Job for Consultant: Re: [sap-career] Which SAP Course for a PhD Student of Supply Chain Management

Posted by loknathrao (Consultant)
on Dec 12 at 1:56 AM

VidyaDhar,

No offense meant here but I didn't say such without awareness or
responsibility. I also did not say all companies are like this. I also did
not say every company should recruit anyone without experience. Some small
companies simply can't because they need to utilize their people fully all
the time to pay their bills.

My comments were in response to a gentleman like Pervaiz who has humbly
asked this "beginners" question in public forum where over 99% are probably
not PhDs. He probably has a lot to offer given an opportunity by any of the
large firms where there could be multiple possibilities of making good his
employment. Perhaps Pervaiz would not need 5-7 years to master a module. He
might do it in less than 2 years because his approach would be different to
a factory minted, trained-behind-the-bushes SAP consultant and probably can
become multi-skilled in a much shorter time. This is the point employers
disregard completely. It is painful and not a good thing. The investment
for the employer is probably a weeks training in some bladi module to begin
with and some support for couple of months. That's how everybody from CEO to
president has started their careers.

Talking of millions of dollars of investments being at risk, let me tell
you that SAP AG as a company has a strong culture of hiring interns who are
doing their Masters or PhDs in any area of business or technology. This is
largely restricted to the home country Germany though but anyone is welcome
to apply. Pervaiz you can check their career site or even call them directly.
They HAVE a policy, a statement of affirmation to support people
in pursuit of knowledge, whether or not such knowledge is adding to their
software capabilities. These students are assigned mentors who are no less
than the product managers of a solution line. They pay them a decent
stipend to survive, provide them some training and supervise thier
work/thesis. Most of them are offered jobs too. If SAP AG can do this, I
wonder why others can't! Let's not be tempted saying SAP makes of money.
This is not true. Other consulting firms have much fatter bottom line.

I have spent 10+ years in SAP world, with strong roots in business. I have
seen 100's and 100's of rejected applicants with excellent academics, in
absolutely related discipline, seeking a break into SAP. They were
definitely not applying because SAP consulting is a well paying job.
They have applied because they expect that the job would add to their
intellectual abilities and probably the best choice available for them. At
the same time I have seen many consultants with very minimum acads being
hired because they have 5,6,7 years of SAP experience, half of it made up
bluff (well again I have interviewed such people with 10 pages of resume,
but I still give some of them a chance not because they know SAP, because
they are logical and have basic knowledge).

I am not point blank discrediting anyone's capability or attitude or
ability to work hard. I gave an extreme example for emphasis. I should have
rather said BA is History of Art from a Pakoda college in London (this
is the qualification of Rahul Gandhi. Imagine he is becoming an SAP
consultant)

I still receive mass resume fishing emails for fictitious employers
and jobs. They ask very irritating questions like

-Total experience ?
-Relevant experience?
-Min. 5 years of experience with 3 end to end implementations. My foot. I
bet anyone worth his salt can do more than 2 end to end projects in 5 years
-Passport number ?
-Do you have H1 ?
-End users need not apply

In fact anything other than a provision to expand on your skills and
competencies.

In fact a recent one also said this, "Distance education will not be considered." I couldn't figure out what
this means. This was from a recruiter on behalf of reputed global
top10 consulting firm. What if someone is a PhD is Mathematics from NYU by
distance?

Pervaiz, keep up the fight. May you need any direction or philosophy, please
contact me.

Thanks

---------------Original Message---------------
From: Vidhya Dhar
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 12:03 AM
Subject: Which SAP Course for a PhD Student of Supply Chain Management

Hi LokNath

I do not subscribe to the notion of concluding that a company is bogus when
they ask for experience when they want to recruit people. After all, from
the standpoint of the prospective employer he / she is right in ensuring
that their operations run smoothly ( especially when SAP is the working
environment and the employers have invested millions of dollars ) and no
employer would risk their operations by entrusting a job to an
inexperienced novice ( despite the fact that the prospective employee's
excellent academic credentials ). As everybody in this thread has rightly
pointed out, academics alone is not sufficient in the real business
scenario; one needs good exposure to practical situations where business
and social skills are also required to resolve issues. I am not downgrading
the importance of good academics; am simply suggesting that equally
important are other preactical skills which can be gained through practical
work experience ( A research scholarship is laudable but it is no
substitute for years of practical experience ). A BA graduate with good
exposure and work experience can do an equally good job as that of a
research scholar, if not any better.

While academicians need to be appreciated for their knowledge, it is no
good idea to overrate them to the extent of belittling those with less
academic credentials but possessing abundant work experience. Making
general and harsh comments about the genuineness of an organization wanting
to employ experienced people , I suppose, is not an objective way of
looking at things and concluding.

I hope you agree with my views on this count.

Regards

VidhyaDhar

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