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Personal Brands and Your SAP Career
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While it is clear that a personal brand can be of enormous benefit at different stages of your career, the question remains - how do you get started building your own personal SAP brand?
Gill Corkindale has written a number of blog posts on personal branding, but the following points are particularly relevant to SAP practitioners. In order to build your personal SAP brand, there are some key steps you need to consider:
- Be visible. No matter whether you are aiming for an entry-level role, or hoping to move into senior management, you need to build your profile in three ways – within your business, outside your business and within the SAP community of practitioners. This may mean volunteering for high profile projects, offering to mentor new employees, running some lunchtime workshops, presenting at conferences such as ASUG or writing whitepapers and so on.
- Seek feedback. Most organizations already rely on performance reports to manage the productivity of their teams, but you can take the same approach to your own career. Talk to your colleagues, your boss, your mentors, clients and partners – ask them how you are performing. Write down their responses.
- Go to interviews. Even if you are not seeking a new job – use the interview process to gauge your position in the market and whether your skills and experience are in demand. You will soon learn whether it is easy or hard to gain an interview – and the interview process will give you vital information about the shape of the job market and help you tailor your skill development plans.
- Rethink your career. Many people think of job titles when they explain their career to someone. Instead of this, start thinking about yourself as your own most valuable asset. Think about the value you bring to a project. Write down all the things that you are most proud of.
- Tell your story. Take all notes that you have gathered above and begin organizing it in a coherent way. How does this tell your career story? What is the start, middle and end? What does the next, unwritten chapter say?
Gavin Heaton is a Business Development Manager working on Learning on Demand by SAP.
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- Diversify
2009-07-03 08:35:54 Vijay Vijayasankar Business Card [Reply]
Nice blog.
If I might add one thing - that will be to diversify your skillset. A person with multiple skill set (technical, functional or combination) will get recognized real quick.
I should also mention the pitfall of trying too hard. Point hunting on SDN comes to mind - it is such a disgraceful act, and people do it thinking it will increase their brand equity.
Hiring managers look for quality not quantity of contributions.- Diversify
2009-07-05 03:42:20 Stefan Koehler Business Card [Reply]
Hello,
> Hiring managers look for quality not quantity of contributions.
Do you really think that hiring managers are looking to SDN? SDN is a nice place for techies and functional consultants to get in touch or exchange knowledge, but i don't think that this platform has any influence on getting jobs.
Regards
Stefan- Diversify
2009-07-05 09:09:32 Vijay Vijayasankar Business Card [Reply]
It is very rare to hire some one without doing a google search on that person. And for SAP - I personally know several hiring managers who search on SDN. Just to clarify - I don't mean HR managers here (they might also search here, just that I don't know for sure), I mean the actual managers who will manage the new hires.- Diversify
2009-07-07 05:25:18 Gavin Heaton
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[Reply]
Yes Vijay ... I agree. The HR managers or even the agencies may get the ball rolling, but when it comes down to the difference between getting an interview or not getting an interview, your involvement in professional communities such as SDN and BPX can make a big difference. It's a way of validating the skills and experience that appear on your resume.
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