This year, the SAP campus team had to constantly reinvent and reassess strategies – but never lost sight of the need to connect on a human basis. Whether that meant creating direct access to mentors for virtual interns or hosting 100+ virtual recruiting sessions for candidates, SAP always put the candidate experience first. Keeping their focus on the students and graduates, in spite of unprecedented challenges, set SAP apart in 2020.
Read on for some of the highlights of SAP's innovative approach to college recruiting and why they were named a 2021 Campus Forward Honoree in RippleMatch's Campus Forward Awards.
Summer Internship Program
The unexpected transition from an onsite internship to working remotely provided a unique opportunity for the 250 interns at SAP. As the SAP team worked to transition their program to a virtual format they made sure to provide more ‘direct’ access to resources and mentors, where everything interns needed to know was put online or recorded to enable self-service. They also made sure to put on a series of engaging virtual events for interns as well as a focus on preserving an intern social life through organized online Pictionary parties, virtual happy hours, and Zoom-based networking events.
Virtual Recruitment
By the end of 2020, SAP participated in 100+ completely virtual sessions in North America. SAP took advantage of the group session opportunities during virtual career fairs and held several mini virtual info sessions, allowing them to reach more students than what would normally be possible in a traditional campus event. They also hosted six virtual 'Power Hour' webinars (attracting 1,300+ students) where the university community could hear from SAP experts in a variety of areas ranging from machine learning, to project management, to game changing technologies in sports.
Candidate Experience
SAP’s amazing candidate experience is driven by creating moments that matter in the candidate journey. They recently published an internal playbook to showcase best practices that ensure a positive candidate experience along the entire recruiting process from brand engagement, to profile fit, to pre-onboarding. Communication was at the center of these best practices in regards to timelines, next steps, and providing prompt and honest feedback.
Diversity and Inclusion
One of the key pillars of the SAP Talent Attraction strategy is to attract for inclusion and the Early Talent Team has been consistently executing on initiatives to recruit, retain, and support a diverse slate of candidates. Participation in diversity conferences like GHC and Tapia created meaningful ways to connect with the university community and leverage diverse channels. The team also partnered with SAP’s Black Employee Network Group to hold a virtual HBCU Summit over two days which offered mentorship and career guidance conversations in addition to an early talent recruiting session.
Congratulations to SAP for their accomplishments this past year. RippleMatch is proud to recognize SAP in our 2021 Campus Forward Awards for their commitment toward the next generation of talent.
Learn more about opportunities at SAP by visiting their Careers Page , their RippleMatch Company Branded Page, and their LinkedIn Company Page.