Fresher Seeking Job.

[Former Member]

Dear Mentors,

First I would like to Thanks all the Mentors for posting their Blogs in SCN, It is truly inspirational to Fresher like me

I am Recent Graduate of Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science and Software from India.

I developed a passion to work in SAP ABAP and attended SAP Academy and now I am a Certified Consultant Associate in SAP – ABAP with SAP NetWeaver from SAP Germany. I also have considerable Project Experience in SAP ABAP.

I am a Resident of USA and moved to Dallas, TX, after completing my Bachelors and Certification in SAP-ABAP in India

I started looking for jobs and didn’t find much of an Entry level position for ABAP programmers, I came across few jobs and I have applied for those.

Problems I face

1.    As SAP is vast and I am a fresher I am not sure where I fit in ,and where should start my career with my Education Background.
2.    Lack of on Project experience in SAP.
3.    Few Consultants, Recruiters say as fresher it’s hard to step into SAP Jobs ,You won’t find much opportunities which  is very discouraging.

I seek advice from the Experts here, what positions should I look for ? What is the future and opportunities I have ?

I look forward to hearing from you.

- Goutham.

[former_member208275]

Goutham, you are right as fresher getting an opportunity has become difficult.

[former_member182098]

Obviously you should look for ABAP positions. Patience is the key. Initial entry is always difficult. Keep trying yourself, surely you will be there. It is only matter of time.

All the best.

Regards,

Ravi

[Former Member]

Thank you Ravi for your Advice and Wishes

-Goutham

[former_member184701]

dear,

"..As SAP is vast and I am a fresher I am not sure where I fit in ,and where should start my career with my Education Background"

it is not good. if you want to get a sap job you need to understand what / where exactly you can use your skills.

i believe you need to look after ABAP posiitons

"Lack of on Project experience in SAP"

no drama, many jobs require to support  / fix sap modules (but not to implement sap)

start from simple job and move forward to your first implementation.

"Few Consultants, Recruiters say as fresher it’s hard to step into SAP Jobs ,You won’t find much opportunities which  is very discouraging"

do not trust them. trust nobody !

believe in yourself and work hard to get what you want.

good luck!

[Former Member]

mr.PPIO,

Your explanatory reply is motivational and helpful.

Thank you so much for your consideration.

-goutham

[former_member184701]

and the last thing...

looking for a job/talking to people never say "I am fresher" !

do not mention 'fresher' word

[Former Member]

Thanks for that mr.PPIO

I will never say "I am fresher" again, and how should i describe to People ?

-Goutham

[former_member184701]

i would say, " i have a strong knowledge in sap .... area and very good understanding of ...... "

try to get a support contract first, then look after another contract or permanent job

do not give up, move!

[Former Member]

Sure will take up your suggestions and will move on  .

Thanks AGAIN  mr.PPIO

[Former Member]

Thank you all ... Thanks for suggestions .

[former_member694100]

Hi Goutham,

Welcome to the World of SAP. Happy to know that you have chosen the right path for your upcoming

career.

Never worry about the opportunities, there are many positions existing depending on the level. Even

freshers are given scope to work in project as soon as they are trained. Good to know that you are

even certified. This helps you a lot in your hunt. Keep updating your knowledge always. Of course

you will come to know about the real time scenarios only when you start working but for sure you be

in touch with your  near and dear who are in SAP ABAP.  If you are interested I can help you out on

different scenarios I worked on so for in different areas of ABAP and Web Dynpro.

Wish you  all the best.

Regards,

Rafi

[Former Member]

Thanks you so much Rafi

i am so interested in getting some help from me and update my Knowledge ..

Thanks

-Goutham

[Former Member]

Dear Goutham,

First of all, best of luck in getting your entry level job. I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

As stated earlier by Ravi and PPIO you should go for the ABAP avenue. You said you already got considerable project experience in SAP ABAP which is a great asset. However, this also confuses me a bit as you say one of your challenges is "lack of project experience in SAP"?

