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10 Tips and Tricks on how to deal with SAP Recruiters
If you work or want to work as SAP freelancer consultant you will need to work with SAP Recruiters and SAP Agencies. This special breed is who will find you a good project and client. Lets be serious – if you are a SAP freelancer you are not a sales guy!
SAP Recruiters are sales people who call hundreds of clients each week and can find projects for you. They will do the hard job of finding client needs. Or do you have time to call SAP Managers or investigate who is the decision maker in a big customer? Forget it!
SAP Recruitment consultants know the market, talk with hundreds of people (consultants, managers, directors,…) and know where the projects are, who pays more and who is the decision maker.
Today we give you 10 Tips and Tricks on how to work with Recruiters and take the most of their job:
1. Always keep SAP Recruiters updated about you availability and contacts
They will contact you when you are becoming available and will have the correct mobile phone and e-mail to contact. If you have a good profile they will pro-actively search for a project for you2. Give them your daily rate higher than you can accept
Even if they work on a margin (10-20%) of your rate it is known the lower your rate the more chances they have to close the contract. Give them a slight higher rate so you can negotiate it down if needed. But be flexible and talk to them.3. Reply to their e-mails with your CV and availability
Recruiters hate when you only reply “I am not available. John”. They will always reply and ask you when will you be available and where you are working4. Tell them where you are working
This will also give you credibility on the market. If the client ask you not to give that information don’t do it.5. If your client is looking for a SAP consultant let them know but…
Recruiters are always looking for new opportunities. You can take advantage. Give them that information but ask them a referral fee or a percentage of their deal (if they close it). They are sales and will take your offer6. Be nice
Even if you receive 5 calls a day be nice to them. They are only doing their job. If you are arrogant or not nice they won’t call you again and will prefer another consultant7. Don’t say you don’t give references
If you don’t give references of your work they won’t hire you. Be careful though and only give references (your Project Manager name) if they book you the interview and if they tell you in advance who is the client8. Don’t try to full them
Many SAP Freelancers want to hearn more more and think they will get it if they work directly with clients. Don’t try to trick Recruiters and contact their clients directly. This will give you bad reputation. And after all, agencies should pay quicker!9. Work as a team
Find 1 or 2 good recruiters and work together with them. Tell them who is looking for consultants (if you know), give them new contacts (freelancers and clients) and ask them to call you firts and to give you good rates.10. Always ask a job description
Sometimes SAP Recruiters call you with fake jobs only to get some information about you. Never send your CV if they don’t have a job description. Even if the job is not fake if they don’t know the project they won’t control the client to close the contract fast enough. -
How much a SAP freelancer should charge?
The rate is one if not the most critical part of working as a SAP freelancer. You can’t run away from your experience and your cv and you can have good or less good selling skills. But at the end you will close that deal and secure that contract because your rate is acceptable to the client. You should be prepared to negotiate!
SAP freelancer consultants make their rate (daily or hourly) in two ways. First they start asking for the market rate. They ask colleague and other SAP Freelancers how much they are charging to clients and ask the same. More experienced SAP freelancers that work as freelancers for a while will ask the same or a bit more than they charged the last client.
So how much should you charge?
Before asking how much colleagues are charging or getting advice from someone else you should think by yourself. If you are starting as freelancer and are leaving your current job then you need to earn more. Be aware that you might work less than 12 months a year, won’t get benefits from the company and will have to pay your own taxes. So, if you were earning 50k a year you should think about asking at least 50k/10 = 5k a month. This is around 250€ ($ or £) a day. If you had 100k/year than we are talking about asking 500 a day. Then add something more and you’ll be earning more money. I would say ask around 300. You should charge what is worth to you and will make you happy. Lower your expectations and everything you get above that will be a bonus.
We know that 300€ is a low rate for a freelancer consultant but with this method you can see how much you have to negotiate and still be happy.
Now ask your colleague how much they get and what they think about it and you can have an idea. Probably you’ll start asking around 400-500 a day depending on the skill and experience you have. Don’t be afraid to start from the bottom.Different rates for different roles?
Yes. You need to get a full job description with the required tasks, skills, location and duration of the project. If the job requires high responsibility (freelancer roles almost always do!) you should ask more money for the risks you take. But don’t go crazy.
