What's in an ABAP Resume?
 |
|
|
ABAP programming, the acronym for Advanced Business Development Programming, was originally developed in the 1980s as the report language for platform SAP R/2, so that corporations could build mainframe business applications for management and financial accounting, and for materials management. ABAP was also one of the first languages that included the use and the concept of logical databases, much more abstract versus basic databases.
|  |
| If you're applying for a job as an ABAP programmer, your resume needs to stress your talent in this area above all. |
As a language, ABAP is relatively easy for programmers to use, but it's not really for direct use by nonprogrammers. Therefore, it was originally developed to be used by SAP customers who could use it to develop interfaces and custom reports with ABAP programming; however it's not intuitive enough to be easily understood by nonprogrammers so that they can do their own programming. And as SAP continues to introduce new development platforms, it should be noted that its newest, NetWeaver, can use both Java and ABAP.
Therefore, there's an ongoing need for ABAP programmers. If you are proficient in the ABAP language, of course you'll need to have good programming skills, but you'll also need to have a good understanding of object-oriented concepts and database design done relationally to necessary interfaces.
That means that when you develop your resume for certain positions within ABAP programming, it's likely that you're not going to be asked to interact with or to be able to establish a rapport with people so much as you are simply to be very knowledgeable about the ABAP language, as well as related languages and interfaces, etc.
What Should You Put in Your Resume When You Apply for an ABAP Job?
Basically, your prospective employer is going to want to know that you are proficient in every single aspect of ABAP programming. So unlike most resumes, where brevity is important, you're going to want to stress every aspect of your ABAP on-the-job experience or formal education.
Although a college degree is often preferred for many ABAP positions, it's often not necessary as long as you have the equivalent hands on training or technical study. What's most important is that you can demonstrate that you know ABAP programming, inside and out, as well as all of its components.
Construction of the Resume
Put your contact information at the very top of the first page of your resume, with your name bolded and in capital letters so that it stands out. Then, it's helpful to write up an objective particular to the job or jobs are applying for, so that the prospective employer can see that you would be a good fit with the company.
After your objective, briefly list your education, including any college or technical degrees received in ABAP or other programming languages or skills.
Then, immediately after you list your educational background, it's helpful to simply break out, in bulleted list format, the skills, languages, and other programming knowledge you possess. This is so that the prospective employer can see at a glance what you know and are proficient in.
Your prospective employer is probably going to want to know you are proficient in other more ubiquitous but still necessary skills and programs, too, like word processing programs such as Microsoft Word. In that case, it's helpful to break those skills out in bulleted list format AFTER you've talked about your work experience.
Work History
Finally, move onto your work history. As applicable, go back two or three positions in your history with jobs specific to programming skills, focusing on the ABAP language especially. List each position, starting out with the most recent first. Within each job listing, briefly describe what your position is or was.
Below that, list the responsibilities you had for each particular job. Again, it's helpful to use bulleted format here for easy reading. It's also perfectly fine to use incomplete sentences as long as they make sense and in fact are preferable on a resume so that the reader doesn't have to wade through a lot of unnecessary verbiage. One important note is that you should use "action" verbs that show what you did, such as, "Developed an interface …", so that your prospective employer can actually "see" what you did.
Here, go into as much detail as you think necessary, and list every duty you had; to save space and time, make your comments as brief as possible, using incomplete sentences (as previously said) if needed.
References
Finally, your last section is going to denote references, but in this case, you're not going to actually list any references. Instead, say something to the effect of, "References available upon request.'' At home, it's helpful to have a "master document" of sorts with references' names and contact information on it; when a particular employer asks for references, you can edit the master document so that only references appropriate to that particular job are included and then send that to the employer
One Final Note
In this case, your employer is probably not going to need to know that you have lots of people skills, that you get along well with others, and so on. Most likely, you're going to have to simply demonstrate your skills in programming. If you're going to be a team leader working on a particular project, you may need to talk briefly about your ability to relate well to others and your interpersonal skills, but that's still secondary to your skills in ABAP. If the job you are applying for is a programming job whereby you're not going to have a lot of interaction with others except as relates to program development itself, this isn't something you particularly need to worry about on your resume.
In Conclusion
If you're applying for a job as an ABAP programmer, your resume needs to stress your talent in this area above all. You are also probably going to have to demonstrate that you have significant experience in the ABAP and other related languages. To that end, your resume needs to give significant detail not just of your knowledge in ABAP and other related areas, but the job responsibilities you've had in previous positions. Therefore, your resume should concentrate on ABAP skills and responsibilities related to ABAP in previous jobs, not necessarily on "people" skills or the ability to get along well with others.
