How to confidently crack SAP interviews.

Ready to attend your next SAP interview?

You got your interview call. You are excited. You don’t want to miss this opportunity. I can understand the stress interviews can bring.

Interviews in SAP can be confusing and freshers particularly freak out at the name of a technical SAP interview. Interviews and Interviewers come in all shapes and forms. The Job could be for a full time opportunity, internship or a long/short term assignment.

Whatever the profile, you have to realize that companies are always looking out for talented resources to work on their projects. Unlike other open systems and softwares, SAP is an ERP and therefore employers are looking for specific skills. A common mistake beginners make is that they approach SAP interviews like Java or dot.Net and many times interviewers make this mistake too, specifically if it is an entry level job. But If you can show your keen interest in the subject and your level of knowledge, its not difficult to crack an SAP interview.

Following are a few tips you can keep in mind while you are into your SAP job search.

Keep your SAP knowledge polished and up to the mark.

Yes, easier said than done. I know everyone will tell you this. But thats true. SAP is constantly evolving and that means companies are always on the look out for new talent so there is always scope for new people to enter the market. While you are learning/working on existing technologies, always keep updating your knowledge and keep reading new stuff in SAP.

• Open.sap is a good resource for upgrading your knowledge as they have a lot of courses on new and upcoming topics.
• www.saptechnical.com and www.sapyard.com are few resources which you can refer to learn few concepts
• off course SCN is a constant source for upcoming articles where mentors share ideas.

Network.

SAP world is small and everyone sort of knows each other. Hence if you want to be in SAP its better to network early. One way to network is by sharing knowledge. Be active in SAP groups on SCN and Watsapp and Facebook. and don’t forget LinkedIn. Connect with members and help them out by answering their questions. If you like a blog ( like this one icon-smile-o ) don’t forget to leave a comment with your views. This way you will also learn about current challenges people may be facing. And may be someone will notice your name and recognize you in an interview.

I am active in some watsapp groups where people ask their queries. Try to take a jab at answering these questions. Sometimes you may be worried that your answer may be wrong, but its better to be wrong in watsapp or facebook than to be wrong in an interview. Right ?

Learn Functional aspects as much as you can.

Many a times we ABAPers get carried away by technical development so much that we forget the basic fundamental rule that SAP is an ERP. We concentrate and debate on technicalities of ABAP constructs that we forget to understand what core requirement is the development catering to. That’s where you can make your mark. If you are working on an ABAP Development, try to find the functional points your development is going to affect. Are there any integration points to other modules ?

Usually an ABAP Development is performed to fill a GAP in SAP Standard Functionality.

For example standard SAP may be missing a report and hence the client wants you to develop it. In such a case try to understand what are few of the possible standard reports available that you could find in  standard SAP in this area? What functionality is your custom report serving?

Be interesting and guide your interviewer.

Many times Freshers belive that interview is like a question and answer session where the interviewer will ask you a bunch of questions and you are supposed to answer them.

This could be true for small time companies and I have attended such interviews, but many times interviewrs are also out there to listen diligiently to what your point of view is. And the best way you can keep them interested is by not just answering them with to the point answers but also giving examples that support your answers. Points like what is the main functionality of the process, what was the Gap, what development was requested, how your development helped to fix the gap, what were your learnings through the development process.

A properly framed answer will show your inerviewer that you have made an attempt to understand the depths of the functionality and not just completed the development as a dumb abaper.

For example: if your interviewer asks you have you worked on any BDC programs. – Dont just say yes I have worked on it. But rather consider that question as an opportunity to explain further -You could top your answer like yes I have worked on various conversion technics, BDC being one of them. I specifically worked on a Sales Order Upload BDC program to upload Custom Sales Order data. We could have used a BAPI to upload the data, however because of the unique client Sales order process, it was a bit difficult to use the BAPI hence we decided to go with BDC. At this time, your interviewer will be interested to know what challenges you faced in the BDC and may prood you to explain the difficulities further. Needless to say you should have every answer thought through in the back of your mind already.

Go beyond the 100 ABAP Technical Interview questions

So many freshers assume they can easily download a set of ABAP technical Interview questions from google, read them and recite them during the interview and bag the job…Ha .. if only it were that easy. Remember just like you, even you interviwewer is a master in googling. ( Who isn’t these days ) . Anyway so basically if you think you can just read out the standard answers and clear the interviews, you are way off your game.

A much wiser approach would be to go through a few practical exercises in the system and be prepared to explain just those scenarios with utmost detail.

For example, Interviewers know that its not technically possible for someone with 3-4 years experience to have worked on everything from BDC, Call Transaction, BADI, ADOBE, WebDynpro, Workflow, FPM, ALE etc etc etc .. So its fair to have an understanding of these topics and try out a few samples in these areas. But then select only lets say 3-4 topics in this list and go into the depth of those with specific scenarios

Try out these in the system yourself. You will encounter challenges – Make a note of these, as these will provide you the well needed talking points during your interview. If you are stuck ask questions – there are a lot of people ready to help you. Then document every step you did and make them ready for your interview. Interviewers want to know, what you know.. not what you don’t know. So if you have hands on knowledge in doing something it will play in your advantage.

There are tons of other tips to upscale your interview skills and take it to the next level in SAP consulting.

Feel free to add your own in the comments section below.