QA with Carsten Burghardt, CEC Cloud Services Support, SAP Hybris Viewpoint careers advice blog

QA with Carsten Burghardt, CEC Cloud Services Support, SAP Hybris Carsten Burghardt, SAP Hybris Carsten Burghardt is well versed on the subject of digitalisation.   As Head of Strategic Programs Projects, CEC Cloud Services Support at SAP Hybris he has seen firsthand how organisations, particularly with regard to ecommerce, are having to adapt to the increasing demands of their digital savvy customers. And as a former IT contractor himself, he is well placed to assess how far contractors and the wider flexible workforce are becoming the ‘engine room’ of digitalisation. I sat down with him recently to get his own take on the digitalisation mega trend. Can you please give me an overview of your career to date? I originally started out as a Programmer after studying Computer Science at university, but I realised pretty early on that it wasn’t going to be for me. I found that I enjoyed the ‘business’ side of projects more and so I made the move to consulting â€" acting as a bridge between technical and non-technical teams. Later I moved to IT Project Management (at Logica, now CGI) before deciding to go it alone as a contractor. I enjoyed working on complex projects and helping to solve my clients’ problems, as well as still utilising my technical background. After eight years I was hired by Hybris who needed a Project Manager to help them with their post-merger integration after being acquired by SAP. I was originally hired by a guy I went to university with, which shows you the importance of maintaining your network as an IT contractor. This turned out to be my last client as a contractor as I eventually became a permanent employee of the newly formed SAP Hybris, setting up my own Project Management office to deliver large strategic projects within Cloud Services Support. What are the responsibilities of your current job role? On the one side, I provide support to my team of Project Managers and help them if they need assistance from other parts of the business. I also assign them new initiatives that have been identified as strategic. I am responsible for quality control in terms of processes and standards and ensure deliverables are met on time. I am also an escalation point for any issues that might occur during a project. On the other side, I am the Programme Manager for one of the larger initiatives we have at SAP Hybris, which is a cloud migration project with a number of stakeholders, including external technology providers and contractors. How does SAP Hybris help its clients with digitalisation/digital transformation projects and what role does your team play in this? Primarily SAP Hybris helps its clients through the implementation of our core customer engagement and commerce solutions. Our clients are faced with a lot of digital challenges. Their customers (both B2B and B2C) have growing demands and expectations when it comes to ecommerce functionality and integration across channels. The strength of SAP Hybris is that we can address all of our clients’ channels. Can you tell me about one or two client projects that have been particularly large scale and challenging to work on? Part of SAP’s strategy is to utilise our own database, HANA, through all of our cloud projects going forward. This will create a uniformed technology stack across all cloud solutions, which will make integrations and development much easier in future. HANA is also a complete analytics solution that is optimised for Big Data, which brings numerous decision-making benefits to an organisation. We are currently in the process of migrating all of our clients that are already in the cloud on to HANA. As you can imagine, this is a very large scale project, especially when you consider our client base is growing fifty percent plus every year. The project started last year and is set for completion in 2018. What are the main issues you find your clients face when trying to deliver their digitalisation/digital transformation projects? There is an increasing expectation from consumers that the products and services they buy will be integrated across all of a brand’s touchpoints. For example, they expect that they will see the same offers instore as they will online or if they send an email to a customer service department the person that they talk to in the call centre will also have this same information to hand. To meet this expectation, our clients’ technology solutions are getting more complex. They don’t have all the specialists they need internally, so they have to rely on partners to help them, and the requirements for these partners is always increasing. Our clients are constantly challenged to keep up with the latest market developments, find the right partners to help them do this and make the right technology investments. Are you seeing a culture shift within your client organisations as a result of these digitalisation/digital transformation projects? Looking at it from my area of focus, a cloud migration is a culture shift as the client has to completely rely on a partner for the hosting and security of their data. This reflects the technology market more generally as organisations are working more and more with external partners, rather than trying to keep everything in-house as they did in the past. That’s a clear shift. What is the makeup of your team? Are they all based in one country, or internationally as well? My team is evenly split between Germany and Canada, with one colleague also based in the UK. Normally projects range across different regions and there is a necessity to work remotely. That being said, it is still important to talk to team members face-to-face from time to time and get to know them personally. Building these relationships helps to speed up the working process significantly. As my team are distributed across the main SAP Hybris hubs they are also able to help each other out across different time-zones, which is beneficial. This is a definite advantage of working in an international business like SAP Hybris. Do you ever hire IT contractors to help you to complete your projects? If so what are the advantages and disadvantages of doing this? If I look at the HANA project I spoke about earlier, we have needed a large number of IT contractors as well as external partners to help us to deliver it. There are seventeen different migration teams involved and we obviously can’t resource all of these internally. I have purposely