Marketing Your Salesforce Admin Skills

Are you an Admin looking for your next challenge, opportunity for growth? Do you want to work for a bigger company? Do you want to become a consultant?

Many admins are making amazing strides in their careers, skyrocketing to new positions and becoming strong leaders within their organizations. If you’re just getting started, brace yourself for this amazing ride! With an annual growth rate of 34% and over 3,240 job openings last year (in the US only), we’re seeing an incredible opportunity for Salesforce Admins.

We want to help Admins continue to achieve success and grow their careers and so we’re investigating what admin skills have helped you grow and progress, as well as how you’ve presented and positioned them to make you shine!

It’s all about the skills

Before we dive into how to market yourself or your skills, let’s understand which skills make great Admins! Recently we asked the community what you believe are the most important skills to have as an Admin and you were quick to answer!

Overwhelmingly, the responses fell into these four categories:

• Communicating
  Ensuring users and stakeholders know when changes are about to take place. Encouraging users to use the tool. Letting users know they have support.
• Listening
  Thoroughly understanding the user’s problem. Asking why? Getting to the crux of the issue at hand.
• Flexibility
  In the fast-paced business environment we work in today it’s important to be flexible. Requirements can change instantly and often.
• Problem Solving
  Users come to you with all kinds of problems and Salesforce often has many different options available for you to solve the problem. It’s your job to identify the issue and find the appropriate solution.

Here are some more responses from the community:

From an employer’s perspective, I learned that the number one skill employers look for (outside of the technical know-how) is communication!

When talking with Kimberly Wallins Friedman from Hire On-Demand, it became clear that the ability to communicate with different stakeholders is imperative:

“Being able to speak to stakeholders at varying levels in the company. For example, if you’re talking to a salesperson, it’s important to be concise and to the point vs. if you’re speaking with an executive, it’s important to be able to communicate at a high-level and be able to interact in a way that’s appropriate and in line with that kind of a dialogue. Bottom line: communications skills is the number one soft skill.”

Friedman has over 20 years experience in technology recruiting. She left Salesforce to start her company, Hire On-Demand, which is a specialty recruiting firm. They staff companies with Salesforce Administrators, Developers and all things Salesforce and have been doing so for almost 10 years!

So those are some soft skills that the community & employers believe are important to develop and highlight on your resume.

Of course, the technical know-how can’t be forgotten. Showcase your technical chops by adding your Admin Certs, Trailhead Badges and Superbadges to your profile and resume. In a job market where these skills are scarce and in-demand, it’s important to highlight what you know!

Just Getting Started

If you’re just getting started with Salesforce and looking to get a job as a Salesforce Administrator, here are some tips:

1. Get Hands-on Experience
   Many Salesforce Admins told us that hands-on experience is super important. As a newbie, you may think that’s impossible! But it’s not, you can start by volunteering. Nonprofits will greatly appreciate your help and you will have real-life experience to show for it.
2. Find Your Transferrable Skills
   Stephanie Bachar, employer engagement manager at JVS, suggested Admins figure out what their transferable skills are and learn how to communicate them: “Figure out what skills and experience you have that employers will value. This is especially important for a non-traditional candidate – it’s all about knowing how to sell yourself.” JVS is a nonprofit that helps people find jobs by running a variety of training and vocational programs. It provides a 4-month Salesforce training program in San Francisco.
3. Always be learning
   Stay on top of releases, use trailhead, volunteer and be curious!
4. Bonus from JVS: Don’t limit yourself to Salesforce Admin specific roles during your job search! There are other roles (such as sales operations analyst or internal customer support) that have admin responsibilities that will give you the experience you need to transition to a full-time Salesforce Administrator role.

Have more Admin skills you think are important to highlight? Let us know – comment below!