Four reasons account for almost all of them, and three are inside your control.
Not money, in most cases. The pattern is consistent enough across senior SAP hiring that it is worth naming plainly.
1. Counteroffers
The people worth hiring are load-bearing where they are. Their employer knows it.
A counteroffer is the default response, not the exception. More money, a new title, a promise of scope that was somehow unavailable last quarter. It is persuasive precisely because it removes the discomfort of change.
It is also rarely in the candidate's interest. An employer who improves terms under threat of resignation has learned the individual is willing to leave, and has bought time rather than settled the matter. Backfill planning frequently starts the same week.
What to do about it. Counteroffer exposure is established at assessment, not discovered at resignation. Before an offer goes out, you should know what the candidate's current employer is likely to do, what the candidate intends to do about it, and whether they have thought it through at all.
Expect a counteroffer on every senior hire. Plan for it, and do not take it as an insult. The whole market is competing for the same people.
2. Slow processes
Every brief opens with a requirement to hire quickly. The process then meets its real constraint, which is almost always internal.
Resumes sit unreviewed. Interview slots take a week to confirm. A decision waits for a diary.
Meanwhile the candidate is in three other conversations. Scarce, migration-proven people do not wait through a fourth round.
What to do about it. Decide before the search starts who is in the interview loop, how many stages there are, and what happens if someone is on holiday. A two-week interview process delivers a six-week hire. A process that takes five weeks to convene delivers nine, and frequently loses the strongest candidate somewhere inside it.
An experienced hiring manager recognises the right person and acts. The instinct to hold out for a comparison set is reasonable in a deep market and expensive in this one.
3. Transformation scope at operational-manager pay
The most common reason, and the most fixable.
The role is described as transformation leadership. It is banded as line management. The two do not meet, and the search fails before anyone has been approached.
The numbers show why. Salary.com's median for a generic SAP Director dipped slightly between 2023 and 2025, from $181,222 to around $179,970. Over the same period, pay for scarce, migration-proven profiles moved the other way.
The market has split. A band set against a generic job title will not reach the specific profile, because the generic title is no longer what the specific profile is paid.
What to do about it. Set the band against the profile, not the title. If the band genuinely cannot move, that is worth knowing in week one, because it changes what the search can realistically deliver. It is information, not a failure.
4. Return-to-office mandates
Not fatal on their own. Decisive when the candidate has an alternative that does not require a move.
Most senior SAP professionals have delivered remotely for years and can evidence it. A five-day mandate on a role that does not require presence narrows the candidate pool considerably, and it narrows it precisely at the senior end where people have options.
What to do about it. Be clear about it at the brief, not at offer. A candidate who knows the expectation from the first conversation either accepts it or declines early. One who discovers it at offer stage declines late, and takes eight weeks of your search with them.
What actually persuades a senior SAP professional to move?
Mostly things that cost nothing.
- Greenfield or genuinely transformational S/4HANA scope
- Exposure to AI, data and BTP work rather than maintenance
- Design authority, not just a title
- Equity and bonus structure, not base alone
- A clear route away from keep-the-lights-on AMS work
FAQ
How common are counteroffers at this level?
Common enough to plan for on every search. The stronger the candidate, the more likely it is.
Should we match a counteroffer to keep someone?
That is a retention question rather than a hiring one, and the honest answer is that it usually buys months rather than years. The underlying reason they were looking is rarely money.
We have a fixed salary band. Is a search still worth running?
Yes, provided the band is realistic for the profile. If it is not, the search will surface that in week three with evidence attached, which is more useful than a shortlist of people who will not move.
How fast should our interview process be?
Two weeks from first candidate to decision. Beyond four weeks you are competing on patience rather than on the opportunity.
Sources
Salary.com, SAP Director median compensation, 2023 and 2025