split the teams between contractors and our partners. The contractors work on site at SAP Hybris for the project which accelerates the work as they can speak to our internal teams directly. Our partners work from their own offices. The advantage of using IT contractors is the flexibility they give us, as they allow us to quickly react to changing conditions and project requirements. The disadvantages of using IT contractors is that you can lose their skills and knowledge after they leave the project. This makes a proper handover essential. It can also be difficult to find the right people at the right time and there is also a lot of competition from other companies for highly-skilled individuals. In the future do you think IT teams will hire more people on a permanent basis or will contract / project based work grow in popularity with employers and candidates? SAP Hybris will need both! On the one hand we are trying to grow our employee base in positions we know we will need on a permanent basis, while on the other, trying to hire more contractors in areas where we know demand will ramp up and down. Looking at our client organisations I can see there is a massive demand for contractors and technology partners. This is because technology is not their core competency but the technology demands of the business and its customers continue to grow rapidly. What do you think will be the future trends in digitalisation/digital transformation more generally? Systems continue to become better integrated and larger volumes of data can be analysed to give a more accurate prediction of customer behaviour. The type of projects I was working on at the start of my time with SAP Hybris were concentrated on individual business areas but this year I see a strong demand for projects with more complexity across different cloud products and involving more groups of stakeholders. Ultimately there is a cascading effect in ecommerce whereby one brand is able to utilise technology to deliver an improved service to customers who then in turn start to demand this as standard from all the brands they buy from. What do you think will be the future trends in your own specialist area? I think there will be stronger integrations across cloud products which will making collecting, analysing and sharing data easier. This is a ‘future’ trend but it is something that has already started and it is in high demand with our clients already. Please reach out to Carsten on LinkedIn if you would like to connect or discuss anything covered in this article. If you’re interested in job opportunities, get in touch with one of our local recruitment experts to find out more about Hays IT contracting services. Hopefully you found this blog interesting. Here are some related articles which you also might enjoy: QA with an IT Contractor QA with David Pardoe, Group Head of Data Science, Hays QA with Clare Sutcliffe, Co-Founder CEO of Code Club QA with Matthew Adam, Founder and MD of Silver Training QA with Paul Curzon, Professor of Computer Science

One-Size-Doesnt-Fit-All When it Comes to Resumes

One-Size-Doesn't-Fit-All When it Comes to Resumes One-Size-Doesn't-Fit-All When it Comes to Resumes Continues no longer arrive in a one-size-fits-all arrangement. To be increasingly explicit, you need to know who you need to dazzle with yours and on the off chance that you don't, you're in a tough situation! For instance, there are resumes for: Private division bosses Profession Transition Understudies (to incorporate those looking for entrance into MBA programs) Government Employers Military Transition Presently, do you comprehend the unpretentious contrasts between every one of these kinds of resumes? Rehash this to yourself: My crowd decides the kind of resume I will at last use to get a new line of work. It's not essential to know all the subtleties â€" in any case â€" each crowd is unique and you have to comprehend that just as decide the particulars they will be searching for in your resume. What you do exclude is similarly as indispensable as what you do incorporate with regards to finding a new line of work meet or getting access into a school program. We should investigate MBA continues for instance. Indeed, even idea they are considered 'understudy' resumes, they're not equivalent to applicants applying for school or graduate projects. MBA resumes are for applicants looking for an occupation in 'this present reality. As opposed to displaying their scholarly foundation, they center around a candidate's business discernment or involvement with a specific industry. This demonstrates they have the information as well as the aptitude also. For those entering school or an alumni program, their resumes would lean toward scholarly foundation which would likewise incorporate associations and entry level positions. I need to address private area continues and how they vary from government resumes. Suppose you're looking for a vocation in the financial business. For all reasons, the resume you send would essentially be the equivalent in the event that you sent it to various banks â€" be that as it may â€" in case you're hoping to working at the FDIC, your resume must be designed for that office's prerequisite. You could never send a FDIC centered resume to the FHA, DOD or other government organizations. What's more, the organization is totally unique in relation to that of the private division. You would incorporate data, for example, your standardized savings number, telephone number, area, administrator's name and so on a government continue, things you could never remember for a private segment continue. So remember these tips while going after a position. Don't simply convey a one-size-fits-all resume, focus on the crowd seeing it. Why pick Executive Drafts? One word: Expertise! We are a standout amongst other resume composing administrations in the business, and we know precisely what youre facing, Weve got the experience and abilities to assist you with sparkling on the page. Were hands-on, shared, and dont let you out the entryway until you give us your 100% fulfillment. Moving on from school? Returning from a lifelong break? Progressing vocations? Weve seen everything and we can help. Our Guarantee On the off chance that our resumes arent getting you the outcomes you need, return to us for unlimited free revisions. Were focused on keeping our status as a resume organization that goes well beyond, and will keep attempting to guarantee you get precisely what youre paying for: Results.

