What's "A Day In The Life" like as a Salesforce Admin Beginner?
May 1, 2022 6:25 PM Subscribe
I'll keep this first paragraph short. I'm considering exploring the world of Salesforce Admin careers. I very little about Salesforce, other than it being an ultra-powered Excel (and capable of so much more). And that it's a good career path. What is your typical day like as a SF Admin? What skills and personality traits lend themselves to this role, and which don't?
I live in Austin, Texas. My Dad and I co-founded a remodeling and renovation company two years ago.
Before doing this, I was exploring the UX route. I spend $13k on an immersive General Assembly UX course that was 40 hours a day in-person in-class, for 8 weeks, and after about 4-5 months I finally landed a job for 8 months as a UX/UI intern. The problem with UX was that I didn't have much graphic design experience or knowledge (I got my Bachelors of Science in Psychology with a minor in Anthropology... if I could do things again, I might have changed my major to Graphic Design). After I was let off the UX/UI job (at which I never had much responsibilities and was never allowed to work more than part time, and I could never get a promotion no matter how hard I worked or asked) (and after spending about 6 months looking for a new UX/UI position without much luck), my Dad asked me if I could help him launch the company which we eventually launched.
We almost immediately found that I was best suited as an organizer, (my Dad is not very well organized at all), as a person digitizing what was before literal paper-work, and the program I spent the most time in was Excel, doing many kinds of data entry things and working the data into a much more understandable (to a layman) format.
So when I heard that Salesforce is a high-demand job involving data manipulation that has a low-ish barrier to entry (meaning that I don't have to get a college degree for it), I took notice.
But I've been burned before by UX. Meaning, I've been burned by this scrip:
"Hey, here's a job most people haven't heard of! It's high-paying, enjoyable, and best of all, there is little competition to get a job! There is very little experience required! All you have to do is learn the ins and outs of UX and then you will be able to get a job!"
Salesforce sounds like the same thing, and I'm hesitant to quit my (admittedly, not very well paying job that doesn't have much of a future (I love my Dad, but working for him is very different than being his son)).
But I'm at the point where I need to learn some new skills. UX isn't my thing. I need to learn something new. And Salesforce sounds very exciting.
I've been watching this YouTube channel called Salesforce for Everyone. It's a channel created by Bradley Rice. He has a course called Talent Stacker that costs $1.5k. Which is a hell of a lot less than I paid for General Assembly's $13k UX Immersive course. I've heard really great things about Talent Stacker, and Bradley Rice seems like a genuine guy.
And last of all, I'm 33, closer to 34. I live with my parents. I'm unable to afford an apartment in Austin. Unable to afford even a car. I'm going a bit crazy with all the endless barriers I've been running into in terms of growing up and feeling like an adult. Working for my Dad, which I've been doing for the past 2 years, hasn't gotten me anywhere. I almost got an apartment, but couldn't afford it and my parents couldn't be my guarantors.
So in order to stop screaming into a pillow, I had to think of the positives. My job as a garden worker is seasonal and ends at the end of May. I've been saving my money, and I could afford that Talent Stacker course. Since I don't have to pay for an apartment, I actually could take 6-8 months to learn a new skill. If there was a time to reinvent myself, this is that time.
And so... I'll ask again.
1. What is the day-to-day life like as a beginner Salesforce Admin?
2. What personality traits and strengths lend themselves to this career field?
3. What personality traits and weaknesses do not lend themselves to this career field?
4. Do you have any other advice?
Also, I have just updated my resume and LinkedIn, not that I'm going to be looking for a Salesforce career right at this moment (Obviously, I'm not ready). But what is the best way to network with fellow Salesforce newbies? LinkedIn, Facebook, Meetup groups? All of the above?
Thank you so much for reading my post and I would super appreciate it if you could lend me some of your wisdom!
I live in Austin, Texas. My Dad and I co-founded a remodeling and renovation company two years ago.
