Over the past 25 years, Salesforce has had a meteoric rise in the world of enterprise technology. They are one of the most successful modern startup stories, having been founded in a one-bedroom flat in 1999, and now supply most enterprise businesses worldwide with the suite of tools they need to succeed.
The Salesforce job market has also seen a meteoric rise in recent years from being a relatively unknown career path to becoming one of the most talked about technology ecosystems. However, is it a good entry-level career option in 2024? Let’s take a look…
The Rise and Fall of the Job Market
The Salesforce job market, careers, and salaries have always been a big focus for us at SF Ben, as we have been big proponents of a career in Salesforce. We’ve seen the rise and subsequent fall in demand for Salesforce professionals – so what exactly went on here?
Salesforce careers almost became too good to be true. Although Salesforce was one of the fastest-growing enterprise software companies around, no one had ever heard of it…
Most consumers have no idea Salesforce is powering everything behind the scenes, from sales and support to marketing. Most people will have interacted with Salesforce in some way without even knowing it! So, you had a company like Salesforce growing at the speed of light, its ecosystem expanding, a huge amount of demand for professionals with Salesforce skills, but a huge lack of talent in the ecosystem.
Fast forward to 2021/22 following the post-pandemic digital transformation boom, and it kicked this cycle into overdrive. Companies would pay any amount of money they could for a Salesforce professional; otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to implement or use the software.
Although Salesforce started Trailhead way back in 2014 to support the ecosystem by training new talent, it wasn’t until 2020/21 that Salesforce careers started becoming mainstream. Because there was such a desperate need for talent, if you had a Salesforce certification and knew a bit about the platform, there was a high chance you could land a full-time role with relative ease.
Many Salesforce bootcamps started advertising that you could earn a highly paid tech job with next to no experience, citing some of these success stories as examples of how you could do the same.
But in 2023/24, the world of technology changed dramatically. Rising interest rates, war, slowing growth, and mass layoffs have created an uncertain tech job market. For Salesforce, this is the first time in its 25-year history that something like this has happened.
So, with this in mind, should you try to land a Salesforce entry-level job in 2024?
Is Salesforce Still a Good Career Option?
This is a difficult question to answer, and it’s a question where you will get multiple different answers depending on who you ask. Ask any Salesforce Bootcamp provider who is trying to charge you $3K and the answer will be, “Of course! Anyone can land a Salesforce job with our guidance”. Ask anyone who is currently trying to land an entry-level Salesforce position, and the answer will most likely be a lot more downbeat.
Unfortunately, the current job market is probably the worst it has ever been. Even for more experienced Salesforce professionals, the market is tough. There is more competition for jobs due to layoffs and less hiring due to growth slowing down.
It’s Not All ‘Doom and Gloom’
The Salesforce world has an extremely robust technology ecosystem, with over 150,000 companies using products that need internal support, and thousands of consultancies and product companies who support Salesforce.
Unfortunately, the situation of the current Salesforce job market simply comes down to supply and demand – this is one of the reasons Salesforce salaries are currently trending down (although they still remain very high compared to average salaries).
Whether Salesforce is worth exploring in 2024 for an entry-level professional can depend on a few factors…
If you have been attempting to land a job in Salesforce for a number of months or years already, there is a good chance that you have built up a lot of experience over that amount of time. You might have your admin certification and many Trailhead badges, as well as some potential volunteer experience.
If you are already deep down the Salesforce rabbit hole and love the idea of landing a role in Salesforce, then you could carry on down this road. Keep applying for jobs, learn from experience, and hopefully land that elusive first job. It’s not impossible, but it’s very, very tough.
Will Salesforce ‘Bounce Back’?
Most expect the Salesforce job market to bounce back at some point. Back when I started my career in 2014, it was extremely common for consultancies to hire graduate/intern level consultants, who they would train up quickly and bill them out on projects as fast as they could. Although this doesn’t happen much anymore, it’s a great business model when you have a support system in place.
Most things in an economy work in a cycle, and we are currently in a trough, looking forward to the peaks. If you are starting to look at potential technology careers, with Salesforce being one you are currently exploring. My advice may look a bit different.
You only have to do a bit of exploring on Reddit, LinkedIn, and other online communities to see how many people are trying to land entry-level Salesforce positions. If you start now, you will most likely join the back of the line from those who technically have ‘more experience’ than you.
However, depending on your background, things might be different. If you are from another technology ecosystem and have a computer science or information technology degree, you may have a big advantage over others.
Although it’s a contentious point of view, many companies in the ecosystem still require you to have a degree. This isn’t something I necessarily agree with, but you may be able to use it to your advantage.
Alternative Technology Ecosystems
For those who have no background in technology and still want to land that elusive first role, it may be worth looking at other technology ecosystems to see what is available.
Regardless of my opinion on this matter, Trailhead is still one of the best free training platforms around in the technology world. Although much of it is centered around Salesforce technology, there is still a big portion of content that can be applied to any tech ecosystem. For example, modules on topics like business process mapping or requirements gathering.
Salesforce was a magic bullet back in the era of 2012-2022 – pretty much anyone could land a job by getting their admin cert. Unfortunately, those days are over; too much is changing, and Salesforce is maturing as an ecosystem. However, this doesn’t mean that this opportunity may not exist in other ecosystems.
ServiceNow, for example, looks like it’s where Salesforce was seven years ago, doing nearly $9B in revenue. It’s aggressively growing in the mid-20% range and could be doing $35B in revenue, similar to Salesforce, in years to come.
Other options to explore could be Cybersecurity, DevOps, Data Science, Hyperscalers, and RevOps. It’s worth doing your own research, looking at which technologies, companies, and sectors are growing the fastest.
Summary
So, is Salesforce still a good career option for entry levels in 2024? In summary, the answer is not straightforward, but if you are looking for one, my opinion is that the answer would be no. It just comes down to supply and demand, and the amount of entry-level talent vying for jobs outweighs the jobs available at the moment. This might change in the future, but there is no indication of when this might be – whether it’s in one, two years, or more.
But this doesn’t mean well-paid technology jobs are out of reach. It just requires you to put the work in and do your own research in areas that could be lucrative in the future. Although landing a job in Salesforce back in the day could be considered very easy, this is the exception, not the rule.
When you eventually find yourself working for a technology company, it’s not going to be a walk in the park. Technology jobs are highly paid, but they can also be full of pressure, require you to do comprehensive research, and need you to think critically about which solution you are presenting to your employer or a client.
The challenge of finding that initial technology role means overcoming many hurdles and obtaining many skills that you will then find yourself using in an actual job. So, although it’s tough out there, just think of it as preparation for when you land your dream role in technology.
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