Companies all over the world are looking for professionals who can customize and administer Salesforce Orgs. Yet with the demand for Salesforce professionals growing faster than the supply, many organizations are having difficulty finding them. To capitalize on this opportunity, becoming a Salesforce Certified professional will help to position your skillset as valuable and in-demand to these companies.

This is the first installment in a blog series focusing on how to jumpstart your career by positioning yourself to benefit from Salesforce’s exponential growth. For individuals who already have Salesforce experience, certifications are just as important, as it is difficult to prove that you can be what companies are looking without said certifications. If you don’t have the skills and knowledge, you can use this to your advantage: since every company that uses Salesforce is always on the same release, and there are three releases per year, the Certification proves that your skillset is current.

Those without an IT or Salesforce background may think, “Isn’t Salesforce technical?” or “I could never code or program computers.” Yet the beauty of Salesforce and the cloud is that you can administer and customize Salesforce and without being a highly technical programmer. The simplicity of Salesforce allows it to be taught and learned relatively quickly. When you are going through a career change, or need to accomplish a task such as getting certified, it is important to consider the time and money you need to spend. By taking a three day Salesforce Administrator or three day Salesforce Developer course from Bluewolf, you can hone in on the skills and knowledge you need to pass the exam.

Salesforce offers the following certifications:

• Adminstrator 
• Advanced Administrator
• Developer 
• Advanced Developer 
• Sales Cloud Consultant
• Service Cloud Consultant
• Technical Architect

With the exception of Advanced Developer and Technical Architect, achieving certification requires you to pass a multiple choice exam. Although it is possible to pass an exam without taking a class, your chances of passing and getting en route to a successful career path increase exponentially by taking courses. Bluewolf's Training courses provide a unique perspective; benefit from our experience working with Salesforce in real-world use cases for more than a decade.

In the next installment of this blog series, I will focus on different career paths you can take once you decide to take advantage of this opportunity, as companies change the way in which they interact with their customers.

Have an opinion about Salesforce as a career? Connect with Mark, tweet @MarkForman62.