Anyways, here's my advice for you. If you wanted to make your profile more lucrative I would recommend that you look into other programming languages in addition to your existing ABAP experience. SAP as a business moving ahead is going to be relying on numerous different programming languages such as HTML5, .Net and Java to fully achieve their roadmap. My recommendation at this time would be to get experience around Java in addition to your existing skill set. It's a very versatile language and heavily embedded in the SAP Netweaver platform. The career prospects within the SAP Netweaver sphere are many and is a great area to focus on.

I would also like to comment on PPIO's comment on not trusting anyone. I don't fully agree. Absolutely trust people's judgement, they wouldn't tell you if they didn't believe it. However, be skeptical as PPIO is right they just don't know any better and seek out various sources of advice before making up your mind. Which is why you have now asked SCN, so kodus to you!

For the record, recruiters are not likely to be able to help you with fresher/entry-level oppertunities in general. The job openings a recruitment business have are typically more mid/senior-level assignments and immediate issues where a customer need a freelancer to help them out. However, a good recruiter should be able to advice you on potential companies (primarily consultancies) you could personally try and reach out to who would likely have entry-level interests. I can list some of these for you if you want.

Hope it helps.

[Former Member]

Dear Hans Eg Loekkegaard

Thanks you so much ... thanks for your time

I said lack experience because i just had work experience for few months ..

Sure You can list me some of these for me .. As of now i am with a consulting company ..Hope i get help from them too..

Thanks a lot

-Goutham

[Former Member]

HI

To say on " lack experience" ... the job i see in dice , monster ,career builder as for 2 -3 year exp even for junior level .. But i just have a 6 months of a intern/entry level experience that too in India..

Recruiter here ask for US experience..

even few recruiter told me to mock my resume ...Which i do not want to do ..that y i seek help from expert advice from u people in SCN.

[Former Member]

Hello Goutham,

Not a problem here to help.

Thank you for the clarification. If you do only have a few months of work experience I would recommend staying with them until a later date just to get more experience under your belt. So, my advice still stands. See if they can give you some more challenges and as you're already in a consulting company it should be possible.

Here's a few of the consulting companies who have large global SAP practices with strong origins in India with US business entities as well. Infosys, TCS, Mahindra Satyam and Wipro. There's many more out there but they're a good start.

[Former Member]

Hi Goutham,

My advice is to put yourself into the shoes of the interviewer; try to see their perspective. They are trying to find someone who can do a job for their organization. They're seeing hundreds of resumes, many of them with exaggerated claims. I recommend ruthless honesty. Any hint of exaggeration or falsehood will remove you from the the pool of applicants. (It does when I'm interviewing, anyway.)

You've stated

I also have considerable Project Experience in SAP ABAP.

but then also

   Lack of on Project experience in SAP.

I think what you may have meant is that in your training and education, you worked with ABAP extensively, but that you've not done it as an occupation. You must be VERY clear about this when you interview. Work (a.k.a. "real world") experience is very highly prized during an interview process. Academic "practice" work is not viewed as being representative of what you need to do on a day to day at a job. You must not equate the two. It is perfectly valid to talk about your school work and to emphasis that you are familiar with this technique or that technique, but you will never convince an interviewer that your success on assignments is equivalent to work experience. Any assertion that they are equivalent will make you as someone without the necessary work experience to know the difference and as someone who is unrealistic in his expectations.

As a recent college graduate (as others have said, never "Fresher" in the US), you should emphasis your strengths: that you are eager to learn, that you have experience taking instruction, and that you are willing to work very, very (very) hard. You need to emphasis that you realize that you are excited about the opportunity and that you want very much to prove that you can be a valuable asset to their organization. Never talk about what the company can do for you in an interview for an entry level position. You must be relentless in talking about what you can do for the company and asking questions that show you've done some homework and know what the company does and what the company's goals are. I recommend asking the interviewer about his or her own journey from college to their first job. Ask them what they wish they had known when they were in your position.