Past Age 50 Heres Why Youre Getting Ignored.

Past Age 50 Heres Why Youre Getting Ignored. Past Age 50 Heres Why Youre Getting Ignored. An overview simply out says it takes jobseekers over age 50 roughly 20% longer to get employed than somebody who's age 41-45. Taking into account that the normal length of joblessness now remains at 22+ weeks, we should discuss what necessities to occur with the end goal for you to evade the pattern and land the activity you need in a shorter time. You Think Like A Commodity Initial 2 things everyone does in pursuit of employment: dust off your resume and jump on the web. The issue with online channels, however, is that you're placing yourself in a sold-out arena with a million others, yet anticipating that a mystical boss should reach down and get you and just you. Think outside the activity sheets. Where would you like to work? Rundown the organizations. Don't overthink this from the outset. What industry would you say you are in, have you been in, or would you like to be in? What organizations in those enterprises are inside a commutable good ways from where you live? That is it. The one online stage I need to see you bounce on to is LinkedIn. Actually no, not for Simple Apply, yet for some particular exploration. You just recorded the organizations you're keen on. See who works there who's significant to the employing procedure, regardless of whether they're associated with you or not. Notwithstanding presenting your application through the customary online channels, send a individual note about your aptitude and how you can convey quick effect due to what you see (from your examination) is going on in the organization right presently. You Look Like A Commodity This happens in light of the fact that the abilities you decide to accentuate are not the aptitudes spotters and leaders are scanning for. The most mainstream wrongdoer is, Critical thinking, which is unequivocally not a subject matter. What issues? In what domain? To accomplish what? I comprehend where critical thinking originates from. It's an ideal ability recorded in 99.9% of promoted occupations. Be that as it may, the issue is that when you get down to perusing critical thinking, I ensure you've avoided 10 different components that are one of a kind, center, and vital to the activity. Each one of those things you avoided are the exact focuses I need you to take a gander at once more. Here's the reason this is hard: when an advertisement for Marketing Director says, Produce profoundly viable locale explicit showcasing plans utilizing powerful examination and inventiveness which convey predominant outcomes, whew! That is a significant piece that you presently need to haul a few catchphrases out of, in addition to state on your resume that you do those watchwords. Along these lines, your eyeballs simply skim down to something a little simpler that you can say on your resume, for example, Individuals arranged outcomes driven authority style, with viable critical thinking abilities. Boom! You have 3 watchwords in that spot: Individuals Oriented, Results Driven, and Critical thinking. Simple peasy, correct? Wrong. It's simple for EVERYbody to guarantee filler language as abilities and mastery. I need you to do what's somewhat harder, to abstain from resembling a product. You Talk Like A Commodity Ensured the first inquiry in the meeting is, Thus, educate me regarding yourself. And you state something accordingly. At that point you end your answer and quit talking. I realize that seems like what you ought to do. In any case, what you need to comprehend is that is the thing that EVERYbody does. The example is: they pose an inquiry, you answer it, they pose another inquiry, you answer that. Think outside the box. Hoist your deduction from meet, where you're being addressed, to conference where 2 associates are having a conversation. You're not associates in a similar organization, yet you're very likely partners in a similar industry. A conversation is a 2-way road. Somebody poses an inquiry (OK, let them go first) however you come outfitted with inquiries of your own. Ensure your inquiries aren't 100% self-serving. Suggest conversation starters that show that you led some primer examination, and have defined a couple of considerations and assessments about where the organization is thinking about going. Who do you figure the employing administrator will recollect more: the individual who scratched off all the crates, or you, who thoroughly considered things early and suggested a business approach you utilized effectively previously, that is probably going to take a shot at the item the organization is going to dispatch. Develop, experienced up-and-comers succeed at pursuit of employment not due to offering things like knowledge and life span. You separate yourself when you offer something explicit that others aren't introducing. Make that