by Javid Lateef
SAP is such a global entity and the U.S. is a major employer of SAP consultants in the World. As a result we have a large percentage of foreign nationals who arrive here to take on projects and further their careers. The one major hurdle that they all face, whether they have 10 years of experience or 1 year is “The Interview”.
In this article I will try and suggest a few helpful hints that may alleviate your fear of attending an interview with a potential client.
What I, as a human resources person, am used to hearing is…” What are his /her communications skills like?” Now this can take on different connotations depending on who the Interviewer is, right..? The idea is to come up with a general procedure you follow no matter who or where the client is. Let us first tackle the issues the South East Asian consultants (they form the highest percentage of H1-B visa consultants in the country). Since I too am from that part of the world I think I have a unique understanding of this. The languages that one speaks in the Indian sub-continent are usually spoken at a brisk pace. When an individual learns to speak English, and he is from this area of the world, his/her spoken English tends to be spoken at the same velocity…!!!! South East Asian and Asian consultants always think it’s their accent that denies them jobs, but in most cases the combination of a different accent and fast speech leads to the interviewer not being able to communicate with you, so whenever I have a candidate interviewing, I make it a point to tell the consultant to pause quite deliberately between sentences. This gives the interviewer time to assimilate the data and time for the consultant to structure his/her next sentence.
Most SAP consultants, these days, are hired after a phone interview and most of these interviews are done over mobile phones as that is what nearly every consultant has. This in itself is a problem, but when you add a Bluetooth headset to the mix, it is a recipe for disaster. I always ask the consultant for a landline and if that is not available, I ask him/her to be in an area that offers excellent reception and away from as much ambient noise as possible.
There are certain things that one can do to indicate to the interviewer that you are confident, take-charge kind of person. The one thing that I try to instill into my candidates, when they are on a conference interview call, is to always establish who all are on the call ( if they are not all introduced) and greet them by name, e.g. Hello Mary…Hello Mark and at the conclusion, “ How may I be of assistance today”. Confidence is a trait that most every interviewer or panel recognizes.
Last but not least, avoiding talking in ones native tongue a few hours before the interview is helpful too, as this gets you into the right mind frame. Good luck to you all!
Tags: consulting, interviewing, interviewing for consulting jobs, SAP, sap consultant, SAP consultants, SAP Consulting, Titan Consulting