Before doing this, I was exploring the UX route. I spend $13k on an immersive General Assembly UX course that was 40 hours a day in-person in-class, for 8 weeks, and after about 4-5 months I finally landed a job for 8 months as a UX/UI intern. The problem with UX was that I didn't have much graphic design experience or knowledge (I got my Bachelors of Science in Psychology with a minor in Anthropology... if I could do things again, I might have changed my major to Graphic Design). After I was let off the UX/UI job (at which I never had much responsibilities and was never allowed to work more than part time, and I could never get a promotion no matter how hard I worked or asked) (and after spending about 6 months looking for a new UX/UI position without much luck), my Dad asked me if I could help him launch the company which we eventually launched.
We almost immediately found that I was best suited as an organizer, (my Dad is not very well organized at all), as a person digitizing what was before literal paper-work, and the program I spent the most time in was Excel, doing many kinds of data entry things and working the data into a much more understandable (to a layman) format.
So when I heard that Salesforce is a high-demand job involving data manipulation that has a low-ish barrier to entry (meaning that I don't have to get a college degree for it), I took notice.
But I've been burned before by UX. Meaning, I've been burned by this scrip:
"Hey, here's a job most people haven't heard of! It's high-paying, enjoyable, and best of all, there is little competition to get a job! There is very little experience required! All you have to do is learn the ins and outs of UX and then you will be able to get a job!"
Salesforce sounds like the same thing, and I'm hesitant to quit my (admittedly, not very well paying job that doesn't have much of a future (I love my Dad, but working for him is very different than being his son)).
But I'm at the point where I need to learn some new skills. UX isn't my thing. I need to learn something new. And Salesforce sounds very exciting.
I've been watching this YouTube channel called Salesforce for Everyone. It's a channel created by Bradley Rice. He has a course called Talent Stacker that costs $1.5k. Which is a hell of a lot less than I paid for General Assembly's $13k UX Immersive course. I've heard really great things about Talent Stacker, and Bradley Rice seems like a genuine guy.
And last of all, I'm 33, closer to 34. I live with my parents. I'm unable to afford an apartment in Austin. Unable to afford even a car. I'm going a bit crazy with all the endless barriers I've been running into in terms of growing up and feeling like an adult. Working for my Dad, which I've been doing for the past 2 years, hasn't gotten me anywhere. I almost got an apartment, but couldn't afford it and my parents couldn't be my guarantors.
So in order to stop screaming into a pillow, I had to think of the positives. My job as a garden worker is seasonal and ends at the end of May. I've been saving my money, and I could afford that Talent Stacker course. Since I don't have to pay for an apartment, I actually could take 6-8 months to learn a new skill. If there was a time to reinvent myself, this is that time.
And so... I'll ask again.
1. What is the day-to-day life like as a beginner Salesforce Admin?
2. What personality traits and strengths lend themselves to this career field?
3. What personality traits and weaknesses do not lend themselves to this career field?
4. Do you have any other advice?
Also, I have just updated my resume and LinkedIn, not that I'm going to be looking for a Salesforce career right at this moment (Obviously, I'm not ready). But what is the best way to network with fellow Salesforce newbies? LinkedIn, Facebook, Meetup groups? All of the above?
Thank you so much for reading my post and I would super appreciate it if you could lend me some of your wisdom!
I sort of fell ass backwards into a job as a Salesforce designer and cannot comment on the admin job market or overall lifestyle, but I will second that you shouldn’t drop money on that course! There is nothing a YouTube Salesforce lifestyle guru can offer you that you can’t get for free from doing Trailheads and networking.
Do the Admin trailmix, go to a local user group meetup, post on the subreddit, join their Discord, learn all the Salesforce animal mascot names, fall in love with Appy the AppExchange Bobcat, whatever, all free and much more worth your while than a $1500 LinkedIn hustler course.
If you complete the admin Trailmix (really, 100% the whole thing, don’t just click through a few badges and go “yeah, I think this could fix my life”) and decide this is something you want to pursue, you can get a $40 discount on the $200(!!!) admin exam by sitting through one of Salesforce’s cert prep seminars. The only external prep materials I would ever recommend spending money on are Focus on Force’s practice exams which are $19, but don’t even think about that until you’re a lot further down the line.
