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Ask us: A SAP Recruiter in Germany (24 - 28 Oct 2022)

David_Chaviano
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert

Welcome to “Ask Us”, an opportunity to submit questions to an expert or leader in SAP over the course of a few days to better understand what they do, how they work and what development path they followed.

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Between 24 - 28 Oct 2022, Kathrin De-Ying Ding, an early Talent recruiter for SAP in Germany, will be here to answer your questions about recruiting practices in Germany, her career, best practices on how to get hired and anything else you can think of!

Playing a supporting role in answering questions will be Stefanie Platz and Rico Sattler as well.

Note: Recruiting & hiring topics outside of Germany cannot be covered in detail here as each region/country varies greatly in their recruiting requirements and practices.

Post your questions below before or during the active period to get a response from Kathrin. Have fun!

16 REPLIES 16

What are some of the most important qualities that recruiters are generally looking for that are not role specific?

 

Hi ABCDEFG123, for me as a recruiter it would be the following:

  • to communicate effectively
  • to organize and prioritize your work / time management
  • to collaborate with others / team work
  • to be problem-solving-oriented

Of course also being:

  • passionate
  • motivated
  • competent
  • reliable

Some jobs say they want people that are fluent in both English and German. Is this a very strict requirement for those job postings?

Hi Sairam, it always depends on the job/role and the hiring team.

For example: Someone in Sales or Consulting have to speak English and German fluently in Germany, because they are in a customer-facing role and interacting with customers (in their preferred language). 

Usually when the language requirements in the job posting state "fluent in both English and German", you should be at least on a "B2" level. Be prepared to have the interview in German - this might happen! However, some teams are not as strict as others and might even consider candidates with B1-level.

David_Chaviano
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos

Hi @former_member12316 ,

I have a potentially controversial one for you! Do you ever encounter job postings which have a potential candidate who is already unofficially "preselected" for the position? 

0 Kudos

Hi @David_Chaviano

For published job postings we usually don't have an unofficially "preselected" candidate yet. What we do have sometimes are so called "preferred" candidates who the hiring manager or hiring team already know, have worked with or were in contact with. However, this does not mean that the "preferred" candidate will get the offer for sure. The hiring manager and team will usually always still review all forwarded applications to make it fair for everyone. If they think that other candidates might be a potential fit as well, they will interview them and at the end compare them with each other before making a final decision.

0 Kudos

Hi Kathrin,

I have a very important and urgent question for you. but unfortunately, I don't want to post it in community, So, I have directly pinged you in Teams, Kindly check once if you get some time.

Thank you

Best Regards,
Padmanava

Hi @former_member41655

Sure - no worries. I just got back to you on MS Teams. Hope, my answer helps somehow. All the best!

0 Kudos

Hi @former_member12316 ,

Thank you so much for your valuable response, yes definitely it's helpful. I also replied to you back on MS Teams. check once if you get some time. Thank you.

Best Regards
Padmanava

0 Kudos

Hello 🙂
what is the best way to find a for me fitting position within SAP that may be even outside of my current team?

Hi @former_member41870

The best way to find a new position is to take a look at our internal or external SAP career website (www.sap.com/careers). All current job openings are listed there. When searching for a fitting position, you can filter by location and/or key words and pick the one that interests you most. If there are no job openings that match your interest at the moment, you can also set up a "job alert", so that you will be notified automatically via email once a new matching job opening has been published. Alternatively for employees, I can also recommend to use our "SAP Career Counseling" service. 

David_Chaviano
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos

Hi @former_member12316 ,

What would you say is the optimal profile for a recruiter? (In terms of characteristics that best fit it as a career.)

What role do you have in writing job descriptions?

Do you participate in interviews of the candidates together with the hiring manager?

What is the largest challenge you face in your day-to-day job?


Hi @David_Chaviano,

I can give some insights to your question. There is no one perfect profile for this role. Looking around in the TA organization we see people with a huge variety of backgrounds. People skills are of course on top of the list when it comes to recruitment. Listening and communication skills are both fundamental when it comes to understanding the profile a hiring manager is looking for, as well as identifying the best candidate to match the position. The university backgrounds you see the most in recruitment are human resources and business, psychology, and sociology I would say.

At SAP most job descriptions are written as a draft by the hiring team, we as recruiters act as advisors, provide input and corrections for the job descriptions in close collaboration with the hiring team.

The interview process depends on the position that is to be filled. For most non-headcount relevant positions i.e. student positions, there is usually only one interview round, which is conducted by the hiring manager, or a member of their team. For other positions we as recruiters might conduct prescreen interviews before the hiring manager interview. That recruiters and hiring managers are conducting an interview together is rarely done, if the manager requests the presence of a recruiter.

One of the largest challenges in a recruiter's life is to provide a good hiring experience for all candidates, and the hiring teams, to create a process that is fair and results in matching the best suitable candidates with positions.

Hi @David_Chaviano

Thanks for all those questions!

I can only agree with what my colleague, Rico, wrote. Just one comment in regards to the interviews. We as recruiters do sometimes conduct interviews with managers. This is especially true when it comes to so called "Interview Days" - which is quite typical for developer or designer roles that we are hiring for the Innovation Center in Potsdam. Throughout a day we will interview several candidates with the hiring manager together. Nevertheless, it would be impossible for us recruiters to do all interviews with every single candidate, because we usually have a lot of positions to recruit for at the same time. Therefore, as Rico mentioned already, we usually only conduct the interviews with the hiring managers, if they ask us to support them. 

former_member13571
Associate
Associate

Hi @former_member12316

what would you say - what are the three most in-demand roles at SAP at the moment? What skill set are you looking for?

 

0 Kudos

Hi Constanze, 

That is a really difficult question to answer. 🤔

My colleagues and I would probably say:

  1. Software Developers - one of the key roles for our company to be and stay innovative.
  2. Consultants - to help our customers use the acquired solution quickly and efficiently.
  3. Sales, Presales und Customer Success Partner - to make sure that not only we will be and stay successful, but also to help our customers to become an intelligent and sustainable enterprise.

In the field of software development, you should enjoy analytical work and programming.

In consulting, you should be passionate about working with different customers, listening well and working in a solution-oriented way.

In or as Sales/Presales/Customer Success Partner, you should have strong communication skills and a very good understanding of the challenges our customers face.