a normal practice in your pursuit of employment, so they recall you for that, rather than attempting to overlook you as a result of your age. The Age 50+ 'New position Cheat Sheet strolls you through precisely what to do in your pursuit of employment from getting your resume together completely through haggling twofold digit pay increments. This is the thing that applicants ages 55, 57, and 59 are utilizing to land offers in record time. Download your cheat sheet and watch the video preparing so you can figure out how to do precisely the same thing. Past Age 50 Heres Why Youre Getting Ignored. An overview simply out says it takes jobseekers over age 50 roughly 20% longer to get employed than somebody who's age 41-45. Taking into account that the normal length of joblessness now remains at 22+ weeks, we should discuss what requirements to occur with the end goal for you to evade the pattern and land the activity you need in a shorter time. You Think Like A Commodity Initial 2 things everyone does in quest for new employment: dust off your resume and jump on the web. The issue with online channels, however, is that you're placing yourself in a sold-out arena with a million others, yet anticipating that a mystical manager should reach down and get you and just you. Think outside the activity sheets. Where would you like to work? Rundown the organizations. Don't overthink this from the start. What industry would you say you are in, have you been in, or would you like to be in? What organizations in those ventures are inside a commutable good ways from where you live? That is it. The one online stage I need to see you jump on to is LinkedIn. Actually no, not for Simple Apply, however for some particular exploration. You just recorded the organizations you're keen on. See who works there who's pertinent to the employing procedure, regardless of whether they're associated with you or not. Notwithstanding presenting your application through the conventional online channels, send a individual note about your ability and how you can convey quick effect in view of what you see (from your exploration) is going on in the organization right presently. You Look Like A Commodity This happens in light of the fact that the aptitudes you decide to accentuate are not the abilities spotters and leaders are looking for. The most well known guilty party is, Critical thinking, which is positively not a subject matter. What issues? In what domain? To accomplish what? I comprehend where critical thinking originates from. It's an ideal expertise recorded in 99.9% of publicized occupations. Be that as it may, the issue is that when you get down to perusing critical thinking, I ensure you've circumvent 10 different components that are extraordinary, center, and fundamental to the activity. Each one of those things you skirted are the exact focuses I need you to take a gander at once more. Here's the reason this is hard: when a promotion for Marketing Director says, Produce profoundly viable area explicit showcasing plans utilizing vigorous examination and imagination which convey predominant outcomes, whew! That is a significant piece that you currently need to haul a few catchphrases out of, in addition to state on your resume that you do those watchwords. In this way, your eyeballs simply skim down to something a little simpler that you can say on your resume, for example, Individuals situated outcomes driven authority style, with compelling critical thinking abilities. Boom! You have 3 catchphrases in that spot: Individuals Oriented, Results Driven, and Critical thinking. Simple peasy, correct? Wrong. It's simple for EVERYbody to guarantee filler language as aptitudes and ability. I need you to do what's somewhat harder, to abstain from resembling a product. You Talk Like A Commodity Ensured the first inquiry in the meeting is, In this way, inform me regarding yourself. And you state something accordingly. At that point you end your answer and quit talking. I realize that seems like what you ought to do. In any case, what you need to comprehend is that is the thing that EVERYbody does. The example is: they pose an inquiry, you answer it, they pose another inquiry, you answer that. Think outside the box. Lift your deduction from meet, where you're being addressed, to conference where 2 associates are having a conversation. You're not associates in a similar organization, yet you're very likely partners in a similar industry. A conversation is a 2-way road. Somebody poses an inquiry (OK, let them go first) however you come furnished with inquiries of your own. Ensure your inquiries aren't 100% self-serving. Suggest conversation starters that show that you led some primer examination, and have defined a couple of contemplations and assessments about where the organization is thinking about going. Who do you figure the employing chief will recollect more: the individual who marked off all the crates, or you, who thoroughly considered things early and suggested a business approach you utilized effectively previously, that is probably going to take a shot at the item the organization is going to dispatch. Develop, experienced applicants succeed at quest for new employment not in view of offering things like intelligence and life span. You separate yourself when you offer something explicit that others aren't introducing. Make that a standard practice in your pursuit of employment, so they recollect you for that, rather than attempting to overlook you as a result of your age. The

