Growing Your Practice with New Talent

As part of the Trailhead for Partners Talent Programs team at Salesforce, I spend all day every day talking with Salesforce Partners about talent. As the demand and competition for experienced talent continue to outpace the supply, it’s exciting to see so many partners creating pathways and opportunities for Trailblazers who are new to the ecosystem. There are countless benefits to bringing net-new Salesforce talent into your organization including lower recruitment costs & starting salaries, increased retention, and - often times- greater diversity in the candidate pool. By training new talent, partners are able to provide a wide range of motivated, high potential individuals with the required training to make them excellent employees.  

As your own organization brings on new talent, check the tools, resources, and exemplars that can support you in ramping new hires:

1. The Salesforce Talent Alliance:  The Salesforce Talent Alliance is Salesforce’s commitment to supporting partners who hire net new Salesforce talent with vouchers, pipeline, and more. Learn more here.

2. Trailhead for Partners: Be sure to check out talent.trailheadforpartners.com to guides on everything from mentoring through cross-skilling or reskilling your organization. Through the Level Up Challenge, individuals who are not yet Salesforce credentialed can earn a free exam voucher by completing the Admin, Developer or App Builder Super Set. 

3. Partner Learning Camp: In addition to on-demand content that helps practitioners learn how to build, sell, and implement Salesforce products, new hires can use PLC to master soft skills through courses like Business Skills for Successful Consulting and Time Management and Communication.

4. Community Exemplars: Great models for training new talent exist all over the ecosystem. To showcase one example, we sat down with Jamie Teasdale, Director of Learning and Development Programs to learn how Simplus creates a holistic bootcamp experience for new hires.

Simplus does a great job of hiring and supporting new talent. Can you tell me a little bit about your approach?

Simplus we are invested in growing the Salesforce ecosystem & our company by developing new Salesforce practitioners. Our Bootcamp program is our way of demonstrating this investment. We train excited and committed aspiring Salesforce professionals from all over the country who go on to be successful administrators, application consultants, and developers here at Simplus. 

What is the bootcamp structure?

We put groups of 8 to 15 people through a 8-12 week bootcamp course (depending on the program) that covers a Salesforce overview, implementation basics, case studies, specialist cloud training, and soft skills & consulting.

How do you support employees throughout bootcamp? 

We are dedicated to the success of our bootcampers. Each bootcamper is assigned a mentor to connect with on technical and non-technical topics. This mentoring includes certification test prep, career progression discussions, and support with navigating the workplace. There are informal study sessions and workshops sprinkled throughout this experience that are facilitated by more seasoned consultants who address questions on certifications and project topics like Sales Cloud and CPQ. 

Additionally, we ensure bootcampers have interesting and meaningful shadow assignments on delivery projects or on one of our managed services teams. We also leverage sales shadow opportunities to give bootcampers a different perspective on how we position ourselves in the market. 

Until they are assigned a formal manager in one of our practice areas, they report directly to the Bootcamp Program Director who conducts daily stand-up group meetings to encourage team cohesion and weekly 1:1s for individual attention. A private Slack group for the cohort is open for questions and sharing as well as a broader Slack channel for all Bootcamp cohorts. This gives past and present bootcampers opportunities to ask questions and share experiences with each other in a safe place with people from a similar experience. 

How do you measure success of the program?

We gather feedback throughout employees’ time in the bootcamp and throughout their shadow experiences. This gives the practice managers and resource managers a sense of their interests, skill sets, and focus areas and helps to determine into which part of our practice they should be placed once they graduate from the program. 

We also track certifications and provide ample support and encouragement for bootcampers to obtain them. We are especially focused on the Admin certification at the outset. 

Our goal is to get our graduates on billable projects as soon as possible. This timing varies from person to person. We have realistic utilization ramp up expectations that support their transitions into their respective delivery areas. We want them to have every opportunity to succeed at Simplus as well as in the broader Salesforce ecosystem. 

We have some great success stories to date. Two such individuals are Karlton Knight and Alejandra Acosta, both of whom came to us through Salesforce Military.  After completing Simplus’ Bootcamp Program & becoming certified, both have gone on to become instrumental members of our team. Karlton currently delivers services to one of our enterprise accounts, and Alejandra has joined our Advisory Practice focused on Change Management. Both Alejandra and Karlton are great examples of why we commit to training new talent. 

What are your best tips for onboarding new talent? Let us know at trailheadforpartners@salesforce.com.