Ask your interviewer what resources s/he utilizes to be effective in their job. Then talk about what you've been doing to work on your skills. This would be a good time to talk about the trial system that you set up on amazon web services or on a laptop and how you read SCN posts every day and how you're working through every example in these three books that you bought on SAP press. Hopefully you get the idea.

You can control the interview by asking questions that lead into your strengths.  Your strengths: you are young and therefore you have a lot of time and energy to focus on work; you are eager and will do whatever it takes to get the job done, nights, weekends, whatever; you are cheap and just want to get a job so you can dive in and get started (bigger salaries come *after* you've proven that you can do what it takes to get the job done, even if you have to change jobs); you are single/not married/do not have kids and therefore have no distractions which would prevent you from focusing 100% on getting stuff done for the company.

When the conversation starts to touch on areas that would be considered a weakness, turn it into a strength. You are inexperienced --> you are not set in your ways; you are eager to learn from senior colleagues; you have been introduced to the latest programming techniques in school and are eager to apply them in the real world. You have no/limited job experience --> you are a blank slate and ready to learn the company's approach; you have no bad habits to unlearn.

You shouldn't have too much trouble finding work in Dallas. I recommend checking the major US job boards (www.monster.com, www.dice.com, etc) but also LinkedIn and the SAP Career center. Once you spot an opening, go to the companies corporate web site.You can sometimes find jobs that are not listed on the job boards. I think someone mentioned this, but you will probably have best luck looking for a support job working directly for a company as opposed to trying to get a job with a consulting company.

Hope this helps!

Best regards,

  --Tom

[former_member182873]

Hi sir its really encouraging words for a SAP newbies like me................................

[Former Member]

thank you sir it is really helpfull for me .

[Former Member]

Hello Sir,

I totally agree with the advice you gave to gautham. So becoming a bit greedy i would like to seek advice from you sir. Well I am certified ABAP developer with 1 year of exp. in india. I shifted to london last sept'12 . Since then i m searching for job here , i havent got a single intw call since 6months. I am confident enough that i can crack the junior level intw if i get a chance. Really dnt know what to do to get a intw chance atleast ..really frustrated by trying now.

[Former Member]

Hello Drashti,

It would be best if you started a new thread with perhaps more detail so that more folks will see your question and give advice. It would have been better for you if you could have spent more time in India on ABAP before you transferred. Many employers see any employment for less than 2 years as suspicious. I'm sure you had valid reasons for moving, but the move has made your job search more difficult. Essentially, that year will count for nothing which leaves you as essentially unexperienced.

Certification without experience also holds very little influence, so essentially, you're on the same level as a fresh college graduate. You're not a native and you're competing for jobs with natives. That's also going to count against you to some degree if you have VISA or other job related documentation/sponsorship requirements. (I don't know how freely folks from India can work in the U.K. and vice versa. I know that Indians working in the US require special VISA's that impose extra burden and expense on the employer.) This will also potentially decrease the size of you your potential employer base as some companies (for example defense industry) require citizenship.

I don't have any really good advice for you in your situation other than to be persisitent. Research companies that run SAP and apply through their corporate web site rather than limiting your search to only those companies searching through the major job boards. (Apply through job boards, in addition, of course.)

I realize that you probably know multiple languages and that English is probably not your first language. Overall your English is good, but I recommend that you have a friend who is native to the region in which you currently live look over some sample correspondence and suggest ways to improve your language so that it flows smoothly to someone from your current area.

I know this email was casual and you would have made sure that all of your punctuation and capitalization was correct before sending it to a potential employer, but I recommend that you "practice like you play". This is an American expression that indicates that you should try to treat every piece of correspondence as if it were a cover letter for a job application. If you practice in your everyday correspondence, you'll be less likely to make mistakes when it counts.

I hope this helps!

Best regards,

  --Tom

[Ranjith418]

Hello Goutham,

Welcome to world of SAP/. Please start with below links

http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/ABAP/ABAP+Development+and+Programming

http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/WDABAP/Web+Dynpro+ABAP+Home

http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/ABAPConn/ABAP+Connectivity++-+Web+Services+ABAP

Thanks,

Ranjith