The Salesforce job market looks scary right now, especially if you're new to the space. An admin cert doesn't guarantee a job like it used to, and Benioff would have you believe that only agents will be employable by 2027. But despite the doomposting online, you can still land a great Salesforce role, even without much experience. Even though today I have 7 certs and 6 years of experience as an admin, consultant, and developer, I’ve actually been “the inexperienced hire” for every Salesforce role I’ve ever landed. I’ve also helped several friends break into Salesforce starting from zero and currently do the same for people in my Discord server for Salesforce career growth. Getting hired has never been about who has the most certs and the longest resume. What really matters, if you want to punch above your weight, is knowing how to leverage branding, networking, and up-skilling.

Branding: How to Never Be the "New Guy"

I didn't understand the concept of personal brand until the third week of my first fully remote consulting gig at 25 years old. In my first two weeks as a consultant, I wasn’t assigned any work other than setting up my company accounts. The enterprising 25 year old that I was, I used the extra time to play through the entirety of Ghost of Tsushima on my PS5. But by the start of my third week without work, I started to have an uneasy feeling that I was missing something, so I began to explore the company Slack. My unease turned into panic when I saw that the other consultants were either posting for work or being directly requested by project managers. I finally understood how the system worked: if I didn't get selected for jobs and start billing hours to clients, I was going to get fired. I began to timidly reach out to PMs, but instead of giving me work, they talked noncommittally about future projects. It felt like they didn't want me on their implementation teams. But more accurately, they barely knew who I was. When a manager staffs someone on a client job, they ask themselves "Why this person?" In my case, I was just "the new guy". Yikes. In order to keep my job, I needed to have a better identity. I had to get hired again.

Figuring out how to get PMs to put me on their projects was ultimately how I learned to sell myself. And as it turns out, what you do to get staffed for client projects is exactly the same as what you should do to get hired in general. In a word, whether or not you're chosen all comes down to branding.

Here's a secret from the other side of the hiring table: being the interviewer also sucks. It's socially uncomfortable, you can't trust anything you're told, and if you make a bad hire, it reflects badly on you. An interviewer's job is to decide "what kind of person" the candidate is, but with limited time and information, that's impossible. Your reputation is on the line with every hire, so if you're confused about who someone is, you just reject them. Even if the candidate is amazing on paper, it's not worth the risk when you can just interview someone else who makes you feel more certain. Even though organizations say that their hiring methodology is "objective", in my experience, all hires are ultimately made via gut feeling, extrapolation, and shallow heuristics.

For a job seeker, there's a huge upside to this. Because hiring is an irrational process to begin with, you don't need the best credentials to get the job. Consider the extremely popular idea of "hiring for fit". What does "fit" actually mean? It means everything except the qualifications. You "fit" if you roughly match the pattern of how they think a successful employee would look. If qualifications alone decided who gets hired, nobody would bother with interviews, much less talk about "fit". Employers would just rank-order every candidate by certs and years of experience and pull from the top.

Related: You should ignore "x years of experience with y" requirements on listings. Employers often give interviews to people who don't check every box, then hire for fit.

Luckily, there's an easy hack to manufacture "fit" as a candidate. All you really need to do is give them an easy justification that pattern-matches you as "likely to succeed". Or at least, safer for them to recommend. Here's how:

1. Select an oversimplified story or personality trait from your life that comes with a relevant advantage for the job.
2. Play up your persona at every opportunity throughout the hiring process.

Your goal is to put yourself in a neat box so that they know what to do with you. There's an important caveat: tell the truth. You'll sell yourself way more naturally if you believe what you're saying. Following this advice will unlock subtler, more effective pitches than "my biggest weakness is working too hard". Below are some examples you could use, but I recommend you create your own. As you read each pitch, try to imagine how it implies a whole personality, journey, and eventual business outcome in a way that people can understand.

If you're a junior hire or switching roles:

• "I used to be an x, but then I discovered Salesforce/programming/consulting and loved it. Since then I've done {thing that signals a large investment of effort into the thing}"

Consultant:

• Play up how "chill/calm" you are. Say something like "People just seem to trust me.”
• "I neurotically take notes because I hate forgetting things." (This is an example of a negative disclosure. People tend to believe these completely, and in this case it frames you as "on the ball and organized".)

Developer:

• “I actually recently made a {insert technical solution / side project}”
• “I’m the guy who actually reads the documentation”

Business Analyst:

• “I'm good at reading between the lines.” (You can pair this with evidence by asking some educated questions about the employer's business needs.)

