Essential Skills to Build a Career in Salesforce

Many people consider switching careers or building one towards automation and digital technology. In the digital transformation era, starting your cloud computing or Salesforce career with the proper skill set is crucial.

As an aspirant, you should know the roles and responsibilities of the Salesforce field you are choosing and the in-demand knowledge and skills to build a career in Salesforce.

Before learning about the skills and knowledge necessary to get into the Salesforce ecosystem, explore the certifications offered by Salesforce and choose the suitable path for yourself.

Salesforce Certifications

Salesforce is a company that provides software as a service, the software being CRM (customer relationship management). They help connect businesses to their customers and assist with management. Landing a job in Salesforce is sure to skyrocket one’s career as there is a vast scope for financial and professional growth. Salesforce roles range from technologies (builders, developers, startup professionals) to those related to marketing and sales. Each part varies according to the required depth of understanding of the Salesforce speaker.

There are numerous profiles for which one can apply. To master these job fields, various platforms offer guidance and resources to help the aspirant get acknowledged upon completion. These profiles include:

1. Consultant
2. Admin
3. Developer
4. Marketer
5. Architect

The most common profile is Salesforce developer and Salesforce admin but based on interest, one could specialize in any job profile by earning the Salesforce certifications for the field.

Now the question arises ‘which Salesforce career path should you choose?’

Every beginner should learn Salesforce Admin and App Builder modules and get certified in both. The reason being is these modules have an easy learning curve and are the most demanded certifications. Some employers even keep these as minimum requirements to qualify.

Salesforce is the most demanding technology with huge competition and growth in this domain. It has equal opportunities for programmers as well as non-programmers.

Opportunities like Support Analyst, Business Analyst, Project Manager, Data Analyst, and Salesforce Administrator are available for non-programmers. 

Admin: You will learn how to administer and manage standard applications in Salesforce, which are pre-built. This is the base and essential to understanding because majorly companies use standard applications, and with the help of App Builder, they extend functionality.

App Builder: You will learn how to build custom applications or extend standard application functionality. It will cover data modeling, security architecture, application automation, reports and analytics, and data management.

Later you can prepare yourself for Sales Cloud Consultant Certification.

Now you must be wondering if you can get a job in any field; what is the benefit of earning Salesforce certification? 

Benefits of Earning a Salesforce Certification

1. Gaining Tremendous Knowledge

One of the most critical Salesforce certifications benefits is that it gives you a thorough analysis and platform understanding. It increases your insight into sales, customers, and relationships with them. Knowledge is crucial when communication skills come into the picture. 

If you already excel in this field, it allows you to go deeper into it; be aware of every part with scrutinized details. You can even explore multiple tools that enable you to engage in other subtopics of the main concept you’re trying to qualify in. You will become an expert in it with advanced skills and knowledge. 

2. Validate your Dynamically-updated Knowledge

One of the exciting qualities of the Salesforce platform is that it remains highly updated. The Salesforce platform allows the release of all the changes regarding its field of work and gets pushed to the application by itself. This cloud technology enables the release of all updates concerning its field of work and gets pushed to the application by itself. And Salesforce promotes the updates and changes multiple times during the year. 

Additionally, if your organization is already using Salesforce, you shouldn’t be concerned about waiting for an extended period to update the whole software. When you obtain the certification, it allows you to prioritize the work in your company and come up with effective solutions quickly. Because you are a ‘certified’ professional, you become a colleague, other employees or your seniors can seek out whenever there is an update release, given that you have a better understanding.

3. Improves your Skills and Efficiency

When you earn the Salesforce certification, you realize how efficient you have become concerning planning and executing the solutions. Because of the in-depth understanding of the platform, you’ll find the required effectiveness, accuracy, and speed in your work.

Additionally, you can manage customers and any business requests with maximum productivity and minimum effort. It is because you have gained the skill to flick and juggle through tasks with ease and effectiveness without any hassle.

4. An Asset for your Company

When you possess this certification, you become a desired requirement for an organization. Professionals with extensive knowledge in this field are proven to be highly beneficial, and an asset for organizations and can land a job with more ease because of an attractive resume and professional profile. 

