SAP, ERP and CRM recruitment

The systems integrator’s resource plan is on your desk and the column marked “client” is mostly blank. The program director, the solution architect, the finance lead who will hold the line with the business process owners, the integration and data migration leads who keep the schedule honest: those seats are yours to fill, and the first shortlist back from the market reads as a list of modules. The integrator is staffed, and the clock on the licence has started.

That is where SAP and ERP hiring usually goes wrong, and it is where most of our platform briefs begin.

Altura is an SAP, ERP and CRM recruitment agency headquartered in Sydney and working nationally, recruiting program directors, architects, functional, integration and data migration leads across S/4HANA, Dynamics 365, Salesforce, Workday and ServiceNow, for permanent and contract roles.

The people who have taken one of these platforms live in Australia are a small group, most of them employed and a fair number inside the integrators. They do not answer adverts; they answer people they know. Close to 20 years in technology and transformation search means we know who has done the work and who has watched it done, and most of the people we introduce were not looking when we rang.

What we recruit

Permanent and contract, across S/4HANA, Dynamics 365, Salesforce, Workday and ServiceNow:

• Program directors and program managers
• Solution architects
• Functional leads, finance and supply chain in particular
• Integration leads
• Data migration leads
• Change leads
• Platform owners for the run phase

For enterprise, mid-market, private equity-backed and high-growth businesses, and for integrators that need a specialist bench.

Worked on, or landed

The distinction that decides an ERP hire is whether the person has worked on a platform or landed one. Landed means they can walk you through the cutover weekend, the records they chose not to migrate, how long hypercare ran and when the integrator was allowed to leave. Worked on means they can describe their module. Our assessment is built to tell the two apart, and we take references from the sponsor or program director the person answered to, not only the SI partner who may want to sell them back to you. The full argument is in S/4HANA and Dynamics 365 hiring in Australia.

The contract bench and the permanent core

Most multi-year programs end up in the same shape: a permanent core in the seats the business must own after go-live, with a contract bench around it for the phases that peak. We recruit for both.

For the bench, we draw on people we have worked with before across programs, so the recommendation comes with how they behaved under pressure last time, not only what the CV says. You see the first assessed people within a day or two of the brief. The bench moves as a bench and chooses early, so the sooner we have the brief, the better the names.

For the permanent core, the platform owner, the architect, the finance process lead and the integration capability, we run a search, because those people are employed and not looking, and because the business has to live with the appointment long after the integrator has gone.

Permanent, contract or retained

Contract and interim. First assessed people within a day or two of the brief, from the bench we know. One seat, or the client-side team around a program director.

Retained search. For the program director, the architect and the permanent core. Three to six weeks from brief to accepted offer: a comp verdict in week one, an assessed shortlist in weeks three to four, then offer management through to acceptance. The fee is staged in thirds, the search is exclusive and the appointment carries a twelve-week replacement guarantee.

Permanent, exclusive. For permanent roles below the leadership seats, the same assessment on an exclusive, success-fee basis.

In every case, we check in with you and the person at 30, 60 and 90 days after the start.

Why clients come back

Altura was founded and is led by Mark King after close to 20 years in technology and transformation search, with more than 400 searches across his career and SAP and enterprise platform work running through much of it. More than 90 per cent of Altura clients return. The person who takes the brief runs the search, tells you in week one if the brief asks for people who do not exist at the number on the table, and stays through to the 90-day check-in.

More on how we think in SAP, ERP, CRM and enterprise platforms, on the retained search process, and on how we work with employers.

Questions clients ask