During an implementation of Salesforce, hiring a Salesforce Admin should be at the back of your mind to understand how you will support the ongoing maintenance of the system. As Salesforce is a business-critical system that can make a serious impact on your KPI’s, support should be in place to maintain and improve the system on an ongoing basis.
Here are 5 key questions about hiring a Salesforce Administrator.
1. When Should I hire a Salesforce Admin?
We get asked this question a lot, when is the best time to bring on a Salesforce Admin to your team? The short answer is you should be thinking about this from the day you commit to the Salesforce platform.
Salesforce is a very powerful platform that can greatly improve your business, but it also requires continuous effort and improvement to offer maximum value and success. It is a big investment, and the role of a Salesforce admin along with the time needed to maintain the platform effectively will differ from an early-stage startup to big business.
Both the time investment and the level of experience required will grow over time, and a Salesforce Admin will be the one to manage and develop business alignment with the platform. Depending on the stage of the business, the role might start as one of your team members designated as a part-time Salesforce Admin, to hiring a team of admins and developers.
2. What is the Difference Between a Salesforce Admin and a Developer?
Admins typically aren’t software developers. They don’t write code. The Salesforce platform does allow Admins to heavily customize the user interface, processes, workflows and the data schema, but not to the level of writing code or integrating APIs.
Developers are brought in when actual code development is needed or API integrations are needed. In short, developers write code and Salesforce Admins can customize the Salesforce environment. This does not mean that Admins cannot build exciting features on the platform. There are a number of “declarative” features that allow an Admin to realize requirements, build automations and design new ways of getting things done. Think of this toolset as a layer between “Point and Click, and writing code in a development environment.
3. When Would You Need a Salesforce Admin?
After your Salesforce instance has been built and all requirements are fulfilled, your implementation partner that has built your environment will disengage and move on to another project. At this juncture, it is imperative for the success of the platform to have a qualified, experienced admin on hand that can lead you from implementation to day-to-day operations and beyond, Without such a resource, the chances of success can greatly diminish.
As your business continues to grow, new requirements and features will need to be implemented in your Salesforce instance. Only an experienced admin can be trusted with such mission-critical tasks.
4. How Many Salesforce Admins Should I Look for?
To recognize the importance of admins, Salesforce has put together a recommendation table to help guide businesses with their needs.
| Number of users | Administration resources |
|---|---|
| 1 – 30 users | < 1 full-time administrator |
| 31 – 74 users | 1+ full-time administrator |
| 75 – 149 users | 1 senior administrator; 1 junior administrator |
| 140 – 499 users | 1 business analyst, 2–4 administrators |
| 500 – 750 users | 1–2 business analysts, 2–4 administrators |
| > 750 users | Depends on a variety of factors |
With third-party applications, Salesforce quarterly feature releases, and new products from Salesforce ranging from CPQ to Marketing Automation Clouds to customer service communities and more, businesses need an Admin from the very start who is analyzing business needs and requirements with Salesforce capabilities.
Salesforce promises an unparalleled 360 view of customers and their consistent investment in new products and technologies. Keeping up with their capabilities requires deep knowledge and experience. Smaller to medium-sized businesses especially struggle with providing qualified technical resources to ensure the business continues to evolve and grow.
5. What Questions Should I Ask a Candidate Admin?
Job interviews can be tricky, especially when it comes to asking a candidate to demonstrate their mastery of technology. For them to demonstrate that they’ve mastered something they would generally have to go into detail at great length and that’s not usually what you would be looking for, as an interviewer.
The objective is to ask questions that require a concise, yet comprehensive, answers. You could also prompt the candidate to share a use case that they’ve experienced using a specific feature. Another option is to ask them to imagine a potential use case that your own organization or industry might encounter.
Conclusion
As a business, you must be able to trust what gets put into Salesforce, so as not to waste money or time. Additionally, third-party applications are growing quickly and someone needs to be up-to-date on how to integrate those applications and implement best practices for the business. In conclusion, the need for a qualified Salesforce Administrator is growing at a rapid rate and smart businesses recognize the need for professional management of their mission-critical sales & service platform.
Source: https://www.salesforceben.com/5-key-questions-about-hiring-a-salesforce-admin/
