Do an Internship at a firm that is involved with Salesforce Technology

I am Manish Thaduri, a Certified Salesforce Specialist with over 8 years of experience in Salesforce technology, currently working in Singapore.

I have multiple role experience: a Solution Architect, Technical & Functional Consultant, Business Analyst, Project Lead, Senior Salesforce Developer and Salesforce Administrator.

Currently, a Platform Specialist at Kalido! My core interest and strength is development though. I’m also the co-organizer of Singapore Salesforce Developer Group

Key Points

You don’t need coding skills to get into Salesforce
If you are considering a career in Salesforce ,check Trailhead which has modules, trails about the technology to start your learning process.
For freshers and starters though – good analytical skills and logical thinking would be enough to start with Salesforce irrespective of the education background.
Do an Internship at a company that is involved with Salesforce technology. This will be the biggest favor you will be doing yourself.

Who is a Salesforce Professional?

Salesforce community, both online and offline, is huge and very active unlike other technology communities.

To me, “Salesforce professional is one who is active on the community and is constantly giving it back to the community”, either by helping other community members in online forums (success community, stack exchange), being a virtual mentor, or offline by attending community driven user group and developer group meet ups doing his/her part in sharing their knowledge.

Salesforce as a company is driven by the simple idea – “giving it back to the community”

Note : What is Salesforce?

How it all got started for you?

During my Engineering final year, I had an opportunity to do internship at a company called Iridium Interactive Ltd.

That’s when I was first introduced to Salesforce technology. No formal training as such, but I had the time to self learn and most importantly got a chance to do hands-on project with one of the top US International Business Schools. It was a 5 months internship programme which put the seed for my interest in Salesforce and eventually I joined back the company later as an employee.

This was back in 2008, when Salesforce was still new. But I knew that I would be in this technology for years. Looking back, I know I was right!

Lesson : Get an internship which demands you to get hands on with a real project. Learn something new!

What do you do and how do you do it? And what is your workplace like?

What Do I Do

My typical day at work would include:

Visiting clients, calls with clients to capture business requirements, understanding the issues with their business.
Proposing Salesforce solutions.
Development of features in Salesforce (Sales cloud, Community cloud & Marketing Cloud)
Stand up internal meetings and coordinating with other team members.

How Do I Do

I’d like to keep everything simple and no fussing around.
I complete the simpler, smaller, important and urgent tasks first and sit on the giant ones afterwards.
After work hours, I do a quick recap of what I learnt that day and put in my blog series – A Tip A Day.
Every week, I do write about specific Salesforce topics in detail which I learnt over the week.

My Workspace

Our office is a co-working space, which is a style of work that involves a shared working environment, often an office, and independent activity. Unlike in a typical office environment, these are lively!
The amenities include an in-house café, screening rooms, private phone booths/pods and even a garden for after-hours chilling.

What steps did you take to land in your present job?

My expertise is in Sales Cloud and the company is mainly into Marketing Cloud of Salesforce.

Though I do not have hands on experience in Marketing cloud, the company offered me the post. I think it’s because of my passion for Salesforce and the belief they have on me. I could have chosen another company which suits my expertise, but I want to learn new things and gain more knowledge about what I don’t know. Therefore, I chose the current company.

Lesson : If you are skilled and passionate about what you are doing opportunities will be already there for you.

What did you learn after you started your career?

Life would have ups and downs.

Everyone should expect it and be prepared for it.

At different times of my career, two of the companies that I worked shut down abruptly, leaving me jobless. The first one was my first job ever – “I wasn’t prepared for that”. The 2nd one was more recently, but this time I didn’t worry at all as I learnt over the years that this is just part-and-parcel of life.

“Be prepared for the worst – You won’t be baffled by the unexpected.”

Remember, nothing remains constant – even if they are good times or bad times.

What advice do you have for your younger self?

About salesforce career in particular, when I started with Salesforce technology, it was still new in the industry, certifications were not given an importance. Just the demonstration of knowledge was enough to be picked for a job. So, I haven’t done many certifications during first 4 years of my career. Though, recruiters never backed out of me because of my experience.

But now, things have changed, everyone is into Salesforce, and the minimum criteria for any job along with the few years experience is particular number of certifications! Finally I have started taking Salesforce certifications. Clearing the certifications is not a big deal if you have enough years of experience and good understanding of the Salesforce platform. Probably I’d have done certifications earlier if I’d given a chance to start all over again.

What do you love about your current role?

I love the company’s culture and people, very diverse in nature, and more importantly dedicated people. There’s no manager to look after everyone’s projects. Everyone is self capable and responsible for their work. The role helps me learn something new every day.

What are the challenges you face in your career?

Apart from the ups and downs you face in your life, the biggest challenge is to keep up with the pace at which technology evolves. It’s never constant. You need to be learning all the time and be up-to-date with the technology.

Who can become a Salesforce Professional? How can I start?

Anyone, absolutely anyone can become a Salesforce professional, if they want to be one. Becoming a Salesforce professional is easier than before, because there are many helping hands, many resources, training materials and help documents. There are community members (MVPs) and mentors who can help you if you are struck at any stage of your learning and need any kind of help.

