Few days ago I’ve been interviewed by Carlo De Bonis for his Spaghetti Salesforce vlog (in Italian đđ).
We talked about my career path, what being a Salesforce MVP means and what I believe our amazing Trailblazer Community and Salesforce ecosystem will evolve in the next years.
Have a nice view!
Becoming a Salesforce Administrator is often the entry route into the worldâs number one CRM technology, but this doesnât make the job interview process any easier for prospective admins.
As the most prominent role in Salesforce, the competition for a job as a Salesforce Administrator is particularly high. In Mason Frankâs 2018/19 independent Salesforce salary survey, 70% of respondents reported being a Certified Salesforce Administrator, far higher than any other certification. With other candidates waiting in the wings, you need to be sure your interview goes perfectly to guarantee the job offer, and that comes down to preparation.
A job interview for a Salesforce Administrator role can take many forms, and so youâll need to be prepared for several different lines of questioning. Your interviewer wonât just be interested in your technical experience as an administrator, theyâll also want to know how you see CRM as part of a larger business, and use this to test how much youâve researched their organisation. In addition, theyâll also want to get to know you as a person.
Read on for a series of tips on how to prepare for your next job interview as a Salesforce Administrator.
Ultimately your prospective employer will want to learn how skilled you are on the Salesforce platform, and so you should expect to be asked technical interview questions. A Salesforce Administrator is quite a varied role, and so technical questions you may be asked can be quite broad. You could be asked something very functional such as âwhat is a roll-up summary fieldâ, or perhaps something a little more scenario-based, such as âhow do you share a record and in what circumstances would that be expected?â
One thing that you need to be aware of going into the job interview is that your interviewer may have no experience using Salesforce, or alternatively they may be a Certified Technical Architect.
With this in mind, itâs not enough to simply have a good working knowledge of Salesforce, you need to be prepared to explain technical concepts in plain language so that a non-expert will understand you. Having technical knowledge is one thing, but being able to communicate your knowledge to a layman is another thing entirely, so practice this before the interview.
While knowledge is valuable, application is power.
Salesforce Trailhead is a fantastic education portal and is responsible for launching the career of thousands of Salesforce professionals, but it wonât provide you with that all-important practical experience that employers are looking for. This is why experience is incredibly valuable, and so you should be prepared to discuss the projects youâve worked on and what you learned from them.
If youâve worked as part of an implementation team, be ready to discuss the technical elements as well as the challenges you faced and how you overcame them. If youâve ever experienced data loss or a data breach, be ready to discuss how you discovered the event and how it was resolved. Donât be afraid to discuss challenges and mistakes madeâthis is what experience is all about, and will set you apart from the other candidates.
Something else that employers value highly is your ability to work on a collaborative project. As an Admin itâs unlikely that you will be working completely independently, so be prepared to talk about your communication skills, requirements gathering, and ability to work within the confines of a project timeline, using examples from your previous experience.
Itâs essential you have the skills and experience to perform the job youâre being interviewed for, but your prospective employer will also want to get an idea of who you are as a person. After all, theyâll likely be spending around 40 hours a week in your presence, so itâs important they employ someone who theyâll enjoy working withâyou should also be confident that youâll enjoy working with them as well!
Given that your technical knowledge and experience come with the territory of being a Salesforce professional, getting your personal character across can often be the most nerve-racking element of a job interview, but this shouldnât be the case. Just be yourself and communicate your goals and ambitions clearly.
Itâs always a good idea to think about why you entered Salesforce technology and where you eventually want your career to take you, as long as you can relate this to why you want the job youâre interviewing for and how this will help you achieve your goals.
Being a successful Salesforce Administrator is about more than just doing the job, itâs about finding ways to maximise the value of Salesforce in an organisation, and making yourself indispensable as a result.
Salesforce Developers possess a strong working knowledge of the platform and can add serious value to a business. But given the competitive talent market, you must be prepared to set yourself apart from your peers to really stand out during a job interview.
While job interviews can take many weird and wonderful formats, you should be prepared for two different types of questions during the interview. One will test your technical competency for the role, and the other will measure your experience and knowledge of CRM development in a commercial environment.
Firstly, the interviewer will want to get a grasp of your technical understanding of the Salesforce platform, so be prepared to answer questions around the architecture or processes involved in Salesforce development.
This can be slightly daunting, as youâre essentially being tested to see whether you really have the skills that are listed on your resume, but thereâs no reason to be intimidated. If youâve worked as a Salesforce Developer in the past, particularly if youâre certified, none of these questions should be outside your realm of understanding.
If you do struggle with a question, thereâs nothing wrong with admitting youâve never worked with that particular tool or concept beforeâthe interviewer will appreciate your honesty, as some people would try to bluff it in this situation (and make themselves look silly in the process). You could even ask them about it, which would show youâre always looking to learn.
If youâre nervous about the kind of questions you may be asked during the interview, we have a resource that details technical interview questions for Salesforce Developers, based on our experience as a specialist Salesforce recruiter. Itâs unlikely the interviewer will ask you something incredibly technical, but itâs nice to be prepared just in case.
As well as what you know, the interviewer will also want to find out what youâve done so far in your career, and how your experience makes you the perfect candidate for their job. How did you become a Salesforce Developer? What kind of projects have you worked on in the past? What has been the biggest challenge in your career so far and how did you overcome it?
The best way to prepare for this line of questioning is to revisit your portfolio and map out your entire learning journey. A small project you worked on three years ago could be incredibly useful for the task at hand, and so you should be prepared to recall what you did and why.
This is especially useful if you can map it against your education journeyâhow much did you know at that stage of your career and what would you do now thatâs different? Base this around what youâve learned, the training youâve undertaken, and the certifications youâve gained since then.
Thereâs also merit in talking about mistakes that have been made on projects in the past and how they impacted development. The fact youâve identified these mistakes and now know better is a testament to the knowledge and experience of your role. Remember that experience is not inherently nominalâa developer with three years of experience who has worked on complex projects will be more valuable than a developer with five years of experience who hasnât.
To interview successfully, it isnât all about having an answer for whatever question is thrown at you. Thereâs also an onus on you to do your research and find out exactly what will help you stand out in the context of the position youâre applying for. Consider the following:
Preparation is key, but nobody is immune to a bad interviewâsometimes you and the company simply wonât be a good fit, and this is fine. Whether successful or not, it will be valuable experience that you can take forward in your Salesforce journey, so donât be discouraged if things donât go to plan. Just remember to approach it with a level head and confidence in your ability. You have skills that this company needs, otherwise they wouldnât have invited you in to interview in the first place!
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