How to Prepare for a Salesforce Job Interview

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Jason Atwood, CEO and Co-Founder of Arkus.
Join us as we chat about landing your first Salesforce Admin role, from finding good opportunities to nailing the interview and more.
You should subscribe (itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/b...) for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jason Atwood.
The 20/30/50 rule
Jason has interviewed a lot of people for Salesforce roles in his 15 years in the ecosystem. His biggest piece of advice when looking for your first role is pretty simple: “Relax. It’s going to be OK.”
But you still need to acquire skills and there’s a lot to do, so Jason recommends following his 20/30/50 rule. Spend 20% of your time on Trailhead, 30% on certifications, and 50% finding some way to gain experience. This split loosely follows what he looks for on a resume when he’s making a new hire. He also shared some advice about each step of your journey.
Trailhead: Becoming a Ranger is your number one priority, followed by Superbadges. He also recommends taking the time to set up your profile with a photo, description of yourself, and custom URL.
Certifications: Don’t put off taking your certifications. Give it a go as soon as you’re ready. If you don’t get it this time, you can use your results to help you prep better the next time. And if you do pass, you can move on to the next one sooner.
Gaining Experience: Volunteering isn’t the only way to do this. You can enroll in a program where you build mock projects, or simply build something on your own that you’re willing to demo in an interview.
Preparing for a Salesforce Admin interview
Jason interviews a lot of people so I asked him, how should you prepare for your first interview for a Salesforce role? The first thing is to be ready for some sort of assessment. Since there’s often time pressure, Jason recommends doing a practice run. Talk to a friend, find out what kind of data they collect, and build them an app to track the books they’ve read or the distance they’ve run, anything will do.
When you sit down in the room, Jason emphasizes the importance of listening and showing empathy. One way to do that is to ask good questions. What’s their Salesforce roadmap and what can you build for them? What’s their organization’s approach to culture? You can also do your homework and bring up a blog post they wrote, or something specific their company has done.
Admins are consultants
Listening and empathy are so important to Jason because he sees that as the biggest part of the job.
“Being an admin is being a consultant for one organization. What are you doing? You’re talking to people, they're coming to you with their problems, you’re getting their requirements, you’re satisfying their needs, you’re working with them, you’re iterating, you’re updating things, and then you’re presenting it back to them.”
We touch on a lot more in this conversation about looking for Salesforce jobs, listening, and what it’s like to be a Salesforce consultant, so be sure to listen to the full episode and subscribe so you don’t miss out.
Podcast swag

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Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store (trailheadstoreamer.com/catego...)
Learn more
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Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Pei Mun Lim on the Skills of a Business Analyst (admin.salesforce.com/blog/202...)

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Salesforce Admins Blog: Develop Your Communication Skills as a Salesforce Admin (admin.salesforce.com/blog/202...)

Admin Trailblazers Group

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Admin Trailblazers Community Group (sforce.co/4977GHH)

Social

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Jason: @JasonMAtwood ( / jasonmatwood )

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Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns ( / salesforceadmns )

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Mike on Threads: www.threads.net/@mikegerholdt/

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Mike on Tiktok: / salesforce.mike

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Mike on X: @MikeGerholdt ( / mikegerholdt )

Full show transcript
Mike: I got an idea. How about we tackle the hardest question on the Salesforce Trailblazer community? That's right. This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're going to look for advice on finding your first admin job and doing the interview, getting experience, and more. And we're going to do all that with CEO and co-founder of Arkus, Jason Atwood. Jason and I chatted at TrailblazerDX and really wanted to dive into this topic. Now, before we bring Jason on, I just want to make sure that you're following the Salesforce Admins Podcast on iTunes or Spoti...