Specialist:

• “I've been in the industry for 5 years as an {old role} and I actually {did something that implies industry expertise or special interest}.”

Even before my mentees get certified, I urge them to consider their personal brand. One mentee told me they were working with SAP at a manufacturing company. “Great! You’re a manufacturing specialist who should likely learn Manufacturing Cloud.” Another one said they had just graduated from a finance program at a top-tier university. “Great! You can be a financial implementations specialist with a focus on Certinia.” Use your background to set yourself apart and start as more than “the new guy”. Your brand should be emphasized at every opportunity during an interview and also come through on your resume and cover letters. It should also be the deciding factor in what certs and experience you might want to get before applying to jobs. More on that later.

Networking: Have Conversations About Your Goals

If you want to be treated like a star hire, land amazing jobs, and never get rejected, networking is the way to do it. I should know; I've been hired through networking twice. The thing is, "go network" on its own is useless advice because it's not actionable. How do you navigate the scary and confusing pieces, like figuring out who to talk to, where to find them, and what to even say? Why bother "networking" when you can just send another hundred resumes into the void? Until it's broken down, "go network" is about as helpful as saying "just ask people for a job".

So, let's make it actionable. In a job search, networking means getting someone you know to introduce you to a person with hiring power. Then you set up a phone call with that person. That's it.

The overwhelming benefit to this approach is that the employer is told what kind of person you are by someone they already trust. You get to borrow the referrer's reputation and good will. This completely sidesteps the most dangerous part of the applicant pipeline, and you start the race 10 steps from the finish line. From there, all you need to do is not trip.

How do you find someone willing to make an introduction? Start with people you know, even if they have nothing to do with Salesforce. It's amazing how often people you already know will have surprising connections. You just need to tell your friends and family about your goals. Do NOT say "I just want to find a job anywhere". Everything in the last section about personal brand is critical here too. A "Salesforce job" might not pop into your uncle's head, but if you say you want to be a Salesforce developer, they might suddenly think of their programmer friend, who, in turn, actually knows a Salesforce developer. Being specific in your ask helps others give you specific help.

Other times, you'll need to meet someone new who can connect you. A few helpful mindset shifts for this:

1. Forget about hierarchy. New entrants to Salesforce who aren't coming from a white-collar tech job tend to imagine that our field is way more rigid than it actually is. They think "important people" won't want to talk to them. The reality is exactly the opposite: experienced people tend to find newcomers refreshing and enjoy sharing their wisdom. Worrying about whether you "deserve" a conversation will just cause you to miss out on opportunities.
2. You don't need to get hired on the spot for a networking conversation to be successful. They don't even need to be the right person to talk to. Just have a normal conversation about your goals and ask if they know anyone else you can talk to.
3. In-person meetings are the way to go, and phone calls are a close second. Digital relationships can work, but for some reason, people don't put the same effort into online interactions as they would in person. On the internet, most direct messages get ignored, but if you introduced yourself to the same person in real life, they'd happily talk with you.
4. Once you find someone who can refer you, remember that a natural, pleasant conversation can be all it takes to demonstrate fit. If you've been vetted for fit, you're almost as good as hired.
5. It's worth your time. One good chat can save you from doing 200 applications.

Don't overthink where to find people. Even if asking your friends and family doesn't lead to the right conversation, you can always try Dreamin' events or local meetups. If that's not your bag, I would try cold outreach to set up a call or coffee meeting with a Salesforce professional. Don't try to ask for a job; just ask for advice or for referrals to someone else who you could talk to. It's a small world, and hitting it off with someone can really open doors.

Once you have a lead on someone with hiring power, all that remains is asking your connection for an introduction. Luckily, this is the easy part. Half the time, if it came up in conversation, people will just offer to introduce you on their own. If they don't, just ask "Hey, could you introduce me to {name}?" As long as the person likes you and you come off as "normal" (relative to their standards), they will almost always say yes.

Two of the easiest, most successful job searches of my life came from my personal network:

Case 1: After getting my Admin and App Builder certifications, my sister introduced me to her boyfriend’s sister, who turned out to be the "VP of Financial Salesforce Deliveries" at a local consulting firm. Neat. After a short email exchange, I was almost immediately given an interview by the aforementioned VP and my boss-to-be. My boss had to try to feel out if I was genuinely qualified for the job (I wasn’t) while the VP who recommended me sat in on the call. Unsurprisingly, I got hired. Thanks to the huge advantage of networking, I somehow skipped the junior & associate positions in our industry and jumped straight to being a Salesforce Consultant.

