Landing Your Dream Job — Advice from Trailblazers in the Salesforce Ecosystem

I’ve spent the last decade working in recruiting and there’s nothing that makes me happier than helping somebody land their dream job. Working in the Salesforce ecosystem, I’m lucky to do that on a very regular basis and I love hearing stories about how Salesforce skills have transformed people’s careers.

Many of these people are experienced consultants who have taken their careers to the next level by learning Salesforce. Some were driven by the demand they see in their customers for Salesforce implementations. Others investigated opportunities because they were inspired by the Ohana culture, and others still because they wanted to advance their careers in the Salesforce Economy.

We caught up with some of our Trailblazers to better understand their decision to learn Salesforce and to hear what their experience has been like since. Read on for their personal stories.

Sarath Bontha, Sales and Service Cloud Reskiller

“I’ve been a consultant for many years, working across various industries and products. By 2012, all of my clients were asking about Salesforce and I began to explore the offerings. I was really intrigued by the product and the fact that there were 3 releases every year; my customers normally had to wait years for upgrades on other technologies. I began thinking about how to transition myself into the Salesforce Ecosystem, and how to do it quickly — Salesforce was taking over market share and I wanted to be a part of that growth. I got to work learning Salesforce and while there were some nomenclature differences, I was able to easily get up to speed on the platform given my domain expertise and business process knowledge. To supplement the technical learning, I networked, joined local community groups, and attended Dreamforce. Dreamforce was really a game changer in learning more about the products, vision, and platform.

“The biggest differences I notice between other technologies and Salesforce are how flexible the platform is and how simple it is to make changes. It’s so easy to onboard a person, and the implementation timeline itself is so much shorter than other technologies I’ve used. Now, customers who I helped implement other technologies years ago are calling me again to ask for help transitioning to Salesforce.

“My advice for those looking to reskill their careers with Salesforce?:

• Get admin certified, and don’t get hung up on the word ‘admin’. The administrator certification gives you an overview of what is possible on the platform, and can really take your career to the next level.
• It’s not too late to reskill with Salesforce, but don’t wait any longer. Trailhead is an amazing tool to learn and with a bit of time and energy, you can be very successful. There is no other competitor who can help your customers the way that Salesforce can.”

Sidy Sidibe, Salesforce Administrator Reskiller

“After obtaining my Master’s in Information Systems from Indiana University, I worked as a consultant on a legacy technology. The implementations were slower, more expensive, and less attractive to clients. Given the pace at which the tech industry moves, I didn’t want to get left behind. I decided to grow my skills by getting trained on Salesforce. I knew that would give me greater leverage over the types of projects I was staffed on and ensure I had an in-demand skillset moving forward. As I learn more about Salesforce, I’ve been so impressed that it’s a one-stop-shop — you don’t see that anywhere else. The other platforms I’ve worked with all require add-ons and third party-applications — Salesforce has everything in one place for you. Salesforce has set the standard for ERP. Everyone else is now trying to get to that level, but from what I’ve seen they have a lot of work to do.

“The transition has been pretty seamless with Trailhead. I’m used to dealing with object-oriented data and already understand the basics of how things work. When I started the journey, I thought I’d just focus on getting admin certified to complement my existing consultant skillset. Now that I’ve seen all that the platform can do, I’m in 110% and will continue on to get my developer and product certifications. With Salesforce, the sky is the limit — it’s growing so quickly and partners have more clients looking to implement Salesforce than people qualified to staff those projects. My advice to someone considering getting trained on Salesforce? Jump in.”

Julie ODonnell, Service Cloud Implementer

“In May of 2017, I was tasked with migrating my Client Services team to Service Cloud…in a month and a half! Prior to this, I don’t even think I had a Salesforce login. I’ve learned pretty much everything I know about Salesforce from Trailhead. At first, I used Trailhead mostly for troubleshooting, but then I started diving deep and following the Trails.

“The biggest gain for our company from using Service Cloud is the data alignment, just keeping everything in one place and making it visible and viable for all parties. Now my team will write about a work order and pass it off to the sales account rep, and it gets stored in Salesforce properly and everyone knows what the path flow is. Everyone is on the same page as a company and everyone can see the same information.”

To get started reskilling your career with Salesforce:

• Sign up here to learn about tailored resources and events.
• Follow us on social media @partnerforce #TrailheadforPartners
• Take this Career Trailmix to get more familiar with Salesforce and the opportunities that exist within our ecosystem.
• Join your local user group to learn, meet others at various stages of their Salesforce career, and have fun! The sooner you can join the better, as these Trailblazers can be a great support system on your journey to and through certification.
• Explore Salesforce events coming up near you.