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SAP Certification

Top 10 Myths about SAP Certification

Posted by Ravi Sankar Venna in SAP Certification on Jun 13, 2012 4:00:53 PM
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SAP Certification has helped many individuals to achieve their career goals. Many consultants have achieved decent breakthrough in SAP arena or updated their current skill set. SAP Certification is not the ultimate the thing in your career. There is definitely something beyond this. By saying this, I would like to point out some of the myths regarding the SAP Certification. I am in no way disputing the value of SAP Certification and it has its own merits, as I have done 6 different certifications from SAP. These are purely my personal opinion and I would like to invite if there are any contradicting views. There might have been many websites discussed regarding this topic. Any overlapping with my thoughts is just coincidental.

1. SAP is Certification will give definite job guarantee

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Many people are with the intention; passing SAP Certification will give them a definite job. SAP Certification has helped many people, particularly in the past, to achieve their goals in their career and cherished their dreams. That does not mean that SAP Certification will give guaranteed job for everybody who has passed. Having said this, people going for SAP Certification, it is recommended to have the domain knowledge in particular functional area. In the initial booming days of SAP, many people are able to achieve the jobs based on SAP Certification, but those days are gone now. The number of certified consultants got increased day by day in the market and the companies are more matured to look for practical experience rather than just a certification. If the people think that just passing SAP certification will give a guaranteed job, then they may have to rethink.

Your

2. SAP Certification will give you definite & good ROI

There is no standard yardstick that every SAP Certification will give you a good Return on Investment (ROI). SAP Certification might have helped many when they are intending to jump into SAP Consulting Career or a job in SAP market. Nowadays, the skills are getting redundant very quickly; hence, each certification may not give you good amount of ROI. There are many people invested huge amounts into SAP Certification by taking bank loans, but miserably failed to get any returns out of it. Please do not be under the impression, if you go to SAP Training for 5 weeks and pass the Certification you may recoup the investment within a year or so. It may definitely not happen in all the cases. You should be prepared to see the other side of the coin.

3. In order to get a SAP Job - SAP Certification is a must

There are many people in the market who are non certified, earning good amount of money than the Certified Consultants. Therefore, Certification is not a must for you to fetch a job in the market. However, if there are two people shortlisted with the similar skills and experience, probably, in such situations, the Certification will give you an edge. Otherwise, the customers are looking for the people who can effectively deliver the goods without certification. It is not my intention to tell that the certified people are incompetent. You will find number of knowledgeable people in Certified Community. You will also find many people who believe they are extraordinary in their own area of SAP, but failed when it comes to passing SAP Certification. Then they start blaming the SAP Certification itself or the people who have passed the SAP Certification (LOL).

4. With SAP Certification - you will be successful in interview

SAP Certification courses are structured in systematic way, hence, it gives you very good fundamental knowledge regarding the concepts. They would be really helpful in order to pass your SAP Certification, if you go through the curricula in a religious manner. However, this will not give you any guarantee that you are going to be successful in an interview. Reason could be the interviews might have been conducted on

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different parameters to see your overall skills, but not just your Certification. Certification may keep you in better position to explain the fundamental knowledge gained during the course of Certification, but it may not meet all the expectations of an interview. Even with certification under your belt, you do not even know what type of questions the interviewer is asking for.

5. With SAP Certification - you will deliver the customer commitments

SAP Certification is a good starting point in your journey of career. It would give you good knowledge about the functionality of the system. Particularly, if you are fresher in SAP area, it would take some years to understand complete end to end business processes. By the time, you might have completed few projects. But even you will feel that you are missing the overall view of such complexity in the system. Probably, SAP Certification will give you knowledge in a particular area. Whereas, SAP is tightly integrated system between different modules, so you may not be able to visualise the total picture. With number of projects under your belt over a period of time, you will gain such high level knowledge. If your current role expects to go beyond your certification to deliver the commitments from other modules, you may feel the pain. But, definitely, you need to take this an opportunity to learn new things.

6. SAP Certification will give you "high-paying" jobs

There is a misconception that as soon as you are certified by SAP, you will get high paying job immediately. There are number of certified consultants failed to make an entry into SAP area. In my opinion, they are mainly unsuccessful because they have viewed SAP as a 25 days course. It only helped them to put that SAP Certification in their in CV in bold and italic. Except very few lucky people, many number of certified consultants are really struggled a lot to make an entry into SAP consulting world, including me not an exception to this. If somebody is thinking that SAP Certification will give you an immediate high paying SAP job, probably, you are under the misconception.