That’s all I have for you. Good luck! Marc Benioff if you are reading this please immediately Venmo me $500.
posted by katiec at 9:35 PM on May 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
Do the Admin trailmix, go to a local user group meetup, post on the subreddit, join their Discord, learn all the Salesforce animal mascot names, fall in love with Appy the AppExchange Bobcat, whatever, all free and much more worth your while than a $1500 LinkedIn hustler course.
If you complete the admin Trailmix (really, 100% the whole thing, don’t just click through a few badges and go “yeah, I think this could fix my life”) and decide this is something you want to pursue, you can get a $40 discount on the $200(!!!) admin exam by sitting through one of Salesforce’s cert prep seminars. The only external prep materials I would ever recommend spending money on are Focus on Force’s practice exams which are $19, but don’t even think about that until you’re a lot further down the line.
That’s all I have for you. Good luck! Marc Benioff if you are reading this please immediately Venmo me $500.
posted by katiec at 9:35 PM on May 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
I can't answer all of your questions as I am far from an expert in Salesforce, but I've been a CRM administrator for nearly a decade and do have some experience with Salesforce. So I can address your question on what a CRM administrator does day to day.
As geoff. said, what you do with a CRM is dependent on the job, and company size makes a difference. I can give you a few different scenarios from my experience.
Large company: my parent company has a whole CRM team, with people taking various roles. There are a couple of people doing design and implementation. There is a product manager who heads up the team, and a project manager who works closely with the business to determine what they want and need from the CRM. There are several people working in the role of "data steward" who are mostly concerned with data integrity, and a couple of support people who deal with user issues as well as adding new users, inactivating users, changing user roles, etc. So there is no one person in the role of "CRM administrator", each person basically has a piece of what that role would encompass.
Medium company: this is me currently. I am the CRM administrator for a medium-sized division of the parent company. Because we have the main CRM team at the parent company, I am not able to be involved in things like design or customization. The things I do day to day include: request new users to be set up, request inactivation of users. Enter accounts and contacts into the CRM. Verify legal name and address of accounts other users enter in CRM. Run reports out of the CRM. Build reports to user specifications. User support and training. Create training materials and process documentation. There has been a very light amount of travel involved, mainly to other branches to train users, and a couple of times to receive training from the parent company.
Small company: our company acquired a smaller company a few years ago, and for complicated reasons they did not begin using our CRM, but continued using Salesforce as they had before we bought them. So I was required to learn Salesforce on the fly to serve as their admin. My parent company was not involved with the new company or their CRM, so I wore all the hats mentioned above, plus I was able to redo the layout of various pages and add fields, add new users and configure their permissions. The company had a contract with a Salesforce consultant who helped me learn a lot of what I needed to know, and who would outright do things for me that were more complex. Because the company was so small, even though I was the only Salesforce person at the company there simply was not enough CRM work to be a full-time job. There were only a couple of hours of CRM work on an average day, but since I was also working for the medium-company on the other CRM, I had plenty to do there. Many of the other CRM admins I know who work for small companies have dual roles such as sales admin, marketing manager, sales manager, IT support, etc.
Skills and traits that have been helpful to me:
Problem-solving (for creating processes that do what you need them to do, within the limits of the system; finding workarounds, etc.)
Process documentation
The ability to simplify the steps of a process and teach them to someone else
Written communication skills (for creating training materials; sending clear, informative emails to the user base)
Verbal communication skills and comfort with public speaking (you may be talking to people at many levels of the organization, often in an advisory capacity; you may be training users individually or in group sessions)
Customer service skills (your users are your "customers", and they are often frustrated either because something is not working right or because they don't understand something)
Some knowledge of sales, sales administration and marketing, from a CRM standpoint (these are the main user groups I work with, and they all use the CRM differently)
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 10:39 PM on May 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
As geoff. said, what you do with a CRM is dependent on the job, and company size makes a difference. I can give you a few different scenarios from my experience.
Large company: my parent company has a whole CRM team, with people taking various roles. There are a couple of people doing design and implementation. There is a product manager who heads up the team, and a project manager who works closely with the business to determine what they want and need from the CRM. There are several people working in the role of "data steward" who are mostly concerned with data integrity, and a couple of support people who deal with user issues as well as adding new users, inactivating users, changing user roles, etc. So there is no one person in the role of "CRM administrator", each person basically has a piece of what that role would encompass.
