Show notes
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Jason Atwood, CEO and Co-Founder of Arkus. Join us as we chat about how to land your first Salesforce Admin role, from where to find good opportunities to how to prep for the job interview and more. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jason Atwood. How Salesforce Admins should split their learning time We’re talking with Jason because he spends a lot of time interviewing and hiring people for Salesforce roles. So if you want to be a Salesforce Admin, how should you split up your learning time? Jason recommends following the 20/30/50 rule. Spend 20% of your time on Trailhead, 30% on acquiring certifications, and 50% on finding some way to gain experience. This split corresponds to how important they are on your resume. Trailhead: Becoming a Ranger is priority one, followed by getting some Superbadges. Take the time to set up your profile with a photo, a description of yourself, and a custom URL so that you look like you’re an active member of the community. Certifications: When is the best time to take a Salesforce certification test? As soon as possible! If you don’t get it this time, you can use your results to help you prep for the next exam. And if you do pass, you can get the next cert sooner. Gain Experience: Volunteering isn’t the only way to get experience. You can enroll in a program where you build mock projects in Salesforce, or just build something on your own. The important thing is to have projects you’ve built in Salesforce that you can demo in your job interview. Interview preparation and skill assessments When you’re going for your first Salesforce job interview be ready for some sort of skill assessment. Time pressure is usually a factor in these tests, so Jason recommends doing a practice run. Talk to a friend, find out what kind of data they collect, and then give yourself a day to build them an app. It could track the books they’ve read or the distance they’ve run, the important thing is that you don’t know what it’s going to be before you talk to them. All admins are consultants It’s also important to realize that an interview isn’t just about showing your skills—it’s about showing who you are. It’s a chance to listen and empathize with the person on the other side of the table. It’s a chance to share something that stood out to you in your research about the company. And most importantly, to show who you are by asking questions. Why does Jason place such an emphasis on soft skills in a Salesforce Admin job interview? Because, at the end of the day, every admin is a Salesforce consultant for their organization. You talk to people about their problems to get requirements, come up with a solution, and then iterate on that solution. We touch on a lot more in this conversation about how to look for Salesforce jobs, developing listening skills, and what it’s like to be a Salesforce consultant, so be sure to listen to the full episode and subscribe so you don’t miss out. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Pei Mun Lim on the Skills of a Business Analyst Salesforce Admins Blog: Develop Your Communication Skills as a Salesforce Admin Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Jason on X Jason on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: I got an idea. How about we tackle the hardest question on the Salesforce Trailblazer community? That’s right. This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’re going to look for advice on finding your first admin job and doing the interview, getting experience, and more. And we’re going to do all that with CEO and co-founder of Arkus, Jason Atwood. Jason and I chatted at TrailblazerDX and really wanted to dive into this topic. Now, before we bring Jason on, I just want to make sure that you’re following the Salesforce Admins Podcast on iTunes or Spotify. That way, when new episodes like this one come out, they’re automatically downloaded to your phone. But enough about that. Let’s talk about finding that first job or even finding your next job as a Salesforce administrator. Oh, I almost forgot to mention we tackle the myth of “but it’s just an admin job.” So with that, let’s get Jason on the podcast. So, Jason, welcome to the podcast. Jason Atwood: Thank you for having me. It’s been a long time since we’ve podcast together. Mike Gerholdt: I know. I was thinking back; well, we were just reminiscing of the days at the Marriott Marquis and the Arkus podcast. Jason Atwood: Yep. You were on an episode of CloudFocus Weekly. We had it as part of our trivia once there was only four or five guests ever on the podcast, and you were one of them. Mike Gerholdt: Snuck in, only proximity. I’m going to say. So catch people up. What have you been up to? Jason Atwood: Well, since then, whatever that was, 10 years ago. Yeah. So I am now the current CEO and co-founder of Arkus. We’re a Salesforce consulting firm. We deal mostly in the nonprofit space, and we’ve grown from that little company back then. We’re almost up to 75 people. And now I run around between putting out fires, talking on podcasts, and trying to educate myself on the whole changing landscape of technology. Mike Gerholdt: Yeah, it does feel like in the last decade, it’s gone from everything