7. SAP Certification is an ultimate thing in your career

Many people think that doing SAP Certification is ultimate thing in life. When you are on a learning spree, SAP Certification is just a negligible part in your total career. If you have enough financial resource and attitude, you would see yourself with a new SAP Certification every month. At the end of the story, SAP Certification is just a multiple choice question test. If your fundamentals are clear, I do not see any reason in not clearing the SAP Certification. The SAP Certification you have done may become redundant in next couple of years. I have done my first certification in SAP FICO 4.6C in 2003, but if you now a days, no customer is using this system. Unfortunately, some people stop learning new things and pretend themselves as if they are the masters in everything. But, as a professional, you should keep your learning habits on for your entire career. Do not just look for SAP Certification, try to think beyond that.

8. SAP Certification may give you good jobs in your area

I have read this point somewhere in an article. The first thing as an SAP Consultant you should visualise yourself as a travel freak. Certification may not always give you the job in your nearby area. If you are in offshore location, probably, you may get job in your preferred location, as every major offshore city is flooded with SAP consulting companies. No client will be intending to pay you money unless you go to onsite and deliver the expectations. There may be a small exception to this for the people who are supporting SAP systems through remote support. But, as an SAP consultant, you should always pack your bags, away from home, eat food whatever you get and sleep wherever you can. SAP Certification will get you a good 9 to 5 job in your area, it may not be true always. If you think your

9. With SAP Certification you may start doing Contract Jobs

Contracting concept you mostly see in Western countries. This concept is getting familiar in Offshore / Eastern countries too. Contracting jobs are lucrative at the same time they are strenuous when compared to permanent jobs. By saying this, I am in no way demeaning the importance of the Permanent Jobs. Many people think that just by completing SAP Certification, they can land up in Contract jobs. But, the things always will not work in that way. The expectations in Contract Jobs are much higher; therefore, you need to check your calibre to handle the roles. No Certification will help in delivering the results within the deadly time lines.

10. Learn SAP only for Certification and Job

Many people think that learn SAP for Certification and get a job. If you are thinking to learn SAP just for Certification and job only, then I would suggest you may better skip to learn SAP. Learn SAP with passion and this passion should drive your career. I would believe everybody should maintain the passion throughout their careers. It is easy in theory but very difficult in practice. At certain age in your career, it may not be possible to maintain the same amount of passion in your career, due to socio, economic and

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physical reasons. But, by that time, you would have become a master in your own areas within SAP. Learn SAP with passion, if you are only looking SAP for Certification and Job, probably, SAP is not the right path for you.

Best Regards, Ravi

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Tags: sap_education, sap_certification, sap_careers, sap_learning, sap_freshers, sap_jobs

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Gregory Misiorek Jun 13, 2012 6:41 PM

certification is only a theoretical test, nothing more and nothing less. it can't replace hands-on system and project experience, no matter how easy or how difficult.

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Ravi Sankar Venna Jun 13, 2012 6:47 PM (in response to Gregory Misiorek)

You are right Gregory. No certification can ever replace a project experience. But, they are many people with good hand-on and project experience, still fail a simple theoretical certification test.
Like (1)

HARSHA murthy Jun 14, 2012 12:13 AM

Hello, Ravi Shankar ji.. U seem to b a Good guide for freshers and all whoz taking certification. i've been working in sap abap from past 1yr and i had enrolled in sap certification online training C_TAW12_04 1 yr back but havent taken its exam bcoz i had been postponing the date. now i've made up my mind to finish up with that within this month. i need to know more about the old pattern of question paper. i know negative marking doesnt count . could u tell me about the partial credit system in some questions. and any other imp tips in old pattern.. thanx..
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Jarret Pazahanick Jun 14, 2012 2:38 AM

Very good article Ravi to help level set expectations around certification especially given some of the articles recently by the SAP Education group. I believe that the SAP Education is FINALLY starting to listen over the past few weeks and I am hopefully they start communicating what is on the roadmap and what they plan to address so that longer term some of those "myths" can become reality. On a side note it is impressive that you have 6 certifications which I believe gives you added credibility when writing an article such as this.
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Ravi Sankar Venna Jun 14, 2012 4:12 AM (in response to HARSHA murthy)

