SAP is one of the world’s most innovative and successful business technology companies—which, unsurprisingly, makes it an excellent place to start your career in business or technology. Another thing about SAP that should surprise no one: Their SAP iXP (internship experience program) is consistently recognized as one of the top in the US.
We spoke to three SAP interns about their experience in the award-winning SAP iXp and what they got out of it.
The first thing Emery, a 2020 SAP Corporate Communications intern, noticed about the company was that they had no problem pivoting during a pandemic.
“I was supposed to be in Bellevue, but I couldn’t be more impressed with the way SAP kept the internship program for everyone but made it indistinguishable from the in-person program,” Emery says.
Emery studies communications and in her first corporate role she had tons of exposure to high-level leaders: She had the opportunity to write a leadership profile for an exec, start a joint podcast featuring Deloitte and SAP leaders, and run a remote event featuring the president of an SAP division.
“Just thinking about it makes me smile. It was so cool to be a part of that,” she says.
But it wasn’t just high-level people that made her internship special; it was the respect she was treated with and the combination of mentorship and challenges that helped her grow.
“It’s made me much more confident in my writing and public speaking skills from hosting that internship-wide coffee corner. It went really well and I’m so confident about my communications skills now. I learned so much corporate culture and speech, and I’d love to come back next year,” she says.
Joe interned on SAP’s procurement team and immediately found a place for the principles he learned in his marketing classes. It was their job to get the right data and tell the right stories to get SAP clients and customers to continue and expand their relationships with the company. One of his favorite projects: working on FAQs for clients.
“Being able to actually write important questions for clients meant that I was able to actually win big clients for the team,” Joe says. “That’s a really good feeling.”
Of course, SAP’s iXp didn’t become a WayUp #1 internship program just by providing interesting work opportunities. Joe also had the opportunity to join a committee whose sole purpose was to provide a superb experience to all of the interns.
“I’m on this internship committee for the internship program and we help facilitate events,” he explains. “We worked with interns across North America to plan local and large-scale events.”
This was particularly cool for Joe, because he was simultaneously gaining a new type of experience and planning events that would benefit both him and his fellow interns. So whether it was hosting a cooking class or bringing in a guest speaker executive so that people could get a sense of the long-term career prospects at the company, Joe had an entirely new type of challenge that added to his list of skills and boosted his network.
Lindsay’s first two internships at SAP were on the Ariba team—SAP’s supply chain technology platform. She worked closely with a team of fellow interns on projects in the areas of customer and employee experience. And that latter function caught her attention. She loved making a difference for the team at SAP, which definitely helped in her last internship.
“In my last role, I worked as a Marketing intern on our Talent Development team. I had the opportunity to work with different leaders and executives to create informative videos, assist with the development of courses and facilitations, as well as create a brand for the team,” she says.
From there, she was able to move, full time, onto a team responsible for professional development programs for early talent: courses, events, mentorship. The very same stuff that helped her grow during her internships.
“SAP continues to encourage and help their employees be the best versions of themselves,” she says.
And that was as true for Lindsay as it was for all of the people she’s helped in the internship program: each engagement and every employee helped shape her career into something that utilized her talents and made her proud.
In addition to offering all of these incredible opportunities—SAP is also one of the largest internship programs in the world. In 2019 alone, they hired 3,795 interns. So, find your place in life-changing program: search for internships at SAP on WayUp
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