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​Plenty of students think they want to grow up to be footballers, doctors, engineers, and animators. Ever heard of a kid who wants to be an SAP consultant or SAP recruiter? Most wouldn’t have even heard of it.  

SAP is so widely used across different industries and business functions, there are many ways for people to enter the field. At a basic level, people need at least an interest in technology but experience in trade, commerce, finance, sales, and HR are the main steppingstones, especially from the SAP functional consultant perspective.

We asked a few of Speller International’s recruiters what they used to do and how some of their candidates end up in the field.

Speller’s Head of Delivery Jack Bland has a Bachelor of Sport Science, but his first full-time role was in insurance sales. Before joining Speller, he worked in recruitment in the Microsoft.Net market in England’s north-west but joined Speller when he first arrived in Australia and never looked back. 

He finds that technology qualifications such as software engineering are a very common background for SAP candidates especially those in the SAP technical areas (ABAP/FIORI/BASIS/HANA)

“We also see a number of people moving into SAP from business-related roles - this usually starts with being involved in an implementation or upgrade and gaining experience with SAP as an SME on the project,” he says. 

“Having the relevant business process knowledge goes a long way to understanding the matching SAP module from a functional perspective. This is probably the most common way we see people moving into SAP and thus their qualification may match their business field.”

With an Advanced Diploma in Business, specialised advertising, AP Account Manager Brad Lister’s first full-time job was as a customer service officer with NAB. Immediately before he moved to Speller, he was a high-net-worth banker at Westpac.

Brad says new people are continuously coming into the market now (perhaps more than five years ago) with the shift to Cloud technologies and a skills shortage looming, especially in newer technologies. 

“We are seeing a lot of business roles transform into supporting these SAP Cloud systems such as SuccessFactors, Ariba and Fieldglass,” he said. 

Our Managing Director Judy Cole came to Australia backpacking straight from high school and funded her journey through door-to-door sales. She started at Speller as a junior and after learning how varied SAP was, and the range of industries, people and skillsets involved, she has never wanted to move away from it.

“I love that there is no typical background or skillset for someone in SAP,” she says. “One day I can speak to the CIO of a global business and next a warehouse manager for a logistics company, then an SAP grad straight out of Vic Uni – all passionate people inputting into the SAP eco system.

“The good thing about SAP is that there are so many different types of roles that you don’t need to be technical to take advantage of it.

“A huge part of our business revolves around roles such as SAP Change and Training, Business Analyst, Data Analysts, Project Management, SAP Sales and of course, SAP Recruitment. They’re all roles that can work exclusively within the SAP industry without ever needing to touch a technical component.”

At Speller, we believe it is important to encourage new talent to enter the industry whether it be an SAP technical related or a more business driven role.

We know SAP offers great variety and career paths and want to continue promoting it to our friends, children, and peers to help build the next generation of SAP professionals.

And how about you? We would love to hear how you got into SAP.