Broad strokes for Solo-Admin folks!

As an experienced CRM Professional who hires for Salesforce roles, I know bringing the right talent on board can be intimidating! I can also imagine how daunting it feels when you’re hiring for the first Salesforce/CRM role in your organization’s history, or the only role you’re able to fit in your budget and you’re not entirely sure what to look for.

Resumes can be long in certifications and short on experience, Or have a ton of practical experience, but the person isn’t certified at all! So how do you pick the right person? 

The first step is understanding the role you’re looking to hire. 

A #SalesforceAdmin sounds like a technical role, and believe me, it can be! But when you’re the only person at the organization It’s also a project management role, a customer service role, and someone that needs to be skilled at prioritizing tasks that all rank No.1 on someone else's priority list.

You’re better served to find someone of the “Jack of all trades…” ilk… and when doing so remember that the whole phrase is “Jack of all trades, master of none, though often times better than master of one.”

Specialists have their place and there is plenty of need in the Salesforce ecosystem for them! This person’s an Apex developer, that person is a Flow wizard…  when it comes to a solo-situation you could be hurting your org (and a specialist's career) by bringing on somebody that gets their energy from hanging out deep in the weeds.

That’s right, hire a generalist! 

Oops, on LinkedIn I guess we call them “multi-passionate” now, but you know that person who knows at least something about a lot of things? They’ve dabbled here and tinkered there? They might even be a …gulp… job hopper!? If that person has a Salesforce Administrator certification, then you can strongly consider them for your solo role (Later we’ll talk about experience in lieu of certification, but if you’re not experienced in hiring Salesforce roles, it’s best to stick to requiring at minimum the Salesforce Administrator certification for now).

Odds are they’ll be energized by the fact every day brings something a little different, they’ll be skilled enough to keep the day-to-day moving, and resourceful enough to know when to look for outside resources when they’re out of their depth or at capacity.