we know to a brand new world. Jason Atwood: It certainly is. And I just spent three hours at a Heroku dev meetup and could hang there mentally for a bit, but they lost me at a little point. So it’s both fun, interesting, and challenging to stay up with all this stuff. Mike Gerholdt: So one of the things that everyone’s trying to stay up with is the ever-changing job market and hiring. We see a lot of the questions in the Trailblazer community from new admins, people getting into the ecosystem that want to become Salesforce admins, people in the ecosystem that are looking for jobs, or maybe have kind of hit a career plateau. And you and I were chatting, and boy, I think it’d be fun to kind of delve into that topic with you. Jason Atwood: Let’s do it. I have some experience in hiring people over the last 15 years, so I can certainly talk about it. Mike Gerholdt: A little bit more than me. More than me. Well, let’s get started. So let’s start fresh. There’s a lot of new people. As we were talking about in the intro, there’s a lot of new people coming into the ecosystem that maybe don’t have tech advice. They are doing Trailhead modules, completing challenges, getting a lot of badges, trying to round out their resumes, and they don’t know A, what to look for, or B, what to put on their resumes. So somebody that’s hired a bunch of people and been around for a long time, let’s start there with some of your advice and where they should go. Jason Atwood: Sure. This is a very common thing, and the first thing I would tell everybody is relax. It’s going to be okay. I know it feels daunting, and you see these triple all-star rangers and you see all these, the hoodies, and you see the people with the 15 certifications and 10 years of experience, and you feel like, “How am I ever going to get there?” You will; you’ll get there. So the first thing is just to take it easy and not to get too worked up on it. It does feel like a lot. It’s a very big community and filled with lots of hungry people for jobs, a lot of recruiters, a lot of activity. When I talk to people about getting started in the ecosystem, and certainly on the admin track, and we can talk about other tracks if you want, but on the admin track, I kind of say all those things matter. So when it comes to certifications, when it comes to Trailhead, when it comes to experience, they all matter. And usually the question I get is, “But what should I focus on?” And so I came up with something, I maybe made it up years and years ago. I call it the 30, 20, 50 rule, or 20, 30, 50. It doesn’t matter; you can break it up anyway. And if you’re going to take your time, right, you’re in the hunt for a job, and you need to do the education, you need to get enabled, you need to build your experience level. I break it down into those percentages. So 20% of the time, I’d focus on Trailhead. And the trick for Trailhead is A, you just have to be a ranger. We don’t even look at people who aren’t rangers. I had an intern apply the other day, and I said, “No, you’re not even on Trailhead. Go get a ranger before I even talk to you.” So that, to me, is just a minimum bar. Just go be a ranger, and then if you can go up from there, that’s great. And then, if you’re still in your Trailhead worlds, the thing that we then look for besides looking at their profile, is it filled out? Have they thought about it? Have they created it like LinkedIn? So second advice on the Trailhead side is treat your profile like LinkedIn: fill it out, put your picture, put your description, do all the things. It’ll probably take you no more than a half an hour. Make your URL; you can make your customized URL so people can find you; do all the things so it looks like you’re part of the community, right? Make sure that your profile is rich and full. And then the third thing on the Trailhead side of things is to go for super badges. So I can look at double ranger, triple ranger all day long, but if I don’t see some super badges and I speak from someone who doesn’t have any super badges. Mike Gerholdt: Oh, no. Jason Atwood: I know, I know, it’s on my hit list for this year. I know, I know, I mean, I have 15 certs, and so I have some experience, but I’d say, get some super badges. We see that when we look at that as a higher level of dedication and of expertise, because, as you know and as I’ve been doing them, they’re difficult. They show that you have really dug in, and they’re more than just answering some questions or watching videos, or getting fun ones. I love badges, but the super badges really show that kind of a deeper level of education and sort of just being in the Trailhead world. So that’s the 20%. Then the 30% is certifications. You need to have both. You can’t have one without the other. I don’t know what that commercial was, peanut butter and chocolate or something, but- Mike Gerholdt: Yeah, I think so, yeah. Jason Atwood: You might be [inaudible 00:07:08]. Certifications are important; you should focus on them. What I tell people is you need to get them, but you can’t stall. Most people, I think, when we talk to them and we’ll find in the ecosystem, say, “Oh, I’m thinking about getting that, or I’m planning to get that one next year.” And our advice is, “Nope, go get it. Go get it now. Go take