If you decide to work with organizations that use Salesforce broadly, this certification becomes a brownie point for you.

Let us now explore the essential skills required for Salesforce’s technical and non-technical job profiles.

Essential Skills to Start a Career in Salesforce

If you are planning to go with the Salesforce Admin path to start a career in Salesforce, consider the following skills:-

A Salesforce Administrator uses their understanding of the Salesforce platform to come up with business solutions to drive user adoption and generate ROI on the implementation of Salesforce. 

Anyone can aim to become a Salesforce Admin, but there are essential skills to consider before diving headfirst into the role:

• Excellent communication skills allow you to work effectively in the organization and help user adoption.
• Be able to create reports, dashboards, and workflow rules.
• Skill to scrutinize data and knowledge about security.
• Innovative and open-minded (there will always be tools that can assist in improving the ROI of Salesforce and reduce the biggest Salesforce challenges)

If you are looking for a foundational and fundamental level certification for developers, the Salesforce Platform Developer 1 certification is for you. 

The Salesforce Platform Developer 1 certification helps developers design custom business logic using the lightning platform. Anyone who aspires to be a Salesforce Platform Developer must pass and obtain this certification. 

You would be relieved that you don’t need formal prerequisites for the Salesforce PD1 certification. A Salesforce developer is an individual who creates apps for the Salesforce platform with the help of various low-code, no-code, and pro-code tools. A Salesforce developer knows everything about these tools and how and when to use them for maximum customer benefit.

If you want to become a Salesforce developer, programming skills are a must to create apps and components. It is required for the components that cannot be created with the help of no-code and low-code tools. But it is always advisable to clear your Salesforce Admin concepts and obtain the Salesforce Admin certification first. Once you have cleared Salesforce Admin basics, go through the Salesforce exam guide for Salesforce PD1 certification and focus on the following skills:-

Following Declarative Development skills and programming skills are needed for a Salesforce developer:-

Declarative Development Skills- You can build applications declaratively using the Salesforce platform’s broad set of in-built tools. The tools are as follows-

1. Lightning App Builder- Used to develop applications.
2. Process Builder and Flow Builder- Business automations are created using this tool.
3. Report Builder- Used to create dashboards and reports.
4. Experience Builder- Used to create customer communities that allow customer engagement.

Programming Skills- A Salesforce developer can extend the features of applications by using programmatic development. Hence, it is essential to learn programmatic skills. The programmatic skills include:-

1. Apex- It is simple to write codes using Apex. Apex gives the interface for the standard enterprise requirements. 
2. SOQL- Salesforce Object Query Language helps in queries related to Salesforce data. So, it is essential to use it.
3. Lightning Web Components- It is a modern programming model like HTML, provided by Salesforce. 

Apart from these essential skills, if you know JavaScript, Object-Oriented Programming, Web Services, and System Integration, it can also apply to Salesforce. 

General problem-solving, analytical, and communication skills always add significant value to your work.

Besides the field-specific skills, mention your achievements and regularly work on LinkedIn, highlighting your Trailhead certifications and badges to showcase your talent and skills.

Additionally, consider the following points to start a career in Salesforce:-

1. Decide a specific field you want to pursue- Admin, Developer, Consultant, etc.
2. Learn Salesforce – Start with Trailhead and enroll in an online course.
3. Get some experience – Work as a volunteer with a nonprofit or a company as an intern or freelancer.
4. Start with a salesforce job.
5. Enhance career with certification, attend dreamforce, network in developer and user groups, and participate in developer or success community.

The journey doesn’t end only by obtaining the certification. Once you get the certification in the Salesforce ecosystem, you must always maintain the knowledge and keep learning about new developments and technologies.

Summing Up

You can add other things to your daily schedule to start your career in Salesforce. Try to integrate Salesforce into your daily schedule to handle the tasks, become a part of Salesforce StackExchange,  join the Salesforce Trailblazer Community, and sign up with a reliable online certification preparation platform to clear the certification and eventually become a professional of the Salesforce ecosystem.