Dear Harsha, Thank you very much for your noble words. Many people join the online training courses for cost effectiveness. But, the negative side of this you will not have that tempo when compared to a class room training. This gives a extra comfort to the participants which may lead to negligence. I am really not sure how this sap examination C_TAW12_04 is valued by SAP. But, definitely, I can give you the difference between old and new pattern of valuation. Old Valuation: You may be given multiple choice questions. Even multiple choice question will have more than one sub stems. Each stem will have a "yes" or "no". You need to select "Yes" if it is correct and select "no" if it is incorrect. Please note that if you leave an incorrect question, then it will be treated as unanswered question and you will not be awarded any marks. For example, out of the 4 sub stems, if you have scored 3 questions correctly and 1 question incorrectly, then you will get

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marks for 3 sub stems correctly answers and you will not be given marks for wrong answers. There are also single answered questions, where you can only select one answer. If you select the correct answer, you will get the marks. If you do not select the correct answer, then you will not get any marks. New Valuation: It still follows the same type of multiple choice and single answered questions. But, for multiple choice questions, within the question itself, they will advise you how many correct answers are there in the question. If you in put any wrong answer in the multiple choice question for any sub stem, you will not get any marks for the whole answer. The single answered questions remains the same here also. In old pattern, you have a privilege to take lottery on many questions (which everybody does, including me ), but in new pattern you lost that privilege.

But, I would not much bother about the valuation and pattern of the exam, which are obviously, beyond our control. Moreover, the patterns will not make any difference as long as our fundamental concepts are clear. I would advise you to complete the course at the earliest and give the exam soon. All the very best. Best Regards, Ravi
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Ravi Sankar Venna Jun 14, 2012 4:31 AM (in response to Jarret Pazahanick)

Thank you Jarret. I am so privileged to receive your comments. In the recent past, I have seen number of questions on certifications and some of the people contacted me for guidance on the certification. Most of them are of intention that certification will change the life over night and they are ready to make any type of big investment for that certification by taking large financial risk. I would only like to address them on this platform. For that matter, every certification (whatsoever) has its own limitations, unless we continued further with the same passion even after certification, it will be just a piece of paper. In this regard, I would like to stress on passion rather than certification. If they have passion, certifications and money will follow one after the other, may not be today, but definitely tomorrow. Thank you once again for your motivating words on my certifications, I too believe that it gives me an extra comfort when attempting a blog on a platform like this. Best Regards, Ravi
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Tom Cenens Jun 14, 2012 7:01 AM

Hello Ravi You already know I'm passionate about SAP and I have a big interest in education / certification as well. I agree with Jarret that SAP has been listening the past few weeks and that they are comitted to take action which is positive. Interesting post, I think you have a lot of valid point there. There is some overlap of different points but that's to be expected of course .

I don't dispute that certifications hold value, it's just that they could hold more value. I do believe specific certifications are useful and I somehow feel that it helped me out to get certified as a Technical Consultant in my first year working in the SAP realm. As a junior the certification gives you added credibility, even though it's only theoritical knowledge. Once I got to a higher level, the certifications didn't change my job much really. Best regards Tom
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Ravi Sankar Venna Jun 14, 2012 7:26 AM (in response to Tom Cenens)

Thanks Tom for your comments. It is good sign if SAP can accept the valid suggestions to make more constructive value to SAP Certification. If they can increase the brand value of SAP Certification, it would be identified as a differentiator in the job market. I have written whatever points come to my mind, hence, there could be some overlapping in thoughts and points I echo your thoughts, SAP certification would help somebody to break into SAP arena or update their current skill set. You are right as a Junior, it would give a kind of credibility. For senior level consultants, professional level certification may give respect among clients and colleagues. But, yes, you are right once you moved to a senior level, certification may not change the job much. If somebody is doing a certification at that level, it is purely their personal interest. Best Regards, Ravi

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Susan Martin Jun 14, 2012 8:00 AM

