SAP Certification during recession to enhance career?

Question

I have completed MCA (Master of Computer Applications) last year. Now working as a Jr. .Net Programmer in a small IT company. But I am not satisfied with my current position. I want something better than this. My educational record is good. But I haven't faced a single interview in last 5 months. So there is no hope to get a better opportunity as a .Net developer as I have just 5 months exp.

So I am thinking of doing SAP Certification. Its duration is 1 month and the fee is Rs.3,08,000 (about $6000 or €4400). I am reluctant to proceed because it is very costly. Also I don't have so much experience. I have heard that SAP is beneficial if candidate have 3-4 yrs of experience.

So will it be high risk in such a recession period? It is better option to do SAP certification for an inexperiened candidate? If yes, then which certification will be a better choice for me? (as there are various courses on SAP)

Which will be more beneficial as I have already done MCA and am working on .NET technology?

Answer 1

I find it strange when people ask complete strangers to suggest what their career path should be. This should be a well researched and analyzed decision that you should take only after weighing the pros and cons of each option. You should keep in mind your own aptitude and interests before you decide.

The demand for technologies will always go up and down. Recession should not be a reason to switch careers, unless you hated your present career in the first place.

By the way, you have only a few months experience at this time. Why the cynicism and pessimism ? Success in any given field comes with time and perseverance. I'm not saying that you should be "satisfied with your current position" and not "want better". But be patient, build your skillset, develop a considerable level of familiarity with new and upcoming technologies and you should be able to ride the recession easily.

Answer 2

I'm not sure what will be happening with SAP ecosystem in the future. In Germany SAP stopped employing new people since last autumn completely, which is quite a shock for IT market. I also heard a story from a colleagues about his relative who has been doing SAP teachings and has virtually no orders in the past few months.

Another colleagues that a few years ago took some SAP course with a group and has some SAP-certificate-like-paper could not find a job. I understand it nobody in the group could.

I believe SAP certification without SAP experience is nonsense. Another nonsense is to pay your own money for it since most people obtain those certification at no personal costs while working in their companies.

My personal answer would be "Don't do it". Unless you find a job in a SAP-related company that will pay for all the courses and certifications.

Answer 3

Why not take up a certification in .Net itself (if there is one like that. I am not sure as I am a Java guy)? Even if you don't write the exam, you can always read the certification book, which will teach you a lot about .Net.

Trust me, I wrote the SCJP exam in Jan, and as part of preparation, read up Kathy Sierra's book. My eyes were popping open and my brain was constantly going, "Aha!!" with a lot of things that I never knew about Java, or had always wondered why certain things were the way they were.

But I haven't faced a single interview in last 5 months. So there is no hope to get a better opportunity as a .Net developer as I have just 5 months exp.

From this, I assume that you are afraid that you might flunk in the interviews since you have 'only' 5 months experience. The best way to avoid this would be to read up on .Net by browsing articles, books, etc. Another way to look at this is to attend interviews with an expectation that you might not answer all questions correctly, note down the questions that you failed to answer, and look them up after the interview.

Do this a few times and your knowledge of .Net internals should slowly increase, giving you confidence.

Answer 4

Like Shivasubramanian A said , pass certification in .NET, there is a big gap between someone who knows drag and drop on the UI interface in .NET and someone who masters many technologies in .NET and read blogs about .NET(asp.net,wpf,wcf, vsto, sharepoint, winform,asp.net mvc, enterprise libraries)

Answer 5

Most importantly, I don't think you are really aware of what SAP is. You do not want to spend a lot of money on it only to find that you do not enjoy it.

It would be far better for you to get started in it first and then get a company to pay for you to go on the courses.

Plus being certified in a particular area of SAP does not guarantee you a job.

Answer 6

It sounds like you are pretty new in the IT industry. Therefore, my suggestion would be to get a year or two of experience under your belt as a developer. (Changing jobs in that time is optional, but helpful if you're totally unhappy.) That'll make it easier to switch jobs and also get a better understanding of which parts you enjoy and which you don't.

Switching to SAP is a tricky thing. As others have suggested, focusing on your current path It will be easier to get some success stories for your CV. Then you may switch to other paths. I'd not take a path to SAP "on my own". There isn't anything you can do without access to an SAP system, and that isn't something yo'd just install and use like Visual C# or VB. There are some free SAP server versions floating around, but they are old and not much use. So "working" in an SAP environment usually requires to be employed by a company that uses than environment. If you can show some promise as a developer, they'd be happy to have you slowly move into that environment and provide some training.

Here in Germany, certification in SAP is almost a bad thing. Usually only people that "have time" (i.e. unemplyed people) get a paid certification (most of the time even paid by government agencies). Those that are good, usually work in projects and don't have the time for a certification. Also, certification is sometimes seen as a way to make some money for SAP. (These points are simplifications, so please don't be offended.)

Things may be different where you are working, so please use your own judgement.