How to jumpstart a Salesforce career in only 12 weeks

As the IT industry keeps expanding and becoming a place for everyone to grow and build successful careers, more and more people in the workforce are looking to start or even change their current paths to become software engineers.

In fact, in my 19 years of being in IT—10 of those focused on the Salesforce platform—I’ve heard multiple people say things like: “I don’t like what I do, I wish I had graduated with a computer science degree.” Or “I would love to learn cool technologies and build awesome websites and applications, but it’s too late to go back to school now.”

To those people, I always say that there are lots of tools and resources available out there, so you don’t necessarily have to have a computer science degree to become a developer. Whether you want to start or change your current job to become an IT professional, all you’ll need to have is commitment for a few weeks. 

As a matter of fact, you can supercharge your career as a Salesforce Engineer in only 12 weeks by following these five steps.  

1.     Commit yourself

It goes without saying.  To get into a new career, you have to dedicate yourself to allocate as much time as possible to learn a technology. What worked for me is setting shorter goals for myself. Instead of having a long-term milestone, have a weekly goal to complete certain training sessions and modules.

2.     Follow the Trailhead

I have been in the IT industry spanning a wide range of technologies for a long time, but I haven’t seen any other platform with the many resources to train yourself on its code and products like Salesforce.  

A great example of those resources is Trailhead. Unlike reading a developer guide, this free online gamification training module makes it fun and exciting to learn with hands-on projects that validate your skillsets of the Salesforce platform. As you complete modules and projects, you earn badges that you can proudly display on social platforms so that others know you are following the trail. 

I’ve put together a Salesforce Trailmixes (group of modules and projects) geared towards preparing you for a Salesforce developer certification. It should roughly take about 8 to 12 weeks, but it all depends on your weekly commitment. 

3.     Be Active

As you go through Trailhead to enhance your Salesforce developer skills, there will be times where you will need clarification for questions on certain topics. No need to worry as there are several avenues you can take to get answers. A perfect example is the vast network of Salesforce developer communities across the nation. Here is a link to join one of those groups: https://trailblazercommunitygroups.com

Another way to be part of some of these networks is through LinkedIn. You can join LinkedIn groups and explore hashtags relevant to these communities. This is also a really good way to network and possibly land some interviews.

4.     Get certified  

In the Salesforce world, certification is very important, so again, make sure to check out the Trailhead modules provided above that will help you prepare. You can also use mock tests that simulate the testing environment and help you train. I highly encourage you to take as many tests as possible to get familiar with the set of questions and get the timing correct.

5.     On your way

At last, you are ready to put your hard work into motion. I know you are very excited and eager to start the journey. Keep that spirit up and start applying to as many interviews as possible. The more interviews you take, the more you will learn on areas to improve. Focus on practicing those questions where you’re not able to articulate clearly and make sure you do further research on those same subjects to ensure a higher level of mastery in case similar questions come up in your next interview.

Finally, don’t worry if being a developer is not your preferred career choice. Salesforce has many non-development roles you can get certified on. There are functional analysts, who are well-versed professionals in domain products like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, or CPQ. On the contrary, if you would like to play around with data, take a look at Einstein Analytics certifications and become a data analyst.  

Bottom line, there are many ways to build your career in Salesforce in just a few weeks and without the need for a computer science degree. Just figure out what you like, apply this advice, and be off to a successful career in Salesforce.