SAP

The most detailed published example is the STAR program in Australia and New Zealand, which runs four stages: an online application, a pre-screen video interview with the Talent Discovery team, a half-day bootcamp or in-person interview at a local SAP office combining group work and an individual interview, and a verbal offer followed by a formal written offer. The October bootcamp stage is the gating round, so a single half-day disproportionately decides the cohort. Other STAR countries and the global SAP Next Talent graduate program publish their own criteria; candidates should read the specific country tab or job description they are applying to rather than assuming a shared loop.

SAP runs two named early-talent programs alongside conventional internships:

• The Student Training and Rotation (STAR) Program is a paid, multi-year internship for current university students built around four 6-month rotations over roughly two years. It runs in at least ten countries – Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, China, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, and Korea – with each country setting its own application criteria and deadlines.
• The SAP Next Talent program is a full-time rotational graduate program for recent graduates in software development, UX design, data science, and DevOps, based in three locations: the San Francisco Bay Area (USA), Budapest (Hungary), and Sofia (Bulgaria).

STAR is the in-university track, Next Talent is the post-graduation track. The two have different audiences and entirely different country footprints; a candidate generally chooses one based on where they are in their studies and where they hold the right to work.

The STAR program in Australia and New Zealand is open to Australian or New Zealand citizens and permanent residents only. The global SAP Next Talent program states explicitly that it does not support work authorization sponsorship now or in the future, across its US, Hungary, and Bulgaria locations. Other STAR countries set their own local-enrolment requirements. The practical effect is a gate: a non-citizen targeting one of these programs needs an existing right to work in the target country and cannot rely on SAP to provide one.

The STAR program is unusually broad geographically – at least ten participating countries spanning ANZ, EMEA, India, and East Asia – where most large US tech early-talent programs anchor in one or two countries. The structure also runs longer than a typical summer internship: STAR is roughly two years across four 6-month rotations alongside university studies. A candidate choosing SAP is choosing geographical breadth and a longer in-university runway over the 10-to-12-week summer-internship model that dominates US-headquartered tech.