Breaking into an SAP career: Climb the ladder

QUESTION POSED ON: 22 April 2008 

I'm currently a Microsoft Trainer and an Desktop Support Technician looking for a new career path. I'm looking at SAP for it's good rates of pay as well as the variety of modules one gets to choose to 'specialize' in. I have absolutely no background though, where should I start out? I'm very ambitious and looking at climbing this career ladder as quickly as possible.

 EXPERT RESPONSE:

The first step to breaking into SAP is to spend time learning the scope of the product. There are plenty of web sites and books to review, SearchSAP.com will give you a great feel for the market, for good books for learning about SAP, I recommend the New SAP Blue Book by Michael Doane, as well as the NetWeaver and mySAP ERP for Dummies books. The reason you need to understand the scope of the product? Because the step to breaking into SAP is to figure out how your existing skills fit best into the product as a whole. In your case, I'm not sure which connections you might make. It's possible with your training and desktop support background that you'd be a good fit with SAP HCM (formerly SAP HR), a growing area that includes components for workforce development and Talent Management - two areas that might play to some of your current strengths. So, you find a hot area in SAP, one that seems like a logical extension of your current skills, and you go after it. That's the starting point for breaking into SAP, there is more to it, and I answer questions about this topic a lot, so keep reading, and don't forget to check out the archives also.