How to get hired
Start with an uncomfortable fact: companies that run SAP, Oracle or Salesforce almost never hire a "fresher consultant" off the street. They hire people who have either done the business process for real (posted invoices, raised purchase orders, run payroll) or been trained inside a consulting firm. Everything below is a way of getting one of those two things.
Door 1: campus or off-campus at an IT services or Big 4 firm
IT services companies and the Big 4 hire graduates in bulk and then put a share of them into their SAP, Oracle or Salesforce practices after a few weeks of training. You often don't choose the module; the practice that needs people that quarter gets you. Deloitte's offers for this work often read "Analyst – T&T – ET&P" (Technology & Transformation, Enterprise Technology & Performance). If you're in college, this is the cheapest and surest door. Read our off-campus drives guide for how to get on those lists.
Door 2: be the user first, then the consultant
An accounts executive who closes the books in SAP, a buyer who raises POs in it every day, a payroll executive who runs it each month: these people become "key users", then join the support team, then move to a consulting firm. It takes two to four years, but your interview answers come from real month-ends, and that is exactly what interviewers probe. Pick the module that matches the job you can get today: FICO for accounts, MM and SD for purchase and sales, SuccessFactors for HR and payroll.
Door 3: the support project
Application management (AMS) projects keep a live system running: tickets, small changes, month-end issues, user access. They take juniors more readily than implementation projects, often on UK or US shift timings. A year of tickets teaches you more of the system than any classroom.
Door 4: the developer route
B.Tech, MCA and BCA graduates who code have the widest door: SAP ABAP, Salesforce development, ServiceNow and Dynamics 365 all need developers, and you can practise on free trial systems.
The "SAP course with placement" trap
Institutes sell SAP courses "with 100% placement" at fees that can match a year of college. Before you pay, check three things:
- Who issues the certificate? Only SAP issues SAP certification. A certificate printed by an institute is a course completion letter, nothing more.
- What does "placement" mean? Ask for the names of three students placed last quarter, the employer and the role. Resume forwarding to staffing firms is not placement.
- Does anyone suggest "adding experience"? Some do. Background checks read your EPFO service history, and a fake two years ends offers. Our background verification guide explains what gets checked.
If you are still a student, SAP's own Learning Hub, student edition is free while you are enrolled, gives access to the course catalogue and includes two certification exam attempts. Salesforce's Trailhead and Microsoft Learn are free too. Paste any course or job offer that asks you for money into our job check tool first.
Four kinds of project, four different jobs
| Project type | What you do | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Implementation (greenfield) | Workshops, configuration, testing, go-live and hypercare | People who like building and can travel |
| Support (AMS) | Tickets by priority, small changes, month-end firefighting | Juniors; shift work is common |
| Rollout | Copy a working template to a new country or plant, add local tax and legal setup | People who know India GST and TDS setup |
| S/4HANA migration | Move an old SAP ECC system to S/4HANA: data, custom code, testing | ABAP developers, FICO and MM people with ECC experience |
Migration work will stay busy for years. SAP's mainstream maintenance for Business Suite 7 (the old ECC) runs to the end of 2027, with optional extended maintenance to the end of 2030, while S/4HANA is committed to 2040. On the Oracle side, E-Business Suite 12.2 has Premier Support through at least 2037, so EBS support work isn't vanishing either.