Case 2: After taking a year off to start my own business (which had completely failed), I wanted to come back to consulting. This time, I already knew someone on the HR team of a consultancy, so I sent an email and asked if they had open positions. I was told there was absolutely no way they could hire me. Persistent, I asked if I could at least call them to talk about the state of the consulting industry and get some tips on how to break back in. By a total fluke, a developer position opened up right before our scheduled call, and my “quick talk” became an impromptu job interview. I started the developer phase of my career the following week.

You might be thinking something like "must be nice to have a sister who knows a VP". I was absolutely the beneficiary of random dumb luck that I didn't work for. But that's the point! When I was studying, I had no idea that my sister had that connection, and you probably don't know who your network knows. Anyone can ask around and give themselves a chance to get lucky. These two interactions are extreme examples of how "networking" can get you a job. You really cannot believe how easy getting hired can be until you experience the power of a good referral.

Up-skilling: What's worth your time?

Job searching, especially if you're career switching or not currently employed, can be depressing, uncertain, and alienating. To make the pain of the job search go away as quickly as possible, it's super easy to adopt the mentality of "wanting to get hired anywhere" and to "treat the job search as a numbers game". Unfortunately, this perspective almost always makes the job search twice as long and four times as hard. The "get hired anywhere" mentality tends to make people forget about brand and try to Frankenstein together a resume and story that appeals to everyone.

Instead of the "shotgun" approach, which tries to achieve results by volume, I recommend the "sniper" approach:

1. Start by asking yourself what the perfect next role for you would be.
2. Then, go find a real job listing that seems close to the perfect role. This is now your Target Job.
3. Read the requirements that your Target Employer is actually asking for.
4. Finally, identify steps you could take to make yourself an ideal candidate for that specific job. Rank them by how easy they would be for you to achieve. Some examples of possible steps:
   • Pick your best trait or story that would make you look like a perfect match.
   • Get a specific credential (usually a cert)
   • Learn specific skills or about specific topics
   • Tailor your resume

You can cut out all the guesswork of what to work on by measuring yourself against an actual job description. It doesn't matter if you ultimately get your Target Job. It turns out that if you become an excellent candidate for one perfect job, you actually turn into a strong candidate for many jobs just like it. If you take the shotgun approach instead, you tend to become a mediocre fit for "no job in particular".

Okay, but I’m still not getting interviews. What about portfolio projects?

Generally skip them, unless they are extremely targeted at a specific job. I knew my most recent role was going to require LWC work, so I built an LWC for rolling back database transactions in Salesforce. If the job description calls for an integration between NetSuite and Salesforce and you happen to have built that connector before? Go ahead and add it to your resume. If it’s not targeted enough though, projects can read as fluff and inexperience and actually work against you. Plus, they’re time-consuming, and your time is usually way better spent on cover letters or networking.

No really, I’m not getting interviewed. What about more certs?

The story with certifications is murkier and controversial. Most people agree that experience is more important, and there's a lot of cynicism right now about certs being "cheapened". But you can’t get more experience without spending a whole year at a “stepping-stone” job. You can, however, get your next cert in a month. Employers still care about certs: almost every job listing still calls out specific certifications as requirements or "nice-to-haves". Given the competitive job market and the rise of automated AI screening, it's probably more important than it used to be to have objective credentials that get you past the initial filter. In my opinion, collecting certifications is valid if it aligns with your personal brand and you're not just using it as an excuse to delay networking & job searching.

Similarly, you'll hear people talk about becoming "overqualified" by having too many certs, but I don't think that's actually possible. If an interviewer probes about your cert-to-experience ratio, just sell yourself as someone who loves learning and is obsessively learning Salesforce. Professionals are still getting certified constantly, so don't let online discourse be the reason you do or don't get certified. After getting my first job, I quickly became 7x certified (I got three in a single month at one point), and I can confidently say my career has become easier to navigate as a result.

If you've just finished the slog of getting your admin cert and doing it again sounds awful, you should know that admin is probably the hardest intro cert. It has a disproportionately gigantic surface area and a ton of overlap with other certifications. That overlap can help you get the next one way faster. For reference, I passed Platform App Builder just two weeks after my admin cert, and studying was a breeze.

Closing Thoughts

Have the courage to tell the world who you are and what you want. Be easy to understand. Your dream job is often on the other side of an introduction and a phone call, so don't be afraid to meet new people and shake hands. Even if you feel insecure about your lack of experience, don't "learn more" just to feel safe. Instead, be strategic and only do things that clearly move you closer to your "Target Job". If you remember one thing from this essay, I hope it will be this: Fortune favors people who ask for something specific.