Medium company: this is me currently. I am the CRM administrator for a medium-sized division of the parent company. Because we have the main CRM team at the parent company, I am not able to be involved in things like design or customization. The things I do day to day include: request new users to be set up, request inactivation of users. Enter accounts and contacts into the CRM. Verify legal name and address of accounts other users enter in CRM. Run reports out of the CRM. Build reports to user specifications. User support and training. Create training materials and process documentation. There has been a very light amount of travel involved, mainly to other branches to train users, and a couple of times to receive training from the parent company.
Small company: our company acquired a smaller company a few years ago, and for complicated reasons they did not begin using our CRM, but continued using Salesforce as they had before we bought them. So I was required to learn Salesforce on the fly to serve as their admin. My parent company was not involved with the new company or their CRM, so I wore all the hats mentioned above, plus I was able to redo the layout of various pages and add fields, add new users and configure their permissions. The company had a contract with a Salesforce consultant who helped me learn a lot of what I needed to know, and who would outright do things for me that were more complex. Because the company was so small, even though I was the only Salesforce person at the company there simply was not enough CRM work to be a full-time job. There were only a couple of hours of CRM work on an average day, but since I was also working for the medium-company on the other CRM, I had plenty to do there. Many of the other CRM admins I know who work for small companies have dual roles such as sales admin, marketing manager, sales manager, IT support, etc.
Skills and traits that have been helpful to me:
Problem-solving (for creating processes that do what you need them to do, within the limits of the system; finding workarounds, etc.)
Process documentation
The ability to simplify the steps of a process and teach them to someone else
Written communication skills (for creating training materials; sending clear, informative emails to the user base)
Verbal communication skills and comfort with public speaking (you may be talking to people at many levels of the organization, often in an advisory capacity; you may be training users individually or in group sessions)
Customer service skills (your users are your "customers", and they are often frustrated either because something is not working right or because they don't understand something)
Some knowledge of sales, sales administration and marketing, from a CRM standpoint (these are the main user groups I work with, and they all use the CRM differently)
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 10:39 PM on May 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
the program I spent the most time in was Excel, doing many kinds of data entry things and working the data into a much more understandable (to a layman) format
I realized I did not address this aspect of your question. I personally do not do a lot of work on manipulating data into a user-friendly formats, but that is at least in part because we have a BI department at my company who are the report gurus. I created some reports that they run out of CRM and then they combine that data with data from our ERP system using Power BI, and then they do the work to analyze the data and make the results visually appealing and understandable.
Prior to the creation of our BI department, I'm sure my previous boss would have loved it if I had had the ability to analyze the data and create pivot charts, graphs, etc. but she was good enough at doing it herself that she never prioritized having me learn. So there probably are jobs out there that encompass more of this, mine just doesn't happen to be one of them.
Excel skills have come in really handy, though. When I run a report out of CRM I export the results into Excel; and being able to sort, filter, find and remove duplicates, do v-lookups, concatenate and un-concatenate data, etc. has been very valuable in my day to day.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 5:21 AM on May 2, 2022
I realized I did not address this aspect of your question. I personally do not do a lot of work on manipulating data into a user-friendly formats, but that is at least in part because we have a BI department at my company who are the report gurus. I created some reports that they run out of CRM and then they combine that data with data from our ERP system using Power BI, and then they do the work to analyze the data and make the results visually appealing and understandable.
Prior to the creation of our BI department, I'm sure my previous boss would have loved it if I had had the ability to analyze the data and create pivot charts, graphs, etc. but she was good enough at doing it herself that she never prioritized having me learn. So there probably are jobs out there that encompass more of this, mine just doesn't happen to be one of them.
Excel skills have come in really handy, though. When I run a report out of CRM I export the results into Excel; and being able to sort, filter, find and remove duplicates, do v-lookups, concatenate and un-concatenate data, etc. has been very valuable in my day to day.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 5:21 AM on May 2, 2022
Best answer: 1. What is the day-to-day life like as a beginner Salesforce Admin?