Acing the Phone Interview Talk Time

Acing the Phone Interview Talk Time Acing the Phone Interview Talk Time Reward each meeting as prime time for your profession possibilities, in any event, when nobody can see you.If you are confronting a telephone screen from the get-go in the meeting procedure, make certain to regard it as genuinely as an in-person meet, since you presumably won't get an eye to eye meeting on the off chance that you don't dazzle on the telephone interview.In my years as an enrolling chief, HR colleague and HR executive for Fortune 100 organizations, I've spoken on the telephone with horde applicants and saw many promising up-and-comers fire out at this phase of the determination process.Being arranged for a telephone talk with implies something other than setting up the materials you'll have to reference. You likewise need to get into character and convey those materials convincingly. Section Two of Acing the Phone Interview will control you to set yourself up truly and intellectually for this significant step.1. Pick a timeSet up a particular time for the telephone mee t. Periodically, a questioner will call you and state, Is this a decent an ideal opportunity for you? This methodology doesn't permit you whenever to get readied for the telephone meet. Given that planning is of the quintessence, now and again your answer ought to be, Would we be able to plan a period either later today or tomorrow to examine this specific position? If you sense that there is no an ideal opportunity to squander or the questioner won't trouble getting back to back, approach on the off chance that he can hang tight for two or three minutes. This will offer you a chance to arrange your prep materials and regain some composure before continuing with the telephone interview.2. Go somewhere without interruptions and dress nicely.First of all, consider your closet and the room wherein you lead the call. We're slanted to carry on the manner in which we're dressed. It's an issue of social molding: When wearing night wear, for instance, we're slanted to convey ourselves with more convention than we do in sweats.A prospective employee meeting is the same, in any event, when that meeting happens via telephone. The HR agent calling you will be unable to see you, yet the time you take to put on a good show â€" even in the protection of your own home â€" will improve your odds of progressing to the following round.If you have the chance to plan the meeting, if you don't mind escape your night wear, dress as though you are really going to work for the afternoon, get some espresso and kill all interruptions. In the event that this implies you need to make sure about a private room at your neighborhood library, do it! There is nothing more baffling than leading a telephone meet with hounds yapping, people hollering out of sight or infants crying. Primary concern: It may be ideal to expel yourself from your home. In the event that you have a home office, it would be ideal if you tell your family how significant your call is; you will be secured away your office for at any rate an hour and can't be upset for any reason.3. Three adjectivesa. What is your degree of self-awareness?b. How are your relational skills?Commit to memory three modifiers that portray you and three descriptive words that others may use to depict you. It appears to be somewhat ancient, I know, however it's as yet an inquiry numerous questioners pose. This inquiry tends to two basic areas:Do you ever consider how you are being seen by others or know about how they see you? You can truly intrigue the questioner on the off chance that you can react with certain outcomes from a genuine mental evaluation apparatus, for example, MBTI, Forte or Strength Finders. It exhibits a specific degree of modernity and furthermore tells the questioner that your modifiers aren't exclusively founded on your supposition alone. Along these lines it shows that you really care about how you can collaborate better with others.Prepare your records, your existence and your descriptive words, and you will be outfitted to intrigue the HR agent in the telephone meeting and proceed onward to meet the employing directors for whom you need to work.Read section one of Acing the Phone Interview.