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Getting trained in SAP is very much in demand and with SAP job market booming the SAP training market is also getting hotter. Everyone from credit card sales man to Project manager is eying to be a SAP consultant. In this article I have tried to evolve a process to select a training institute in INDIA.
Look for following while selecting an institute.
1. Faculty- He should be from industry, not the one who got trained from somewhere and looking for jobs. Most institutes (almost all) give false information on faculty. The best way to crack this is to ask if he is full time or part time. Generally industry people teach on weekends and are never fulltime. A working SAP consultant has much higher knowledge and only he can provide practical insights of SAP implementation.
THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING.
2. Practice time - The institute should must allow you to practice on SAP even after the course is over. It’s difficult to gain confidence in 1 month. (You need to practice for around 3-4 months to gain confidence). Your selection will ultimately boil down to you configuration knowledge (for functional consultants) which can be mastered only through practice.
3. Course coverage- One must ask the institute which areas will be covered in their domain (For details of key topics in each module wait for my other article). It’s difficult to cover the entire domain as SAP is very exhaustive. One must look for key areas in their module and make sure it’s taught. (e.g. Pricing for SD consultants, CIC for CRM consultants etc).
5. Hot areas – Every module has some hot areas and mastering them will give you an edge over rest of the candidates eg – Shimpment, CIN, variant configuration for SD. Identify those areas and make sure that the faculty will train you in atleast two such areas.One more example - IDOC and ALE is very hot for SD, MM and FI consultants.
4. Project experience - No institute can give you a live project experience. One should look for at least a mock project experience. The best possible way is to do a mock project on your own with the help of fellow consultants from different modules and test it. This will improve your competency level by leaps and bounds and will make you fit for a job.
Remember you need to have sound domain knowledge in your area (for functional consultants) before joining any training program.
At the same time one should not look for the following
1. Placement - It’s your responsibility and no institute (other than semmains and that too to some extent only) can provide. Nor it is possible for them to place because of different job requirement. So don’t waste your time in enquiring about placements. Stay away from training cum recruitment programs (it’s a racket to fool desperate candidates). If you have reached the competency level you WILL get a job as market demand is good.
2. Fake experience certificate- The person interviewing you will judge within minutes that you are faking. This might get you black listed. Currently most big companies follow strict background verification process. Be honest master your configuration knowledge and apply for companies which do not insist on live implementation experience. (Around 10% of all the job listings don't insist for live experience.)