing the right kind of experience on your resume, and even quantifying that experience in a way that brings out the best in you. As you may know I wrote a book on bad resumes (Resumes from Hell), and in the process, learned a lot about making a good one. For example, I can make a waiter or waitresses’ resume look good (and have done so) by quantifying the volume of customers served and tying their performance into customer satisfaction levels. This is not falsifying but tying performance to results. I have helped another restaurant manager get a bump of 20K in salary using the same techniques.

So, there are thing you can do to present yourself in the best light. Usually by framing the relevance of your current experience rather than by asking to get your first new experience.

Good luck.

- Jon Reed

I think it’s tricky because those like you who are now senior in SAP broke into the field when it was a little more, shall we say, “open” to new talent in some ways - though there are always ways to get into SAP with the right emerging skills.

I hope readers will make note of your comment, “I think that it is passion for my particular field (BASIS / Netweaver technical), combined with a healthy regard for the enjoyment and fun I get out of my work .” That’s a point I emphasized in the “Chase Skills Not Dollars” post that was SAP job mistake number 1. I can’t agree with you more - all the most successful SAP consultants I know have a real passion for the field and a real commitment to excellence. That really shines through in your blog, which in turns gives people a way to get to know you in the field through your ideas and skills.

- Jon

Great article for ‘freshers’, please keep up the good work.
A brief background about myself, before I seek some career advise. I’ve 14+ yrs of IT exp with a MS in Comp Science and am PMP certified as well. I’ve been a PM/BA for 7 yrs in a s/w company managing enterprise product implementations for CRM systems. I got laid off recently and at the moment am doing some independent consulting but am very seriously thinking of a ‘career switch’

Here’s the situation…
I was recently contacted by a ‘NASDAQ’ listed SAP consulting company that wants to exploit the BW/BO (Business Objects) market by providing ‘in class’ training (for 3 months on weekends) + Access to sandbox + pre marketing + encouraging us (They’ll pay exam fees) to get SAP certified.

Here’s where I seek ur advice…
1) Please suggestion some ‘key’ questions I need to ask these folks?
2) What are the chances for ‘SAP - newbies’ to break into the market through consulting companies that have strong presence/clientele in SAP projects.
3)Given my 9+ yrs functional exp in ‘proprietory’ CRM systems, is there any other SAP module (other then BW/BI), that I should focus on (for e.g. SAP Solutions manager)?

I have strong DB background, excellent communication skills and would prefer to further my career as PM/BA but given the messed up job market am caught up in a bind. I would really really appreciate your response.

Thanks

Previously, I had found these question rather uncomfortable, because I didn’t even know how I had got into SAP - After reading this post, I was following your multiple job change process, without knowing it, .

I’ve also found it difficult to explain how I managed to get interesting SAP work so easily, but after reflecting on these posts, I think that it is passion for my particular field (BASIS / Netweaver technical), combined with a healthy regard for the enjoyment and fun I get out of my work - the people paying $XYZ for these wonderful toys I get to play with need to get $XYZ + 1 value in return, or I lose my toys !!!

These attributes are obviously useful on projects, especially the ‘harder ones’, and the people who have them ARE obvious (and the people possessing them are probably well known in any organization) to the people who select these teams (project leaders and so on).

BTW, I found your site very useful, and I’m passing links to this and other pages on your web site around our company.

Thanks for your comment. I like what you are doing at the Consulting Exchange and your resume project is very cool.

In my view, what you are referring to is almost a separate problem. Even when an SAP professional does have all the skills needed to make a move, if they have flaws in their resume or in their marketing efforts, then all the skills in the world won’t make a difference. So yes, the presentation (and searchability!) of skills is important and the work you are doing with that is vital. And you’re right - sometimes the problem is not in the job seeker’s resume at all, but in the search tools that the hiring manager is using. There is plenty to work on there.

However, it remains a fact that no matter how good your resume is, or how searchable, it is extremely difficult to make more than one of the “job moves” I mentioned above in one job change. It can be done, but it’s not common. The reason is pretty clear: when you venture too far from your existing skills and reach for a huge job and skills leap, then you don’t bring enough relevancy to the employer, who is less interested in helping you make a dramatic move than in getting a benefit from your involvement from day one.

There are many pieces to a successful SAP career, perhaps I’ll get more into the process of self-marketing and the obstacles there in my next entry on this topic.

- Jon Reed -

as an MDM consultant (been in this area for the last 3,5 years), I can feel that this topic is getting bigger and bigger. MDM should be considered as the center of master data management with its typical functionalities like consolidating & harmonization. In no other SAP system you have the possibility to do data cleansing that easily and without any coding!

A typical scenario could be that BW/BI receives cleansed data from MDM for its global spend analysis reports. XI/PI comes as a middleware into place which connects various systems (MDM XI BW).

More reasons for MDM:
- no transaction
- data modelling doesn’t base on a relational schema;
inuitive and not DBMS oriented
- easy modelisation of hierarchies
- easy definition of specific attributes based on taxonomies
- mass modification without any query
- etc …

With MDM 7.1 there is a release that proviedes better functionality and efficiency.

BR,

Erdal