RE: Career Advice

From: DENNIS WILLIAMS <DWILLIAMS_at_LIFETOUCH.COM>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 12:39:34 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.005DA327.20031217123934@fatcity.com>

Saira

I think you have to decide what your goal is. Then you need to decide how to best accomplish that goal. One tool that can lead you toward a goal is self-study. I have used that tool many times myself. However, with experience you learn the self-study tool has its limits. To consider self-study, consider the following questions:

Is this an area that I can gain significant knowledge with a reasonable amount of effort? For example, are there good books available? Is the area well-defined enough for self-study?
Since I'm trying to substitute self-effort for work experience, is this an area where there are few people with real work experience?
Are there credentials that can be earned?

If you are considering putting significant effort into this area, it is invaluable to do some informational interviews. Find someone that does the work you would like to or hires people that do the work. Interview them to find what skills and experiences are required and how you would acquire those skills and experiences. Ask what their career path was as an example. Many career advice books describe how to secure and conduct informational interviews. In a way, that is what you are doing on this forum.

You have received some great replies to your posting. I think the wide range of replies are indicative of the problem. The ERP packages are very large, complex, expensive, and critically important for the client organization. The big packages like SAP and Oracle Apps are nearly always used by very large corporations. There are a wide range of people that work with these packages, from specialized business users all the way down to the lowly DBA. Ideally, at a corporation, the various people work together as a team, pooling their knowledge and skills.

Often these applications are installed by a team of vendor installers that travel the world doing just that task. And even if you did manage to get the application installed on your laptop, it would probably take a lot of training to operate significant portions of the application. When one of these applications are installed at a corporation, there are weeks of training for many different people throughout the organization.

I would strongly suggest that you first focus on your DBA skills. This list is an excellent source of insights in how to deepen your DBA skills. You might consider researching the Oracle interface for the various applications. However, in general this part of the application is not well documented, even in the vendor documentation. But you might be able to decode a significant amount of the interface. And you goal would be to learn enough to exhibit a keen interest in learning to a prospective employer that might consider hiring you over other candidates. If they are able to easily find candidates with years of experience . . . well, it isn't going to be very promising for you, regardless of how much self-study you've put in.

Dennis Williams
DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:24 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Is it that difficult though? Just to get familiar with it... if you've worked with other similar software before?

I guess you'd be looking at a lot of theory, and not nearly enough practice. But then, how do I get obtain these more attractive, marketable skills? I must start somewhere, no?

Thanks,

Saira

-----Original Message-----
king
Sent: December 17, 2003 1:55 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

That right, packaged software like SAP and PeopleSoftware should be learned in the real implementation or real usage case. By simply getting the software and use it yourself, it is very difficult to even grasp the basic idea about those business transactions.

Original Message -----

To: Multiple <mailto:ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com> recipients of list ORACLE-L

Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:09 PM

Your enthusiasm is admirable, but I think that it would be extremely difficult for you to learn any of these packages without actually being in an environment where they are used.

It may be that Tecsys is a complex set of apps on the same level as SAP or Oracle Apps, and if so, then maybe that background would prepare you to tackle this on your own.

Either way, it will be difficult without access to official support, which you won't have unless you're in a working environment that includes the app you are attempting to learn.

You would also not have exposure to the people that are actually using the stuff, which is pretty important for software that is directly used by most of the user community, unlike a database.

HTH Jared

"Saira Somani-Mendelin" <saira_somani_at_yahoo.com> Sent by: ml-errors_at_fatcity.com

12/17/2003 09:44 AM
Please respond to ORACLE-L

        
        To:        Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
<ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com> 
        cc:         
        Subject:        Career Advice

As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice.

Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets.

I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing?

Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before.

Thanks,
Saira

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Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin
INET: saira_somani_at_yahoo.com

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Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
INET: DWILLIAMS_at_LIFETOUCH.COM

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