Sales Associate Review

On the whole I thoroughly enjoyed my placement at SAP. I have learnt and grown up more than I could ever have imagined. It has not come without challenges, but with each challenge comes a massive opportunity to grow.

Very valued by all that I have worked for directly. It is well communicated that interns become an integral part of the team at SAP. We play a key role that adds value to the business – if SAP did not have interns, it would have to employ many full-time employees to cover the work that we carry out.

Minimal support – this is the biggest area in which SAP needs to improve. In order to receive any support I have had to be very proactive.

Always had enough work to do. It does vary daily, but generally this all balances out over the working week.

I was given a lot of responsibility from the very beginning of my placement. This also ramped throughout the year; in the second half of my placement I had sole end to end responsibility of many tasks that effected the business across all of EMEA.

I learnt more in my year at SAP than I have done any other year of my life. Not only do you learn how to do your day to day job, you also learn an incredible amount about yourself – your strengths and weaknesses. For many, you also have the first taste of what it’s like to work in a large, multinational organisation – which is a challenge in itself. These points, plus many more, will massively positively assist all SAP interns in their degree studies and beyond.

Generally, a good environment in the office. As is typical with all sales centred offices, sales people are out of the office visiting customers for most of the week – however, interns are almost always in the office so there’s always a good buzz around the office.

SAP have a large intake of interns every year, therefore, there is a solid procedure in place for hiring, training and on-boarding interns. There could be more governance throughout the year to ensure that interns are not negatively affected by changes in the structure of their team, or other general changes over the course of the year.

I have been invested in heavily during my placement. As an example of this, I have been on two separate trips abroad to attend an SAP organised event in order to aid my personal development – SAP have no real need to send interns to events such as these, but the fact that they do goes some way towards showing how valued and invested in we are.

SAP has a well-established Sales Academy for post graduates. Over the course of my placement I made a conscious effort to network with, and leave my impression on, as many people as possible. This stands me in good stead to return to SAP, however, the Sales Academy is incredibly competitive – therefore, acceptance into the programme will depend heavily on performance on the day.

There is a very good intern community at SAP – perhaps one of the best parts of the internship as there will always be an intern in every department of the business to help you out should you need it. In addition to this, the intern social scene is also great – there will always be people to socialise with outside of the office should you want to! As well as socialising with other interns, there is at least one social event a month with other colleagues.

A lot more expensive than living and socialising at University is. However, as the main office is located near to Heathrow airport in West London, the cost of living is of course slightly cheaper than it would be in the centre of London – there are plenty of affordable housing options in the area, especially if you live with other interns as most do. Socialising is expensive as it is almost always in Central London.

Very good night life in Central London. There is nothing around the actual Heathrow office, but this is not an issue.

Plenty of opportunities – charity events, networking events, customer events, partner events, etc....