it. Go take the test a couple of times.” Do whatever it is you can do to start your certification journey; don’t put it off; don’t procrastinate on it. You don’t have to be perfect; just go get some. And obviously there’s a path of which ones you should get, blah, blah, blah. It depends on where you’re going in your world, but having at least one or two certs is kind of a bare minimum. So if you’re starting off and you’re trying to get into the ecosystem, that’s your 20 and your 30, and then the 50 is the hardest part. And it’s just hard to tell people because it’s the experience. The third thing we look for is experience. I want to see that you’ve done something obviously new to the ecosystem, harder to have the experience, but that’s where I say spend 50% of your time trying to gain that experience. There’s the old adage: try to go work with a non-profit. Although there’s some pushback on that nowadays because of the complexity of the platform, you don’t want to hurt a non-profit. There’s definitely… Get in in a way, there’s programs, there’s tons of programs out there that will help you do mock projects and things where you can just get your hands dirty. And even if you have to build your own thing that you’re going to demo, you got to get experience because I’ve not hired people with 22 certifications, and because it didn’t add up to any experience, and I’ve seen people with tons and tons of experience with zero certs, and I would hire anyway, just from the experience. But for me, that’s how I tell spend your time: 20% trailhead, 30% certifications, and 50% getting that experience. Mike Gerholdt: I think that 50%, that part that you’re talking about is always the part that feels like the hardest to get into. Because if you’re not in tech and you don’t have any experience and you’re trying to land that first job, that can feel like, “If I could get this job, then I could get the experience.” And so, part of that lends to my next question is, so you’re new, we’ve checked all the boxes on filling out our profiles and done that part. What should I get ready for when I interview? Jason Atwood: So every interview’s going to be different, obviously, but a lot of places are using assessments now. So I would say be prepared for an assessment. That means functionally, they’re going to ask you to do something; they’re going to ask you to build something or take something they’ve done and turn it into something on the platform, using Salesforce as the platform. So I would just be ready for that, be prepared, be okay with it. Even do mock versions of it, go have a friend, and I have to given this advice to some people, but go have a friend, sit down with them, talk to them about what they do, and you’ll uncover something that they’re collecting data. And as soon as you can figure out what the data they’re collecting, whether it’s books or they collect comic books, or they’re a skier or they’re a runner, anything you do, you can just come up with, “Ooh, what if I built you an app to track that?” So be prepared to have an assessment of your skills and be able to show that in a short period of time. Meaning it might be a take-home. Sometimes it’s a take-home. Like, “Hey, go do this over the weekend.” Other times it’s, “You have an hour; come back and show us what you did.” Mike Gerholdt: Ooh! Jason Atwood: So I’d say… Ooh! Yeah, I know. I’ve been doing that for 15 years to people. Trust me. I’ve seen a lot of, oohs. Mike Gerholdt: I would imagine. Jason Atwood: Even had one person pass out in the… Mike Gerholdt: Oh, my. Oh, goodness. Jason Atwood: It happens. Mike Gerholdt: You get an extra hour now. Jason Atwood: Yeah. So I think that it’s coming more and more in the ecosystem, because again, when you look at a resume, when you look at LinkedIn, a lot of it’s just you can’t tell whether they know what they’re doing. If you actually do an assessment, you can then assess, “Okay, you know, you functionally know how to do things.” So I’d be prepared for that. The other thing is, I think when you’re really, especially in the new, just be honest about what you do and do not know. That’s really, really key. Don’t fluff up your resume; don’t put things that you don’t know; don’t put clouds, don’t throw in data cloud if you don’t know what data cloud is and haven’t used it or can’t really explain it. Just because you took a Trailhead on something doesn’t mean that platform or know that cloud. So I’d really say be honest with what you know and the clouds, and the products, because that’s going to be super important in the interview process. Mike Gerholdt: Wow. How much… In prep work for resumes, there’s a lot of AI tools out there, so I’d love to know your perspective on both sides of this one: how much do you, as somebody hiring, kind of look for, “Oh, they used AI to generate most of this resume?” And on the flip side, how much should somebody building their resume that could really benefit from an AI tool? How much should they lean into it? Jason Atwood: So I’m going to be the strange answer on this one, or… Mike Gerholdt: Oh, good. Jason Atwood: Yeah, because I’m going to say, resumes don’t matter. Mike Gerholdt: Okay. Jason Atwood: T…
Full show notes at the publisher 
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