Thanks Ravi - you have many valid points here. Certification is not a job guarantee but one component in a series of credible "trump cards" that someone has going into a career or progressing in the chosen career. Experience, good references, soft skills, etc. will always play a significant role in rounding off that career profile but it is unlikely to change life overnight if the rest of the trump cards don't align.
Like (3)

Ravi Sankar Venna Jun 14, 2012 9:25 AM (in response to Susan Martin)

Thank you Sue. You have summarized my total post in your own words. I believe this is the gist of my whole thread. Best Regards, Ravi
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Chirag Shah Jun 14, 2012 11:12 AM

Dear Ravi Sir, I am a SAP FI Certified consultant with 18 years of domain experience with only 1 year of experience in the field of SAP. First thing first I agree with all your TOP 10 Myths And here I am sharing my experience on it. I have experienced that there is a vicious circle in learning process of SAP Implementation, that is one will not get a Implementation JOB unless and until they have its knowledge and end user job is not considered while it comes to Implementation JOB. Only a good mentor like you can break this vicious circle by holding their students hand but that can not be the case with all the students. So I would say that getting certified is a starting point to get into the world of SAP Implementation by breaking the vicious circle. If one wants to put himself on fast trek towards SAP carrier without having a mentor in that case SAP certification can fulfill this GAP. Only thing is, as you said, to have patience. The struggle period may vary from 1 year to 3 year depend on your luck and hard work. I have experienced that in this profession no body teaches anything to their colleague or their subordinate. Or one can put this in rosy word that no body can learn anything without having experience himself and no experience in life is free of cost. So getting certified is a cost for those students who want to gain experience without having a mentor like you, Sir. Correct me where ever I am wrong. Regards Chirag Shah
Like (2)

Ravi Sankar Venna Jun 14, 2012 11:32 AM (in response to Chirag Shah)

Dear Chirag, I sincerely appreciate your honest comments on this blog. After having domain experience for 18 years, if you have struggled means, a fresh individual can understand SAP is not a rosy road. In my opinion, if you save the money in a bank, your money will fetch you interest may be doubled. But, if you save the knowledge within you, the it will be depleted. The knowledge will grow 100 times bigger, when it is shared with 10 people. But, in this practical world, you will hardly find any such individuals. I am proud to say, I never hesitated myself in sharing my knowledge. If I really do not know something, I will be the first person to admit that. Even the people of good professional qualifications in addition to SAP Certification has struggled a lot. (including me). Struggle is part of life and we have to accept it. But, then if the people do not get a job after SAP Certification, they should never demotivate themselves and loose focus. Within that time if they can start attending number of interviews, they will come to know what kind of questions are expected, how they should better convince the interviewers. Once you are certified, if you have perseverance and right attitude, surely you will land up in a decent job, if not today, definitely tomorrow. It is only a matter of time. Best Regards, Ravi
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Chirag Shah Jun 14, 2012 11:47 AM (in response to Ravi Sankar Venna)

THANK YOU, SIR.

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John Appleby Jun 14, 2012 2:53 PM

Hey Ravi, I enjoyed this article and agree on the whole. It serves as a reminder that certification is one element of an armoury of overall experience, project battle scars, learning, personality, networking, social media and so many other things. On its own it means nothing. One area I disagree with:

However, if there are two people shortlisted with the similar skills and experience, probably, in such situations, the Certification will give you an edge.

From the perspective of a hiring manager, Certification is never a hiring factor and I believe this is a myth. There are lots of things that I take into account whilst hiring: Intelligence and Potential Cultural Fit Personality, Personability Personal Network Skills Project Experience Domain and Vertical Experience Breadth of overall knowledge Willingness to travel Flexibility Graduate and Postgraduate University Education And lots of other things depending on the role... All of these other things are more important than certification and 2 candidates are very rarely evenly matched. If they were - certification wouldn't be the decisive factor, it would be something else. Regards, John
Like (3)

Ravi Sankar Venna Jun 14, 2012 3:05 PM (in response to John Appleby)

Thanks John for adding much context to this blog. I do accept that no two individuals cannot be same. But, when two people with similar kind of skill set / experience, SAP Certification may (corrected - not will ) give an edge. Need not necessarily Certification is the final deciding factor. But, it could also play a role in recruiter's mind. There are many jobs which are specifically mentioned that you must be a "Certified Consultant". Probably, those kind of companies may do prefer certified people in the said context. Thank you once for your valid points to this thread. Best Regards, Ravi
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John Appleby Jun 14, 2012 3:19 PM (in response to Ravi Sankar Venna)

