We often hear some really big headliners about the growth of the Salesforce ecosystem. One of the headlines that resonates with me the most, is that 4.2M jobs will be created in the Salesforce ecosystem by 2024.
So, it’s no huge surprise that it’s a great place to start a new career or develop your existing skills in a slightly new direction. The difficulty often comes with where to start. We’re here to help!
Read More: Ultimate Guide to Getting a Salesforce Job
Is Salesforce for you?
Salesforce is a fantastic career for millions around the world, but you have to make sure that it’s the right career for you. First, spend some time getting to know what Salesforce is about, learn about the products and the type of careers on offer.
If you like what you hear, then do some research into the different types of roles. Depending on your background, existing skills, and type of career you are looking for, there are many different directions you can go into.
Read More: What is Salesforce & Why is it so Popular?
How to Get Trained up on Salesforce
OK, so you’ve decided that Salesforce is for you. Now you need to plan how to get there.
- Firstly, choose the role that is right for you. It might be that you dream of being a Salesforce consultant. In which case you need to choose which clouds you will specialize in – always go with something that you have a keen interest in. Whereas a Salesforce business analyst will likely need a broader knowledge of more clouds, but perhaps less in-depth technical knowledge.
- Focus on what you are trying to achieve. Everyone will have different goals – what are yours, and what skills do you need to get you there? Don’t just focus on Salesforce. In all Salesforce careers, there will be other skills you need to be successful. These could be sales skills, coding skills, knowledge of agile or project management.
- Think about your learning style. There are lots of great resources available to you, but how do you learn best? Is your preference to take an instructor-led class, or is on-demand bite-sized learning the thing for you? And hands-on experience is always key.
So, now you have a plan – what resources are in place to help you achieve it?
Let’s take a look at some of the great options to learn all about Salesforce. We highly recommend a blended approach taking from all of these options to fit your own personal ability, time and budget.
Instructor-Led Training
Personally, I find hands-on training pretty hard to beat. Salesforce’s Trailhead Academy offers a wide range of instructor-led workshops, in various time zones, languages, clouds and platforms. There are also options to suit your time commitments and budget. For example, if you want to learn about the platform – perhaps the system administrator training could be for you.
In this scenario, you have the option of a 5 day training class, spreading the content across 10 days, or take the Trailhead Virtual Bootcamp which is a self-learning option, but includes instructor-led sessions each week to answer questions and keep you on track. You can find all of your options directly within Trailhead.
There are also other alternatives, like Janbask Training who offer both self-paced and instructor-led training with the added option of weekend classes.
On-Demand Learning
Life can be pretty busy, so on-demand training is perfect to fit around your work and personal commitments. There are lots of options here for you:
Apart from instructor-led training, many of Salesforce’s training resources are free, so you can really get skilled up easily and quickly:
Trailhead
Salesforce offers free bite-sized learning on their Trailhead platform. There are thousands of badges and points to be gained. What I like best about Trailhead, is that you also get hands-on experience using Trailhead Playgrounds – which tests your knowledge in simulated exercises. As you gain even more experience, you can take this to the next level with Superbadges – which many employers recognise as a level of skill and attainment.
Videos & Webinars
Have you heard of Trailhead Live? Here you can watch live and on-demand videos from industry experts on a range of topics including product features and certification preparation. We love some of the topics, like “Essential Habits for New Admins”.
Salesforce also has their own YouTube Channel, and there is a whole range of content available, updated all the time. I particularly find the How-to videos and the Salesforce Demos really helpful to direct you to what can be possible, and new features.
Trailblazer Community
And don’t forget, Salesforce has all of their product-related help available to everyone online. You can read all of the help and training notes, and join groups for collaboration and Q&A in the Trailblazer Community.
There are also some fantastic paid resources available to you. Here’s some of our favourites:
Udemy
There are hundreds of Salesforce online courses available on the Udemy site. What is particularly useful are some of the more specialist topics that are more difficult to learn elsewhere can be discovered here. For example, a real deep dive into Apex.
Focus on Force
If you feel you are ready to certify, Focus on Force has some really good resources for testing your knowledge before taking the exam. You’ll find out whether there are areas you need to brush up on more and can build your confidence before booking your test.
Workforce Enablement
If a complete change of career is for you, or you are just starting out in the world of work, there is another option. Salesforce is empowering workforce development programmes to skill up people and help them into the Salesforce ecosystem. If you want to get a jumpstart into a new career, joining a workforce development programme could be just for you.
You can get hired, trained up and supported in a new career, and there are also opportunities for apprenticeships. There are a number of different programmes that support career development in the Salesforce eco-system through “hire, train and deploy” programmes, for example QA’s Talent Academy, LDN Apprenticeship’s Talent Path and Revolent. Separate to these, both QA and LDN also offer apprenticeships.
However you learn your Salesforce skills, the Salesforce ecosystem is a really exciting place to be!