Then you will have the location issue. If the job is in your home town than you don’t need to charge more for expenses. If you are required to travel then you have to consider it so you don’t loose money. Finally we have the duration. It is totally different if a company offers you a 1 year contract or just 3 months. You should also consider the possibility of getting extended and if the project you will be working is schedule to last long time or not. Longer contracts give you guaranty of work for a longer time and you can go with you lower rate.Negotiate always!
Be prepared to negotiate. Be flexible. Clients will like that and will consider you a good professional who is interested in their project. Obviously you shouldn’t go as low as they want as clients will want to pay as less as possible. When starting a negotiation you should set a minimum price on your mind but ask something more. If the client accepts the higher rate then bingo for you but if he doesn’t you can negotiate and secure the project.
Ask or don’t ask how much they pay?
If you ask clients or agencies how much they want to pay they won’t tell you. Probably they have an idea of their budget or if it is a consultancy they will know for how much they closed the project. The reason they don’t tell you this is because they know how much you want. If you want less than they can pay it is bonus for them. Most of the times you will ask more than they can pay and they will then make you an offer.
What I usually say is it is not the client you says how much the job costs but the electrician who gives a budget! If you need an electrician or a plumber its not you who will tell them how much you will pay for the job but it is them who will tell you how much they charge. Easy! -
How to build a strong SAP ABAP CV
A good SAP consultant is more than a CV. You know that a CV is a piece of paper or in our times it’s just a word or pdf file. Everyone can write a nice CV but not everyone can develop on SAP ABAP.
You know that only with an interview and working onsite you can prove how good ABAP you are and that you can adapt to new situtations everyday. But is also true that a CV is the foot in to get an interview and then get that position on that great project.
When you apply to any position you will first face a Recruitment Consultant and only if your CV is good and you have a good Recruitment Consultant beside you you will get that interview. In the meantime you will also need to provide a good reference.
On this process the client will ask the Recruitment Agency some CV’s for a specific role and usually they request experience in several ABAP areas like sapscript, smartforms or BAPIS. When the client receives CV’s from your agency he will look for your experience and search for the specific areas he needs. Even if you are good developing ABAP the client will decide on an interview only with your CV. You can now see how important this piece of information is.
Writing your ABAP CV
Make it short and precise. Start with a small introduction of your profile. Write how many years experience you have and if you are specialized in any specific area (ABAP HR, e.g.).
SAP ABAP Consultant & Developer with 11 years experience, certified by SAP and good knowledge of logistic areas such as MM and SD. :
Then you can put your training or go straight to your project experience.
BC400 – ABAP Workbench Foundations & Concepts
BC405 – Programming ABAP Reports; ABAP Dictionary (BC430)
BC410 – Programming Using Dialogues; Remote Function Call in ABAP (BC415)
BC425 – Enhancement & Modifications; SAPScript Form Layouts (BC460)Before your project experience you can also state your areas of expertise and your level. This will help the client see how you evaluate your level and in which areas you have worked. You can also write this at the end and ad the last year worked and up to which version.
SAP Technical Skills
Component / # Years of Use / Level (1-5)ABAP 8 5
ABAP-OOP 5 4
BADI / Exits / BTE 7 5
BAPI 6 5
ALE / IDOC / RFC 7 5
BSP / ITS 2 4
Workflow 1 2
Authorizations 1 4
SapScript 2 3
SmartForms 2 4Going into the project section you need something like this:
Client X
January 2009 to February 2010
AmsterdamPosition: ABAP Senior Consultant
Description: This was the implementation of Enterprise Version (4.7) in Client X. The largest client in the country. The project involved 200 consultants and a universe of more than 5000 users. Working very closely with the functional team to built up a mission-critical add-on (contractors work management) that integrates with MM and SD . I have used OOP to develop many enhancements and new developments, making extensive use of BADI’s, GUI Controls (ALV, Tree), Classes, Interfaces and Events. I have also contributed, with my experience in ALE, helping out the data migration team (Materials and Customers).
To finish your CV you need to ad your language skills. There should be no need to ad languages where you have basic skills. For an SAP project you will need fluent or at least intermediate. Almost everyone speaks English so it should be better than speaking basic Italian. You can use the European evaluation model for this and evaluate your language skills on Listening, Reading and Spoken interaction.
If possible try to get as many details as possible from your client or agency. With this information you can write a specific CV for the role you are applying to. If the client asks someone with a good experience in BADI’s then you can specify every project you worked with BADI’s
Any question let me know!
I also recommend to read this article:
The Most Common Mistakes Job Hunters Make When Writing Their Resumes and How to Avoid Them!
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