SAP - BASIS and after

[Former Member]

Hi All,

After a couple months of research and thoughts put in, I joined SAP BASIS course in a training institute which gives real time BASIS transition and training. So about me, I come from a support background. I have 3.5 years of experience in Unix, AIX and Linux. System Administration, shell scripting and Performance Testing. I selected BASIS because it suits my current profile and will be easy to pick up as well.

My query is - My company does not use SAP , so once the course is complete or when I am confident enough I need to shift to this profile.

When applying, will I be considered as a fresher in SAP or my admin expertise will come in to picture. Will there be a huge difference in the pay scale if so?

[former_member183424]

Because the your domain experience is not related to SAP, so the experience will not add with SAP BASIS experience.

But it will be domain experience, that is also will be additional experience for SAP BASIS.

About pay scale, its depend on company and your knowledge...

No-one can't say the pay scale for experience and SAP BASIS...

You have to face the interview.

[Former Member]

Hi Aswanth ,

As  per  the interview  performance  and If company will consider your past experience  then the  salary will be as expected.

If they wont consider  your past experience (Not relevant to SAP) , then its your luck and performance  on interview .

[Former Member]

Thanks Anil and Dev for your inputs.

That leads me to another query, see what type of openings should I apply then?

The Job descriptions till now which I have seen have either,

SAP Basis fresher (which is of course Fresher - they ll not consider my experience in Unix)

OR

SAP basis Exp ( probably 1-3 years) where they are looking for some one who has BASIS exp for 1-3 years.

As per your suggestions, It depends on my performance in the interview, but the main thing is what type of job should I apply for to sit for the interview in the first place. Am sorry if I am pushing it too hard or this sounds stupid

[Ambarish]

Sap Basis administrators mainly work on 3 different levels. ( of course all levels at a time) -

1) Application level (SAP)

2) Database level (Oracle, Db2, Sybase, MS-SQl etc.)

3) Operation system (Unix, Windows etc)

As per your post you are already comfortable with 3rd part. Now your task is to learn more on first 2 parts which you can do only with hands on.

You can definitely apply for - SAP Basis fresher , however there will be less number of opportunities as compared to - SAP basis Exp ( probably 1-3 years).

If you are confident in unix you are 33% better than a certified sap basis consultant with 0 industry experience.

Thanks,

Ambarish

[Former Member]

Basis and Developer roles are more "forgiving" than functional roles when it comes to hiring folks and giving them "credit" for domain experience. Your previous UNIX experience is not lost at all and will be used daily in your SAP Basis job depending on how large of a company you join. Smaller companies need their SAP Basis folks to cover more responsibilities (SAP Admin, DB Admin, OS Admin) than larger companies who will have specialists for each role.

When you take your training, you will immediately spot the similarities between OS Admin and SAP Admin. In your interview, you will need to stress your experience and how it relates to similar tasks in SAP. Make it a point of topic in the interview, "I was so surprised when I was in training how similar XXX task was to what I did in my last job, for example this one time I was asked to YYY and this is how I solved that problem."

You are probably qualified for both the fresher and 1-3 year Basis roles. You'll be head and shoulders above the rest of the applicants for the fresher jobs and therefore more likely to get the job. You'll be at a disadvantage when compared to other applicants who have 1-3 years of actual Basis experience, so you'll probably have to apply to more of those to get a successful result. So it really depends on your tolerance for rejection and your salary requirements.

Local markets vary with pay scales, but I imagine that a fresher position would be a lateral move and a 1-3 year Basis position would be a small increase from what your getting now, but again, that really just depends on where you are applying. You'll probably have more luck applying for roles where they are expecting one person to do everything than for a position at a very large company where every person fulfills a very specialized function.

Anyway, it sounds like you're on your way. Best of luck on your search!

Best regards,

--Tom