About Hope and Finding the “Ghost Cat”
(Part 1 of 4)
4-part email series - the Job Accelerator Program
Hello,
I’m excited to show you strategies on how you can get an ABAP job even without previous IT experience within just a few months.
The whole 4-part email series (the first of which you’re reading now) is a pre-training for the Job Accelerator Coaching Program that has already helped people like Marnie, Milos, Marek, Ziga, and others to start their ABAP careers from scratch.
In this 4-part email training, I invite you to join me on a metaphorical journey –The Adventure of Finding the Ghost Cat.
Why the analogy of the ghost cat?
Snow leopards (also known as ghost cats) are a rare sight. Photographers must climb to the high altitudes of the Himalayas when they want to take a picture of this wild animal, yet there is still only a small chance they will catch one on camera.
Getting an IT job may feel like a similar experience, but chances are much higher with the right combination of knowledge, experience, and guidance.
To give you an example: initially, Marnie spent 9 months self-studying ABAP, and she didn’t get anywhere. However, after changing her strategy, Marnie started her work as an ABAP developer within 2 months.
I’m going to share with you how you can get there too.
Strategies, insights, and first-hand experience for turning your dream about an ABAP job into reality while respecting your time schedule, current coding skill, and personality.
Let me be your guide in this ABAP adventure of finding the ghost cat :-).
The Three Get-Into-ABAP (Hiking) Essentials
Our ABAP “hiking itinerary” is a journey full of ups and downs, and your packing checklist shouldn’t miss The Three Get-Into-ABAP (Hiking) Essentials.
- Hiking boots = soft skills
- Hiking backpack = hard skills
- Navigation tools such as map & compass = self-efficacy
One word of warning ...
... keep in mind that none of the parts work on their own.
The magic happens when the three essentials work together.
Essential #1, Soft Skills
Essential #1, soft skills, is about breaking a particular belief about getting an IT job.
Because times have changed.
I’ll explain it through the following situation…
Two guys are preparing for the same job interview – Bernard and Robin.
Bernard met with ABAP only briefly during his one-semester university course. A few years passed, and he saw an opportunity for a well-paid ABAP job. So, Bernard refreshed his knowledge and learned ABAP on his own. He watched video tutorials and read through several ABAP books to get ready for the job interview.
Robin has never coded before. She was working in accounting when she discovered ABAP as a user of the SAP system. However, Robin always had a desire to try coding. So, Robin asked a friend (an ABAP developer) for help in understanding basic ABAP principles. She only studied topics that her ABAP friend was using daily.
After some time of preparation, Bernard and Robin sent their CVs to the company that was looking for a junior ABAP developer.
Then they both met at the interview.
The interviewer asks Bernard a question about a specific ABAP issue. Bernard immediately offers a solution and explains how he would develop the program.
On the other hand, the same question causes Robin trouble. She replies with a question.
“I’m not sure if I understood you correctly. What do you mean by this? What kind of output are you expecting?
If you meant this, then I’d do it this way.”
And after 4-minutes discussion, she talks about 3 different possibilities she sees.
So, What do you think, which one of these two got a job?
I know it’s not an easy question. I didn’t go into too much detail, so let me give you a few insights into the interviewer’s mind.
The people running the interview know that both candidates will need time to adapt to specific company conditions. Therefore, when the candidates fulfil the technical criteria, the level of technical skills is not the primary decision factor anymore. So, what is?
These days, more and more companies decide to hire newbies based on their level of soft skills.
The belief that only technical skills are relevant has changed, yet many don’t see it.
So, it’s Robin who got the job.
And it’s confirmed by our long years of experience in job interviews with non-IT people like history graduates, taxi drivers, and psychologists…
…or you can listen directly to the first-hand experience of a US-based ABAP developer who has participated in a hiring process like this.
The right cocktail of hard and soft skills will help you defeat a candidate who is better from a technical perspective. With the right mix of skills, you’re showing a big potential for projects and your questions won’t show a lack of knowledge, but rather the opposite.
The good news is, you already have many soft skills. But it’s like getting new hiking shoes – you need to wear the shoes for a while before putting them on for a big hiking trip. So, train soft skills while building your hard skills.
Even though Bernard and Robin are not real people; they are a mixture of people we meet daily.
And we’re helping people like Robin start ABAP careers from scratch
(don’t get misled, we’re helping people like Bernard, too, but often they are not asking for help) …
- Robin is Marek,who impressed the interviewer with his soft skills of critical thinking and problem-solving. How? His questions showed knowledge that only an experienced developer has.
- Robin is Ai,who learned ABAP on maternity leave and excelled in soft skills like adaptability and time-management (mothers know best how hard it is).
- Robin is Ziga,who asked for homework (about a technical ABAP issue) during a job interview. As an introvert, he recognizes that it’s the best way how to show confidence, critical thinking (troubleshooting), and presentation skills.
- Robin is Marnie,who was able to start over from the beginning after 9 months of self-studying. Her soft skills: self-awareness, result-orientedness, and a desire to learn helped her to start working on ABAP projects within 2 months.
- Robin is Shubham,who rented a separate room for studying ABAP. Flexibility, independence, and thinking outside the box led him to an ABAP job with a European salary in India.
- Robin is Mili,who had been an accountant before she started her career in ABAP. She built on her strong soft skills from her previous job – project management, collaboration, and networking.
- Robin is Milos,who learned ABAP from scratch while working full-time at his previous job. Proper planning, cooperation, self-supervising, and confidence brought him an ABAP job even before finishing the Job Accelerator Program.
Robin is YOU.
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In the following email, I’m going to focus on Essential #2 on your journey to get an ABAP job - hard skills.
See you there,
Tom