I bumped into an old school classmate of mine one day and it was a sad encounter. Here was this guy, brilliant, one of the top performers in school he sure helped me a lot with my assignments. He got into trouble for something he did wrong and got kicked out of school and I never heard from him since. Now he is a cleaner at a fast food restaurant. To cut the long story short, I got his contact details and tried to get him to do some professional exams that will help him get a job. But somehow, he hasn’t done any and this is one year ago. I know he is capable of ace-ing the exams and getting a good job but it seems as if he is somehow comfortable in his situation.

“There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.” John F. Kennedy.

Inaction is a very common mistake that people make and you may not know it but it can single-handedly put a stranglehold on you career and snuff the life out of it. I am also guilty of inaction myself and this is why many people fail to live to their potential. Why is this so? Here are some reasons.

Fear of rejection

You might have  a job right now which you terribly hate doing but you are somehow perversely comfortable in it. Maybe because your task at work is something you know how to do well and people look up to you and don’t want to lose that or you are scared of not living up to expectations at a new job. Someone once told me that the moment you achieve “guru” status in any field is the time you stop growing. Why? because you stop learning and people start learning from you. After they have received all they can from you, they move on to better things and you are left to teach the newbies. You should never stop trying to improve yourself.

Fear of the unknown

You are scared that if you quit your job now because you may not find another one. This is perfectly understandable in this economic climate. No one in their right mind will ask you to do that. You can always get training in your spare time and there are ways of finding a new job while keeping one. It does take more effort though.

Fear of failure

You are scared of taking that professional exam because you are not sure if you are up to the task you are scared that you will lose some money. See it from this point of view, you are investing in yourself and your knowledge. Since no knowledge is lost, this is the safest investment you can possibly make. There will always be a second chance to try again.

Plain old procrastination.

This is the group I belong to. David Allen, author of the book Getting Things Done split procrastination into two categories. The first, seeing some small tasks as an annoying interruption e.g like organizing a room. The second is seeing some larger tasks as too big to control and then tending to defer these tasks to later dates or times. There is no excuse for being a procrastinator.

Pat Flynn on his blog made a great post on his blog where he applied the laws of Physics to internet business, you can also apply these laws to your career.

I have decided to get up and take action. To take the next step in my professional life and get training in SAP business intelligence. I can get a better career and improve myself along the way. What is the worst that can happen? People in the financial world would say it in this way. The downside is limited, there is no cap in the upside.

Once again, life is all about constant improvement.

“SAP Certification is useless, it was almost never a good indication of consulting talent”. So says a SAP mentor on the SAP developer network (SDN).

“Getting certified in SAP will never get you the dream job you have always wanted, you need to get the experience”. Says another  SAP consultant guru.

So the question is…. why bother getting certified? Am I wasting my time?

Fact

SAP (the company) is advocating the certification program. Recently, SAP has introduced a new three-tier certification process to make sure the process is relevant. They have spent a lot of money developing the certification and would not do so if they thought it was useless and not needed.

Fact

SAP is strongly encouraging customers to hire certified consultants and have confidence in the certification process for those breaking into SAP. Jon Reed is a widely known SAP career guru. He interviewed Sue Martin who is Global Certification Portfolio Manager for SAP on his podcast and she spoke about the certification roadmap. You can listen in by clicking here.

Fact

SAP has introduced new technologies based on Netweaver. e.g SAP has acquired Business Objects which will be the new Business Intelligence framework, so all the 12-13 years of experience the current consultants are claiming as gold will become obsolete.

The most obvious fact is that certification backs experience. Imagine walking into a company and telling them “Please hire me, I want to break into SAP, I have no certification or knowledge whatsoever but I am willing to learn on the job”. Are you kidding me? No company will want to train you on their account, they could do it but you will have to sell your soul to them for the next two years.

One other point I want to make is, don’t listen to people telling you that certification is useless. If you take a closer look, this advice comes from current consultants on the other side of the fence trying to guard their market. They see us as another newbie consultant to compete with for their job.

Of course, I am not saying here, “Get certified and the massive rate paying job offers will be rolling in”, but it definitely will get our foot in the door. Imagine a sailor that is being told,  ”Don’t set sail because there is so much turbulence on the seas, there is the hazard of capsizing, stay on that side of the ocean and you will be safe”. Yes he will be safe but he will not achieve, I prefer to set sail in the storm and feel proud of myself when I end up on the other side.

Let’s get certified.

p.s your comments are always welcome.