We'll agree to disagree on this one :-) I would say not "will" or "may" but "will not" give an edge :-) One of the blogs gave stats on the number of jobs that require certification and there may be some regional context here because in Western Europe / North America the number is < 2%. Perhaps it is higher in your market - I'd welcome the statistics. The only instance where I might consider certification as a hiring factor is in the instance of a consultant with 1-2 years experience. In this case, 1-2 project lifecycles plus certification could give a sign that he/she was very keen to learn. However that is a moot point because we never recruit that type of person; we prefer to train graduates with no SAP experience so we can help them learn our way.
Like (3)

Susan Martin Jun 14, 2012 3:35 PM (in response to John Appleby)

Hi John, we are currently doing some research on the job posting point as we believe that to be a very important benchmark in assessing the importance of certification. The 2% mentioned in the other blog was a valid statistic for one job site and one region but it makes more sense to have a

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comprehensive overview of these statistics across regions and across job sites in order to be able to cite it as a benchmark. We will be publicizing the results of that research in the next two weeks and will be giving quarterly updates as a benchmarking exercise. I can understand that you prefer to recruit and train graduates with no SAP experience but I think it is equally important to look at the holistic picture with an ecosystem the size of SAP's. Not every company has the option or wishes to follow this approach and it is SAP's responsibility to ensure that those parties also have a benchmark they can rely on to make smart decisions.
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Ravi Sankar Venna Jun 14, 2012 3:38 PM (in response to John Appleby)

Particularly in Europe what I have observed is no much care about Certification. If you see any SAP Certification Examination Center across the globe 80% (may be more) are Indians. (seen in UK) This could be due to differences between their educational system. I do work in UK, here, nobody much care about the Certification. Whereas, Eastern countries still there is a lot of craze for the Certification. I believe that is the reason SAP will make it a point to conduct one of their "TechEd" in Bangalore (India) every year. I really doubt, if we can get a statistics like that. Because, there are number of jobs floating in the market with number of agencies, recruiters and consultancies etc. But, I would also like to see those type of statistics to know. There could be number of factors that may play a role in a selecting a candidate. I have seen number of graduate trainees, where we have put lot of effort and training, within 2 years, 90% of those people left, that means, whatever training imparted to them is being used for some other employer
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Gregory Misiorek Jun 14, 2012 6:25 PM (in response to Ravi Sankar Venna)

i agree with Ravi and maybe it's because I'm in the middle of the certification life cycle myself. certifications world over are being used for weeding candidates out and SAP is not different in this respect. if there's a hypothetical candidate that matches in all other respects another one, i will choose the certified one. this is a purely hypothetical exercise as no two people are alike and other qualities count if not surpass the certifications. i think John's point is not to discourage someone from pursuing a career in SAP only because they are not certified.
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Stephen Johannes Jun 14, 2012 8:47 PM

As much I agree with the top ten myths, one of my biggest complaints about certification exams is that they are only multiple choice type questions. Perhaps multiple choice is fine for non-developer type cerifications, but even freshman level computer science clases have essay style questions. I still remember getting a few points off of syntax errors on a hand-written exam done with no computers, and just pen and paper. I do not understand how you can be certified as a developer by only answering multiple choice questions. Developer certifications should include essay style questions that involve writing code and not just selecting what is valid from choices. That being said, I agree some people who know how to make the system work will fail certifications due to testing methodology and focus on best practice theory. We would not need the partner system if SAP products were always implemented to best practice processes and every company could adopt these with no changes. I don't think it makes those people less qualifed, it is just the fact once you go into the deep-end of custom processes it's hard to come back to shore. Take care, Stephen
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Ravi Sankar Venna Jun 14, 2012 8:57 PM (in response to Gregory Misiorek)

Thank you Gregory for letting us know your views. There could be different recruiters with different mind sets and priorities depending on the situation, project, cost, time, quality and other factors. In my opinion, having certification is not a bad thing. We do not know how the recruiters / companies look at us with what mind set. If you have all qualities as Sue mentioned plus certification, then definitely, it would be an added advantage. There may be better drivers without license, but the person having the license is considered as driver on the road. I am not demeaning the people who are not certified.
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Ravi Sankar Venna Jun 14, 2012 9:12 PM (in response to Stephen Johannes)