Salesforce company itself has started something called Trailhead, the fun way to learn the technology online.

It has modules, trails about the technology which you can start with. And Salesforce also provides a free account for life if you want to do hands-on learning. So, there are no really blockers to learn Salesforce. But trailhead is an ocean now with many new topics included every month. I recently wrote a post about how to get started with trailhead specifically aiming at newbies. Hope that helps.

Can you please summarise your career journey?

+2 Stream : MPC
Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering at BITS Pilani, Goa Campus
Internship at Iridium Interactive – Salesforce Admin/Developer
IT Developer at Mahindra Satyam
Salesforce Business Analyst at Iridium Interactive
Technical & Functional Consultant at TCS
Certification #1: Salesforce Certified Force.com Developer
Senior Salesforce Developer at IntraxTech
Certification #2: Salesforce Certified Force.com Administrator
Salesforce Platform Specialist at Kalido
Certification #3: Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I

Future Aspiration – To become a Salesforce MVP (Most Valuable Player).

How do you like to spend your free time?

I like to travel, explore new countries, people and their cultures. I play badminton over the weekends. And if I still have sometime everyday, I go for a run.

I organize Salesforce developer meet ups in Singapore and also deliver talks to the salesforce community. The last meet up. I actively write about Salesforce platform in my personal Salesforce blog sfdcFanBoy. I also answer questions in online forum, Salesforce Stack Exchange, doing my bit and giving back to the community that helped me, under my online nickname “sfdcFanBoy”. Currently I’m ranked at top 14% amongst all users across the world.

Recently, I have started a blog series too, that takes away the little free time I have – A Tip A Day, daily dose of Salesforce learning.

What are the skills and education required to be a Salesforce Professional in 2020?

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) would be a huge bonus if we are talking about 2020.

Salesforce is being the innovative company for the past 5 years, so be prepared to be surprised every other year with its innovative start ups within the technology. AI being the latest intro, no one thought AI would be used in a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) world. Salesforce did it.

For freshers and starters though – good analytical skills and logical thinking would be enough to start with Salesforce irrespective of the education background.

What are some alternate career options for a Salesforce Professional?

There are many roles in Salesforce which I broadly categorize them as:

Functional Roles: Salesforce Administrator/Salesforce Functional Consultant/Salesforce Business Analyst.

Technical Roles: Salesforce Developer/Salesforce Technical Consultant/Salesforce Technical Architect.

All roles can be inter-mixed. There was a time I did all these roles at a time.

Why do you think your current company hired you?

Attitude towards learning anything new.

It all boils down to your “hunger to learn” and if the company can feel it, they will hire you into any job!

Who do you think should take up this Career choice? suitable?

As I mentioned earlier, Salesforce is the top innovative company for the past few years.

Being part of the company or with its technology would be a great learning experience. You’d be pushing yourself to learn new stuff every now and then. You can’t be struck. If you think that’s your type – Salesforce is for you – be it the company or the technology. Any one with any education background can get into Salesforce.

The best way to explore Salesforce is through meet ups in your city. You’ll see the passion and interest of everyone involved there – the organizers/volunteers who do it with the pure passion of giving it back to the community (me being one, I know what drives me) and the attendees, again passionate to learn. That’s the best way to know what Salesforce is about. If that motivates you, you could start your career in Salesforce.

Any recommended resources for students who are interested in Salesforce?

Join Salesforce success community groups online. Get yourself a free Salesforce Developer edition to get hands-on learning. (Beauty of Salesforce is, it provides the org lifetime free for everyone!)

If you get struck anywhere, not knowing how to proceed leave a message in Salesforce developer forums or salesforce stack exchange, there are many users waiting to answer, you will get response within minutes.

Blogs you can follow:

What do you think everyone leaving higher secondary school should know?

In general:

Expect to face obstacles and ups and downs. It won’t be an easy ride. Even if it starts smooth, at some point you’ll be faced with adverse conditions. “Be prepared for the worse, you won’t be baffled by the unexpected.”

Salesforce Career:

Those in college can still attend Salesforce user group meetups in your city. Almost all the major cities organize the user group meetups. Get acquainted with Salesforce before you graduate so you know what Salesforce is all about and to have a knowledge on where Salesforce will be heading when you graduate. It will also help in choosing your courses in college.

If possible, do Internship at a company that is involved with Salesforce technology. This will be the biggest favor you will be doing yourself.

Also, do not think you need coding skills to get into Salesforce. Absolutely No! Salesforce provides point-and-click features making it easier for everyone of all backgrounds to customize the Salesforce CRM.

Any messages?

The present you is the result of your past actions.

The future you is a result of your present actions.

If you live for the moment and focus on the present, your present and future will be good. Do not worry about the future, just enjoy the present.

Get yourself a coach. Coach can be your friend, a colleague, your boss, anyone who is a well-wisher and advises you on everything in your life with whom you can share your thoughts. Everyone needs a coach.

For example, a cricketer has a batting coach, physical fitness coach, mental fitness coach, fielding coach, diet coach to succeed. To get to that level of success, you need a coach too. Get one today!