Ensure Your ERP Skillset Secures Top Jobs Tips

Here’s another area in which working with an ERP recruiter will help you. Chart out a middle- and long-term career path for yourself. Specify what you’d like to be doing for the rest of your career. Of course, this document will change—it’s intended to! However, how can you reach your goals as an ERP consultant if you don’t at least frame them first?

ERP skills are a big part of the ERP career plan. What kind of ERP job do you want to have in five years? Ten years? Do you see management in your future, or do you want to grow your ERP skills and become a valued SME (Subject Matter Expert)? Do you want to be a project leader or a team member? Asking and answering all of these questions will allow you (and your recruiter) to tailor the acquisition of your ERP skills so that they address the actual ERP jobs, like SAP consultant jobs, you want, both in the short term and the long term.

It seems that there’s always a hot ERP module or technology of the day, but there are also long-term trends that may not be apparent to you. Fortunately, you can follow the market without having to pay a lot of money for custom research. The first and easiest way is to leverage an ERP recruiter’s knowledge of the market. These folks understand the market first-hand and can tell you not only what is hot today, but also what has been in demand over the past several years. This long-term view of market conditions is invaluable in helping you align your ERP skill set with the prospect of getting top ERP jobs such as SAP consultant's jobs.

If you’re inclined to do some of the research yourself, be aware that Foote Partners has some free data on its site that tracks how payment for ERP skills has fared over the years. Perusing this data is one way of helping you understand long-term ERP trends for yourself, although it doesn’t substitute asking a recruiter specific questions.

Some consultants are under the impression that acquiring skills is a matter of taking a few classes or getting a certification. Sure, those kinds of activities are part of building a skill foundation, but they don’t necessarily translate into getting top ERP jobs right off the bat.

You shouldn’t be discouraged from adding a new skill, or from pursuing what you think is going to be the next big SAP ERP or Oracle ERP skill, but you should be aware of the lag time between the beginning of your skill acquisition process and your ability to land an ERP job such as a PeopleSoft consultant job, with that skill. Current market conditions do not favor quick turnaround of a new skill into a job, unless you’re very lucky or it’s a truly opportune niche driven by a merger or some such major event. For that reason, be sure that you are willing to wait to monetize a skill; if you’re chasing the quick buck with crash courses, you’re not likely to succeed.

How well your ERP skill set positions you for top ERP jobs is also a function of where the marketplace as a whole is heading. For example, if the next big frontier of ERP implementation will come in the small- and medium-sized business (SMB) segment, then trends within this segment will impact your ERP job prospects. Try to find the answers to questions such as, "What are the implementation priorities of SMBs?" and "What modules are they likely to buy?" They could have a direct bearing on your career.

That’s just one example of a general way of thinking. The point is to think not only about the vendor side of the equation but also about the customer, and potential customer, side. Are there emerging geographies in which ERP will be more important? Any mandates or other business issues that will make ERP adoption a must in a particular vertical? Research long-term market trends such as these and you’ll have extra time to align your ERP skills with the shape of the market itself.

Sometimes, aligning your ERP skills with top ERP jobs is about being able to distinguish between what you do for cash and what you’re doing for your career. For some lucky ERP consultants, there’s no distinction. For many other ERP consultants, what they’re doing to survive isn’t always the same as what they should be doing to advance their ERP career.

For example, some ERP consultants are making a living doing ERP jobs that will be passé in a matter of several months, or a few years at best, and at the end of that time they’ll find themselves out of step. Don’t tread water! Grab the easy money, sure, but think about your career as separate from the project you’re doing today, or the kind of ERP consulting work you’ve previously done. Your career is where you want to be in the future, both personally and professionally—so ask yourself what you’ve done lately to get there from here.

The ERP skills of tomorrow are going to be business process skills. Instead of having experts in modules A, B, and C, there will be experts in configuring order to cash processes, promise to ship experts, and the like. In fact, that day is already here, as ERP consultants with business process skills have begun to eclipse ERP consultants who are more skilled at technical configuration.

To that end, if you really want to make sure your ERP skill set is aligned for top ERP jobs, prepare for the business process future. Start by understanding the processes that underlie specific ERP deployments. Read books, take courses, and even get certifications (such as the SAP BPX certification) that build and prove your skill at business processes. This kind of career development may not pay immediate dividends, but given the way the wind is blowing in the ERP world, it’ll line you up for top ERP jobs over the longer term.

Often, consultants become focused on their specific modules without thinking about the underlying technology trends. For example, in the world of SAP ERP, Java has become steadily more important over the past few years, regardless of the specific module in which it appears. Therefore, someone with expert Java skills can now fare better in SAP ERP jobs, even if the module they’re expert in isn’t hot at the moment.

Remember, skill at the high level isn’t the same as modular skill. High-level skill can be repurposed, and expertise in a major technology can, in certain scenarios, make you a more attractive ERP consultant than someone whose ERP skill is limited to just one module. Therefore, if you are an ERP consultant whose foundation is technological expertise more so than business processes, try to develop skills that cut across modules. It’s an investment in yourself that should pay off again and again, as you can add new modular expertise as you go.

Y2K was a huge business driver for ERP. However, that was yesterday. What’s new today, and what is likely to be new tomorrow? The answer to that question lies with the factors that are making businesses invest in ERP. These factors are in constant flux, making it hard to second-guess the market. However, some business drivers are clear.

For example, in the mid-2000s, it was clear that FDA mandates for drug pedigrees would impact how pharmaceutical supply chains employed track and trace technology, including links back to their ERP systems. These days, the presence of smart readers in the gas and utilities space is driving similar configuration changes in ERP. Some business drivers are larger than others, and can offer insight to consultants looking to align their ERP skill sets to top ERP jobs. The more you know about such business drivers, the better your positioning for those ERP top jobs.

If you have a recruiter, ask them for detailed impressions of the ERP vendor with which you work most closely. Right now, there’s no such thing as a generic ERP consultant; there are SAP consultants and Oracle consultants, with each group having its own trajectory. Under those circumstances, it’s all the more important for you to develop a detailed understanding of your vendor of choice, because the decisions made by the ERP vendor will have serious implications for your career.

A recruiter is well placed to offer you advice about the directions being taken by an ERP vendor, and the impact they will have on your ERP skill set, but you should also follow developments on your own. Do you attend developer events sponsored by your vendor of choice? It might be expensive, but it’s a direct glance into the future of your profession. Do you read about the vendor in trade magazines and books? Whatever your particular approach, your chances of matching your ERP skill set to top ERP jobs increase if you develop a better understanding of your vendor.

You’re not necessarily the best judge of how, or where, your ERP skills situate you in the job market. Recruiters, on the other hand, match skills to jobs for a living. Therefore, it makes sense to send your resume to the right recruiter. You’ll get honest and helpful feedback on how your skills align with the market.

You may get some pleasant or unpleasant surprises, depending on your existing impressions. For example, there have been many cases of ERP consultants who thought their skill sets were dated or unpopular finding out that, on the contrary, they were still in demand. On the other hand, there are also consultants who have overestimated the market for their particular focus areas. Whatever the case, if you really want to know where your skills fit into the big picture, you need to work with an experienced ERP recruiter who knows the market well and can give you the latest information.