Hi Stephen, Please let me thank you for giving your time and views on my blog. I am not sure how SAP can cope if they want to bring the essay style type of examination. Some of the exams like CISA, CISM exams are paper pencil based exams but still multiple choice question. I still feel that they are strenuous 4 hours exam and many number of people still fail in those examination. Because those exam will not allow the partial credit. In that point of view, I think SAP has made an improvement by removing the partial credit. When the partial credit was allowed many people are

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just used to take the lottery approach, even if it is not correct, nothing is going to be lost, as there are no negative marking. Considering the cost (for correcting, maintaining papers, cost involved, global level language barriers etc.) I really doubt whether SAP will ever go into essay style of essay writing mode for SAP Certification. I do believe that exams like CPA exams in US, Prince2 in UK are also based on multiple choice questions (paper pencil based). It gives them the extra comfort in order to correct the papers at a much faster rate. But, still they are considered to be the toughest exams. I am in no way demeaning your views, but only raising my doubts. I should agree with your best practices point. Currently, most of the SAP certifications are just product based. If SAP can give much priority to include some of the best practices into that examination, that would probably give extra quality to these certifications. At the end, it all depends on the participants how they will stand on their toes to pursue the further knowledge and grab every learning opportunity even after the certification. Best Regards, Ravi
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Chirag Shah Jun 15, 2012 7:35 AM (in response to Stephen Johannes)

Dear Stephen, I agree with you that SAP needs to improve its examination style. In my view:All sap students should be given an opportunity to work with SAP partners on to any live project for a period of at-least 3 to 6 months as a trainee or as an article (Same as how it is there is Chartered Accountancy exams). I have given this suggestion to SAP also when I was not getting job even after certification saying that you do not have any live project experience even though I have life cycle experience (Domain Experience) for more than 18 years. There is a Vicious circle in this profession which is very difficult to break by students themselves where as SAP can help breaking it by improving their education system by training & testing their students from all the angles. If SAP does so, out of 10 myths I guess at-least 2-3 or may be 5 myths may be wave off. Correct me where ever I am wrong. Regards Chirag Shah
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Simon Polovina Jun 15, 2012 7:47 AM (in response to Ravi Sankar Venna)

I would just add that multiple choice questions can be well designed to elicit deep conceptual, applied and technical knowledge having designed such questions myself (not for SAP Education I hasten to add). As for the value of certification I'd concur that in itself it adds little direct value but as a part of a suite of knowledge and experiences it's invaluable, given that certification covers gaps in knowledge that hands-on experience alone misses. Certainty in my experience as an SAP instructor I have often come across experienced SAP Consultants who have discovered gaps in their otherwise excellent professional experience by prepping for a certification. This also raises another valuable point about certification in that it can add value post- as well as pre- experience.
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Susan Martin Jun 15, 2012 7:57 AM (in response to Chirag Shah)

Hi Chirag/Stephan I have a couple of points there. I think Ravi has already covered them quite well but I thought you might want to hear the SAP view as well. 1 - SAP Education are constantly looking at ways to use more innovative examination methods and essay writing has been one of the areas we have looked into in depth in the past and will continue to look into. But the current state of technology in this area offers us neither the scalability nor - and that is probably an even more important point - the objectivity that we would need for a program the size of SAP's certification program on a global scale. Also - as Ravi correctly points out - the majority of our certifying community are non-native English speakers - so we could potentially be introducing a discriminatory testing form which would test a candidate's language and writing skills much more than the core skill set that we are supposed to be validating. But we continue to keep an eye on this area. Certainly in terms of the hands-on testing ideas for developers at more advanced levels there are some interesting technologies available that we are currently looking into. 2 - Chirag - your proposal brings us back to the core of Ravi's blog. Certification is not project experience and should never replace project experience. The steps you are proposing are very valid but that would be a joint skills initiative between SAP and its partners and has nothing to do with the certification. As Ravi said and I reiterated certification is only one of the trump cards and has to remain objective. It is a very good idea but is not related to the certification and will in no way dispel the myths. The myths are simply myths.
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