It’s no secret that artificial intelligence has reshaped many of the ways in which Salesforce operates, from its product strategy to its investment, and all the way down to its hiring. Internally, the company’s Career Connect program retrains and redeploys existing employees into AI-driven roles. For new employees, Salesforce has revealed that AI is also heavily involved.
With the company now laser-focused on AI fluency for all of its employees, a new benchmark has been set for anyone eager to work at the CRM giant. However, it isn’t limited to just Salesforce; AI fluency is likely to become a measure that influences the hiring of Salesforce partners and SIs too, intensifying the AI skills versus certification debate.
AI Leaderboards and the ‘Four Rs Framework’
Salesforce, like many other tech companies heavily investing in AI, already makes an effort to ensure that its employees are getting on board with the technology. For existing employees, AI leaderboards are used to track employee AI usage, with an apparent focus on encouraging employees to prioritize leveraging AI tools such as Agentforce Coworker, Slackbot, and its Slack skills libraries over external AI tools.
One source, who wishes to remain anonymous, previously told SF Ben that it was actively noted when an employee was underperforming on the board, and that top performers are said to be collated together to guide other employees on their own AI use.
Suzana DelliSanti, EVP, Global Talent Acquisition at Salesforce, said that this tracking helped the company “change the mindset of adopting AI and leveraging the tools” that it has.
“It was less about the tracking mechanism; it was more about encouraging that adoption for an individual’s own growth, because as you’re using AI, you can also see how the workflows change, how the process changes, and you’re actually part of that change,” she said.
AI also plays a significant role in the company’s internal restructuring and redeployment, with Salesforce’s Career Connect program – an internal talent marketplace for current Salesforce employees – having contributed heavily to this. Not only that, but the company’s ‘Four Rs’ framework (redesigning, reskilling, redeploying, and rebalancing) has also meant that 20,000 employees are now in roles that “didn’t exist a year ago,” according to Nathalie Scardino, Salesforce’s President and Chief People Officer.
AI Fluency and Hiring
DelliSanti recently explained how the company has now prioritized AI fluency in its prospective employees, and how AI is actively being used during the hiring process. AI is now being used to help candidates prepare for interviews, help Salesforce assess candidates, and shift the benchmark for what is expected throughout the recruitment stage.
For prospective employees, Salesforce provides candidates with an AI-powered “candidate coach,” allowing them to prepare for interviews.
“By having a candidate coach, [we] can help candidates with questions that they don’t want to ask the recruiter or the hiring manager,” DelliSanti originally told The Financial Express. “It can help candidates with simple questions about the interview team that they are meeting with, or help prepare for the interview.”
She also explained that the coach allows candidates to get more insight into the company and is available even before a candidate becomes an employee.
Unsurprisingly, on Salesforce’s side, the company is now looking for a high degree of AI fluency, including how well employees are able to use AI and understand Salesforce’s AI. In technical roles like engineering, applicants are progressively moving away from traditional resumes to highlight practical experience and open-source contributions.
The AI Skills vs. Certifications Debate Continues
The importance of Salesforce certifications has been debated for many years now, with some arguing that they still hold relevance as they can demonstrate you have platform-specific knowledge, and others claiming that real-world applications trump them all.
As AI has become more prominent in the world of Salesforce, the conversation shifted from certifications versus experience to certifications versus AI experience, and this update from DelliSanti only pushes that narrative further.
Salesforce’s AI Fluency Playbook cites adaptability, problem-solving, and human-AI collaboration as the three core skills behind AI fluency, and these are actively traits that Salesforce is looking for when it comes to new and existing employees. AI-specific certifications do exist, and they will hold merit, but it’s clear now that the playbook holds most of the answers.
Even if you don’t work for Salesforce, being aware of this shift is still important. If you’re a Salesforce professional looking for your next role, the company that sets the ecosystem’s norms now checks how you use AI, not just whether you hold the certs. Partners and customers tend to copy Salesforce’s hiring signals, so this is an early look at what your next interview may include.
The core thinking behind the debate remains the same: certifications have their purpose and real-world applications hold theirs. However, now, what will make you stand out isn’t a couple of certifications and some core building experience – it’s an AI certification, maybe a core certification, and proof you know your way around the latest enterprise AI.
Final Thoughts
AI skills are no longer a “nice to have” in the Salesforce ecosystem – they’re mandatory, especially if you fancy working for the company at the top. It’s embedded in all stages of the career cycle, from recruitment to training, specialization, and more.
Understanding what Salesforce means by AI fluency going forward will hopefully help you guide your own learning and development, especially as it’s now regarded so strongly.
