Introduction

The demand for Salesforce professionals is on the rise with companies transitioning to a more digital sphere of implementation. The first thought that may cross your mind when you think of starting a career in Salesforce is that you need to know how to code. Surprisingly, that’s not the case. Not all Salesforce roles require coding. So taking on the role of a Salesforce Admin may be perfect for you if you’re transitioning from a non-IT background.

General Skills Recruiters Look For In A Salesforce Admin

Administrators work closely with the users of the org to bring to reality their requirements, so simply knowing how to manipulate the Salesforce environment to the needs of the users isn’t good enough. Building a good rapport with users along with numerous soft skills is a prerequisite to getting the job done.

Let’s look at some skills that you need, to ace that interview and land the role of a Salesforce Administrator.

Salesforce Skills

Which is quite obvious, to say the least. You need to manage your users,i.e. User Management, you need to create profiles and permissions, but your responsibility does not end there, you need to understand what it is that your users need and step into their shoes for a minute and customize Salesforce to make it a more efficient experience for your users.

You need to Manage Data, create custom objects and fields, create validation rules, prevent duplication of data and ensure the quality of data.

Another major factor is Security, ensuring your org data is secure and ensuring preventative measures are put in place to protect your org from both internal and external intruders is a major requirement. Running Health Checks occasionally to improve your organization’s security and make changes when necessary. Last but not the least, provide actionable reports and dashboards to help your stakeholders gain insight to improve their business process.

Communication And Leadership Skills

Only if we could read the user’s mind to comprehend what their needs were. Just communicating with the users is not good enough, understanding them and asking the right questions at the right time to gain insight into the business processes, and only then customizing Salesforce is imperative. This leaves both the users and yourself, the Admin in a better space and leads to more productivity and a better work environment. So both you and your users can be at your best!

You’ll be training your users in the Salesforce environment which puts you in a position of leadership. You’ll be wearing many hats. You will be creating training materials, testing new features for users, and much more. So brush up on your communication and leadership skills to impress your recruiter!

Industry Skills

To create a significant impact you will need an understanding of how the industry works. A bookstore would have needs that a Bank would not and vice versa. Your job would be to customize needs and that’s going to differ greatly from industry to industry. A Bank and a Bookstore have contrasting business goals, rules and regulations, and customers. Gaining insight into how the industry works would definitely give you an upper hand.

DEVELOPER MINDSET

While you don’t need to code to take on the role of an Admin, you still need to work on your logical and problem-solving skills. You’ll be in charge of handling permissions, and you’ll need to know how changes could affect the entire org. You’ll be handling validation rules, and making use of the Process Builder, this calls for a certain grasp on logical thinking.

Technical And Specialized Skills Recruiters Look For In A Salesforce Admin

To keep the conversation going and to make the most of what Salesforce has to offer, you’ll need to able to understand your users and their needs and speak to users and other stakeholders with conviction. To do so Technical Skills are crucial, and implementing Salesforce requires technical skills to a certain degree. Let’s take a deep dive into a few of the technical skills that you will need as a Salesforce Admin to get your job done.

SOQL

Salesforce Object Query Language (SOQL) though comparable to SQL is made specifically for Salesforce. It may be used to write and execute queries, manipulate existing code, and retrieve data. It helps us to fetch and processes a vast quantity of data in a simple manner.

API

Stakeholders are constantly looking for ways to extend Salesforce functionalities such as by making use of Apps on the AppExchange. Salesforce allows programmatic access to your organization’s information using these APIs. You could use Chatter API, SOAP API, REST APIs and so much more.

Sandbox

Is an isolated testing environment, it’s a copy of your production org where you can execute or run programs and files without affecting your production org.

Dashboard

Dashboards help make sense of the varied and scattered data that you own. It reveals the complex patterns in the data, helps you gain insight into data trends, and works as the ideal tool to be used for business intelligence. You can create Customer Reports and Dashboards to perpetually monitor data quality and provide prudent guidance for future expansion and growth. You could create them to keep track of your opportunities, leads, and accounts.

This is just a sliver of the technical skills recruiters look for in a Salesforce Admin. Gaining insight into Custom Objects, Business processes, Workflow, Email, Approval Processes, Permission Sets, and so on can help you stand out.

What Are The Tasks Performed By A Salesforce Admin?

To build an exhaustive list of the tasks performed by a Salesforce Admin could be quite an undertaking. An admin wears many shoes and their role often blurs with other roles. Let’s take a look at some of the tasks performed by a Salesforce Admin.

• Gather stakeholder requirements.
• User management
• Managing workflows, profiles, permission sets, and sharing rules.
• Building custom reports and dashboards.
• Provide Salesforce training for your users.
• Fixing bugs and ensuring optimal performance of your org.

What Is The Future Of A Salesforce Admin?

The options are quite a few but these are some of the roles you can take on in the future as a Salesforce Admin.

• You can look into Development by picking up Apex and LWC (Lightning Web Components).
• Take on the role of a Business Analyst which would put you in a more client-facing role, you would be communicating the requirements to the technical team.
• You could also transition into a Configuration Specialist or Advance Admin.

What Is The Salary Range Of A Salesforce Admin?

Following are the yearly salary ranges for different countries (highly depending on whether you work for a Service-Based or Product Based company):

Why Should You Choose To Become A Salesforce Admin?

Here are some of the reasons why you should choose to be a salesforce admin.

• Well, having the powerful tool called Salesforce with its plethora of features at your fingertips leaves you with incredible options and instant impact.
• If you love solving problems, this role was made just for you. You’ll be constantly facing business challenges that you need to find a solution for and eventually when you do complete the task you’re going to be left with a sense of accomplishment.
• As we mentioned before, as a Salesforce Admin you’re left with multiple options in the future The career growth is incredible.
• You’ll be working with some incredible Salesforce Products such as Einstein, Process Builder, High-Velocity Sales and so much more. The technology is cutting-edge, to say the least.