Beginner admininstrators of business/tech/IT systems are likely to spend more time on requests/responses to input from higher-ups and end users than they are on creating things or planning new directions.
If you work for a tech consulting operation, you will likely start out getting the least interesting and/or most thankless calls/emails/Teams/Zooms/etc. from clients.
Salesforce is a software service. If a company relies on it for things like billing, it's business-critical, at which point you're a maintainer/service owner for something that the company leadership knows is essential to operations.
I have limited Salesforce experience, but I have spent a fair few years in IT/Ops/SysAdmin/DevOps/other buzzwords for software maintenance, and I've hung around people who maintain slightly different software.
Compared to UX or web design, it seems like an easier field to build a career in, in part because the services you're offering are really essential, not optional spending that companies can cut when they tighten their budgets.
2. What personality traits and strengths lend themselves to this career field?
Attention to detail is key, as are being responsive, communicative, and patient.
3. What personality traits and weaknesses do not lend themselves to this career field?
If you have strong technical/analytical skills but you either can't absorb guidance/direction/detailed information about probelms from your clients/user, or you can't communicate effectively about what you know and what you've done so far, you are a liability to your team and may have to shape up or get managed out.
You do not want to maintain any software or computer service alone. You don't want to go down that route. You want the ability to take vacations and sick time, and to eventually move on to other roles (or retire). If you can't share your knowledge and responsibilities with your colleagues, if you get possessive and cagey about the stuff you're responsible for, you're going to have a bad time.
4. Do you have any other advice?
Yeah, I wouldn't start with Salesforce, it's relatively specialized and not in use everywhere.
I think this line is noteworthy: the program I spent the most time in was Excel, doing many kinds of data entry things and working the data into a much more understandable (to a layman) format.
A really huge fraction of modern businesses, even those much too small for dedicated CRM software or a CRM admin, use either Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, which are relatively transferable skillsets. There seems to be a lot of demand for M365 admins/Microsoft Partners out there, and that stuff isn't too hard to pick up.
If I were you, I would do three things today. None of them cost money.
1) The first thing is to start reading the MS-100 free online study materials (scroll down to the "Learning Path" area). It's dry and boring, and probably not as advanced as you'd prefer.
If you would prefer to get further down the tech stack, so to speak, maybe read the free materials for a Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) or Amazon Web Services (AWS) certification.
2) The second thing I would do is rewrite your resume and template cover letter to sound more IT-oriented/software-support oriented.
3) The third thing I would do is plan to go to meetups, join Discords, join Slacks, and otherwise become known to DevOps/etc people in your area. Some of them are probably hiring managers, and some of those spaces get used to find candidates.
Over the next weeks and months, I would only seriously prep for and pay for a certification exam if you get the sense that actually getting that cert will help you get roles in your area (i.e. if you're seeing many job listings in those spaces where you've become known that are specifically looking for Google Cloud Engineers or Azure Administrators).
posted by All Might Be Well at 5:57 AM on May 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Beginner admininstrators of business/tech/IT systems are likely to spend more time on requests/responses to input from higher-ups and end users than they are on creating things or planning new directions.
If you work for a tech consulting operation, you will likely start out getting the least interesting and/or most thankless calls/emails/Teams/Zooms/etc. from clients.
Salesforce is a software service. If a company relies on it for things like billing, it's business-critical, at which point you're a maintainer/service owner for something that the company leadership knows is essential to operations.
I have limited Salesforce experience, but I have spent a fair few years in IT/Ops/SysAdmin/DevOps/other buzzwords for software maintenance, and I've hung around people who maintain slightly different software.
Compared to UX or web design, it seems like an easier field to build a career in, in part because the services you're offering are really essential, not optional spending that companies can cut when they tighten their budgets.
2. What personality traits and strengths lend themselves to this career field?
Attention to detail is key, as are being responsive, communicative, and patient.
3. What personality traits and weaknesses do not lend themselves to this career field?
If you have strong technical/analytical skills but you either can't absorb guidance/direction/detailed information about probelms from your clients/user, or you can't communicate effectively about what you know and what you've done so far, you are a liability to your team and may have to shape up or get managed out.
