Getting Salesforce experience can be extremely daunting. It can also be tricky to understand what qualifies as experience. We’re getting into all of that!
This post is all about how to get salesforce experience!
Youtube Video
Fun fact for you! I have a youtube channel all about salesforce.
This topic for the blog post originated from the youtube channel and someone asking how to get salesforce experience.
So if you would like to watch the video I will leave it here.
Some of the suggestions are a bit different on the video than the post 🙂
Ways to Get Salesforce Experience
So many people have asked me how should they get salesforce experience, or what qualifies as salesforce experience.
Well, I want to clarify what I believe experience is really about.
In most cases and especially when getting your first salesforce admin job, experience is really about solving problems and can you solve the potential employer’s problems in salesforce.
Pro tip: You can tell a lot about what the job is about in the interview and what questions they are asking.
If they ask you about automations, you’ll likely be doing a lot of flows.
If they ask about security. You will be working a lot in security.
What they really need is someone to jump in head first and solve their problem. So problem-solving in Salesforce is the greatest form of experience.
Another quick note, experience on this list may look a little different than different places you’ve looked.
These are 10 out-of-the-box ways to get experience!
1. A non-salesforce titled job
First, you’ve likely used salesforce in a job previously. This experience counts! I was a receptionist at a pool for many years before moving into Salesforce administration.
So I worked on the front end as a user in my day-to-day. I understand what it’s like to be the person you are creating a sweet database for.
This experience, while it didn’t say salesforce in my title, was so valuable in my work today.
It has helped me answer questions from users, predict the most time-saving automations, and clean up page layouts to streamline processes!
Maybe for you, this job was as a sales associate working as a user or maybe as in sales or marketing operations as a data administrator.
This is still valuable salesforce experience!
2. Volunteering
The second suggestion is volunteering. This is suggested a lot around the salesforce community.
While it is really awesome, it can be difficult to come by! So you may have to reach out to an organization and offer to set it up.
For example, many churches or religious organizations have different charities they run. This may be quilting for kids in hospitals or gathering supplies for homeless shelters.
You could reach out to them to see if they need a database to store their donations and time spent volunteering.
Salesforce as a company has a program where they offer 503(b) organizations free or discounted pricing on Salesforce NPSP.
You can check that out here.
3. Trailhead
Third is trailhead. This is salesforces free learning platform where you can learn the basics of salesforce on multiple levels.
You can learn as a user, you can learn as an admin, you can learn as a developer and many other avenues!
There isn’t a lot that I can add to this section that others haven’t already said. However, just pop over to trailhead and jump in.
Just getting started will make things so much easier!
4. Blogging
Number four is blogging! Which is what you are currently reading.
Blogging tips and tricks (even the basics) that you learn along the way can be an extremely useful tool!
The biggest thing I’ve learned from blogging and creating content is how to talk to users or other admins and make it make sense to them.
For example, I have a lot of videos on training users over on the youtube channel Salesforce Emily. This has help tremendously when I have been training users at a job.
This has also helped when creating courses for users and admins to take over on udemy!
If you’re not sure where to start on a blog there are many different places to look. Personally, I have a self-hosted WordPress site and a free theme.
It starts slowly, but sharing these tips around professional social media can help loads to boost credibility and eventually land your dream job on salesforce.
5. Freelancing
Fifth is freelancing and is something I have personally done!
You can sign up on Fiverr and Upwork to do salesforce administration. However, since 2020 these platforms have become more difficult to find freelancing work.
So freelancing now and finding freelancing clients can be fairly difficult.
A tip for you is to find a current freelancer and offer to subcontract from them. There is no harm in asking and if they say yes you can work under them and get some great experience!
6. Youtube
Next is youtube, which is my personal favorite! I started out on youtube in July of 2019 and it has been a really wonderful place to be!
This is similar to blogging where you create content about the things that you learn or problems that you solve.
However, this is just in video form rather than words and screenshots. I look to youtube for someone to show me how to do things rather than explain it to me.
Also, the video format shows it quicker than a blog post which is a boost to the viewer.
7. Certifications
Next up is certifications. While to most people this wouldn’t count as traditional experience. It is a fantastic way to show a baseline knowledge in specific areas!
Fun fact! I got my first salesforce admin job 10 days after I passed my Admin certification. Yes it was NUTS!
Getting this certification (and also showing it on linkedin) allowed recruiters to see my baseline knowledge of salesforce administration.
This is true of any salesforce certification. Espeically the Administrator Certifications, Developer Certifications, and speicalty and consultant certifications. Specifically CPQ, UX designer, Expereinces, and Pardot.
Again, these serve as indicators to recruiters and hiring managers that you know what you’re talking about in these areas.
So even if you don’t have traditional expereince this is a great way to show that you have knowledge!
8. LinkedIn
Eighth on the list is LinkedIn. While LinkedIn may not be the best place to learn specific skills it is great for a few things.
One it’s great for posting your wins and what you’re learning! It is fantastic for posting new certifications or youtube videos or blog posts. To share it will the greater salesforce community.
It is really fanstastic to meet new people in the community.
Also, when posting your wins you’ll likely get some tracktion on finding the right salesforce job for you! Recruiters love to reach out to people active on LinkedIn!
Second, LinkedIn has an article feature this is great for getting started on blog posts if you’re not ready to jump head first into blogging.
9. Twitter
Similarly to number eight, nine is twitter! Twitter can help you to connect with people who are on the platform and find new and exciting opportunities!
For example, I found a really amazing flows course through twitter!
I was able to take the course and understand a lot better how flows work. This has helped tremendously!
Twitter is also fantastic for learning small tips and tricks from other salesforce admins, users, and developers!
While twitter might not be the job landing machine that LinkedIn is, it is really great for learning, sharing what you are learning and making real connections!
10. Build an App!
Finally, we have number ten build an app!
Salesforce has the ability to download pre-developed or pre-configured sets of functionality. Some of these things are called apps.
App can change the way that you do your workflow as an admin or help out accidental admins who need a quick solution on a tight deadline.
Building out the functionality in a developer org then putting it out on the app exchange is a huge show of expereince and will help you in your search for a job!
Example apps could be for a more robust content management system, a set of pre-configured email templates, or a project management system!
Conclusion
I really hope you found this helpful!
Getting Salesforce expereience sounds scary but can be fairly easy and straight forward.
Put yourself out there and see what the salesforce ecosystem has for you! 🙂
Put some or all of these into action and you will find sucess in Salesforce and in Tech!
Links and Things
Check out our courses here: https://salesforceemily.com/our-salesforce-courses/
You can check out more from us on our youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCka5mwxtdkUE7AoScLcG2DA/featured
You can learn more about us here: https://salesforceemily.com/?page_id=314