WHAT'S appening Landing Your Dream Job Advice from Trailblazers in the Salesforce Ecosystem People decide to transform their careers by learning Salesforce for all sorts of reasons. Some are experienced consultants who want to take their careers to the next level. Some are driven by their customers’ demand for Salesforce implementations. Others are inspired by the Ohana culture. Some want to advance their careers in the Salesforce Economy. We caught up with a few of our Trailblazers to hear about their experiences learning Salesforce. Here are their stories. Profile an SARATH BONTHA, SALES AND SERVICE CLOUD RESKILLER “I’ve been a consultant for many years. By 2012, all of my clients were asking about Salesforce. I was able to transition quickly. To supplement the technical learning, I networked, joined local community groups, and attended Dreamforce. Dreamforce was a game changer. Now customers who I helped implement other technologies years ago are calling me for help transitioning to Salesforce. My advice for those looking to reskill their careers with Salesforce is to get admin certified. The administrator certification gives you an overview of what’s possible on the platform, and can really take your career to the next level.” SIDY SIDIBE, SALESFORCE ADMINISTRATOR RESKILLER “I knew that getting trained on Salesforce would give me greater leverage over the types of projects I worked on and ensure I had an in-demand skill set. The transition has been pretty seamless with Trailhead. When I started the journey, I thought I’d just focus on getting admin certified. Now that I’ve seen all that the platform can do, I’m in 5. 110% and will continue on to get my developer and product certifications. With Salesforce, the sky is the limit — it’s Include custom headers, footers, progress bars, and paths, and neatly configure on the screen. growing so quickly and there are more clients looking to implement Salesforce than people qualified to do it. My advice to someone considering getting trained on Salesforce? Jump in.” JULIE ODONNELL, SERVICE CLOUD IMPLEMENTER “In May of 2017, I was tasked with migrating my Client Services team to Service Cloud … in a month and a half. Prior to this, I don’t even think I had a Salesforce login. I’ve learned pretty much everything from Trailhead. At first, I used it mostly for troubleshooting, but then I started diving deep and following the trails. Now, using Service Cloud, everyone at my company is on the same page and can see the same information.“ TO GET STARTED RESKILLING YOUR CAREER WITH SALESFORCE: Sign up here to learn about tailored resources and events. Follow us on social media @partnerforce #TrailheadforPartners. Take this career trailmix to get more familiar with Salesforce and the opportunities that exist within our ecosystem. Join your local user group to learn, meet others at various stages of their Salesforce career, and have fun. The sooner you can join the better, as these Trailblazers can be a great support system on your journey to and through certification. Explore Salesforce events coming up near you. 10 THE EXCHANGE FALL 2019 FALL 2019