You do not want to maintain any software or computer service alone. You don't want to go down that route. You want the ability to take vacations and sick time, and to eventually move on to other roles (or retire). If you can't share your knowledge and responsibilities with your colleagues, if you get possessive and cagey about the stuff you're responsible for, you're going to have a bad time.
4. Do you have any other advice?
Yeah, I wouldn't start with Salesforce, it's relatively specialized and not in use everywhere.
I think this line is noteworthy: the program I spent the most time in was Excel, doing many kinds of data entry things and working the data into a much more understandable (to a layman) format.
A really huge fraction of modern businesses, even those much too small for dedicated CRM software or a CRM admin, use either Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, which are relatively transferable skillsets. There seems to be a lot of demand for M365 admins/Microsoft Partners out there, and that stuff isn't too hard to pick up.
If I were you, I would do three things today. None of them cost money.
1) The first thing is to start reading the MS-100 free online study materials (scroll down to the "Learning Path" area). It's dry and boring, and probably not as advanced as you'd prefer.
If you would prefer to get further down the tech stack, so to speak, maybe read the free materials for a Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) or Amazon Web Services (AWS) certification.
2) The second thing I would do is rewrite your resume and template cover letter to sound more IT-oriented/software-support oriented.
3) The third thing I would do is plan to go to meetups, join Discords, join Slacks, and otherwise become known to DevOps/etc people in your area. Some of them are probably hiring managers, and some of those spaces get used to find candidates.
Over the next weeks and months, I would only seriously prep for and pay for a certification exam if you get the sense that actually getting that cert will help you get roles in your area (i.e. if you're seeing many job listings in those spaces where you've become known that are specifically looking for Google Cloud Engineers or Azure Administrators).
posted by All Might Be Well at 5:57 AM on May 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm a current Salesforce admin at a small company, and previously worked in sales ops/as an admin at another small company. I think other folks have covered your questions decently well. I would second geoff.'s comment about the entry-level Salesforce market being saturated and also katiec's recommendation to get involved in your local Salesforce community, neither of my Salesforce jobs I got by applying cold.
As an admin with a lil bit of experience and a really good sales ops/BI team, I wouldn't say I do a ton of work with data at this point, although I did a lot more reporting in my previous role. If you're interested in doing data stuff, it may be work looking specifically at that, which would be something like a BI analyst (I think?).
Anyway feel free to drop me a message if you want to chat more about Salesforce!
posted by HtotheH at 8:19 AM on May 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
As an admin with a lil bit of experience and a really good sales ops/BI team, I wouldn't say I do a ton of work with data at this point, although I did a lot more reporting in my previous role. If you're interested in doing data stuff, it may be work looking specifically at that, which would be something like a BI analyst (I think?).
Anyway feel free to drop me a message if you want to chat more about Salesforce!
posted by HtotheH at 8:19 AM on May 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
I should add, I have some college education (no degree) and one Microsoft cert, and had zero certs when I got hired in my current role. It's possible to hack it without formal credentials.
It's REALLY REALLY HARD to hack it with no connections to people.
Polish up and poke around your LinkedIn, too - I know a bunch of the tech bootcamps make you do LinkedIn, did any of your classmates from university or General Assembly land in Ops/etc roles? Does anybody on your LinkedIn feed post about openings?
posted by All Might Be Well at 9:31 AM on May 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
It's REALLY REALLY HARD to hack it with no connections to people.
Polish up and poke around your LinkedIn, too - I know a bunch of the tech bootcamps make you do LinkedIn, did any of your classmates from university or General Assembly land in Ops/etc roles? Does anybody on your LinkedIn feed post about openings?
posted by All Might Be Well at 9:31 AM on May 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
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What you do with Salesforce will be highly dependent on the job but I would look towards consultancies and don't chase certs but things that interest you. I worked with a Salesforce consultancies, albeit in a much different role, and most people starting out were pretty close to straight out of college and probably not making much. I don't know how things have changed, it can become lucrative, but it is not a magic ticket.
posted by geoff. at 7:07 PM on May 1, 2022 [6 favorites]