Whether you’re already an established Salesforce developer or are looking for ways to break into the industry, a well-written CV can significantly improve your efforts. Large businesses rely on Salesforce CRM to manage their customer relationships more effectively – this often requires custom development of industry-specific services. According to Small Biz Genius, Salesforce implementation can boost sales by 29%, increase sales productivity by 34%, and improve sales forecast accuracy by 42%.
In addition, Expanded Ramblings reported that 83% of Fortune 500 companies use Salesforce to that effect, with the current Salesforce CRM market share being at 19.5%. Building a career as a Salesforce developer can be lucrative since a plethora of companies require such specialists. However, differentiating your expertise, soft skills, and Salesforce knowledge from other candidates going after the same positions can be challenging. Let’s take a look at several ways to optimize your CV for a Salesforce developer career and why you should do that in 2020.
Benefits of a Well-Optimized Salesforce Developer CV
What makes a Salesforce developer CV different from a typical job resume? A Salesforce developer CV is highly specialized for the job position you want to land. This makes it significantly easier to pinpoint exactly what your interviewer and future CTO might look for.
On average, it takes 7-10 seconds for an HR manager to decide whether your CV is a good fit for additional screening and interview. There is no harmful intent behind this – there are simply too many CVs to go through for each job position to it differently. Use professional writing services or platforms such as Evernote to boost your chances at employment – likewise, best essay writers and Grammarly can help you. Writing a CV ad hoc and without a dedicated text editor is bound to lead to proofreading and formatting errors – avoid that at all costs.
Importantly, a Salesforce developer CV will be seen by existing developers within the company who will pitch in on your skillset. It’s crucial to tell your future managers exactly what they want to hear instead of writing a standard CV and hoping for the best. Doing so will bring you several important benefits while looking for work:
- Improve your odds at landing the position you want
- Stand out from other Salesforce developer candidates
- Present your developer career in a cohesive and professional manner
- Emphasize Salesforce-centric skills and experiences over general CV information
- Ability to use the same, well-written CV for different Salesforce-oriented companies
Ways to Optimize your CV for a Salesforce Developer Career
Linear Information Presentation
In order to improve your chances of landing a Salesforce developer’s position, you should make it easy for the company to read your CV. To start off, you should present information to your reader in a linear fashion, most important to least important. This will allow HR to quickly scan through information relevant to their company. It will showcase your friendly mannerism with potential colleagues. With that, your CVs outline can look like this:
- Professional experiences (employment, projects, freelance contracts, etc.)
- Career achievements (code developed, app launched, etc.)
- References (past employers, colleagues, and companies you worked with)
- Hard skills (skills related to Salesforce development)
- Soft skills (team collaboration and personal management skills)
- Formal education (academia and high school)
- Contact information (up-to-date information including social media handles)
Rely on Numeric Data
Given that Salesforce development is focused on coding, you should integrate as much numeric data into your CV as possible. The numeric data you use for your CV should highlight your skills as a Salesforce developer. These points can include anything from the number of app functions you developed, how many users you serviced, what pages you’ve authored, etc.
Numbers such as these are important since development goals and KPIs rely on numeric data, not on written descriptions without concrete takeaways. Implementing numeric data into your CV will greatly boost your odds at landing the Salesforce developer position and make you stand out from other candidates.
Keep it Short & To-the-Point
Despite what you may think, a Salesforce developer CV should be one page in length and no more than that. As we’ve mentioned, HR managers rarely have the time to scan through the entire CV, let alone two pages of it.
Consider this a personal challenge and try to fit all of the relevant information about your career on a single page. Avoid personal goals and motivation for applying for the job – leave these discussion points for the interview itself. Until then, keep your Salesforce developer CV short, informative, and to-the-point in regards to the job position.
References & Recommendations
Past references and recommendations from satisfied clients and employers can work wonders for your odds at employment. Reach out to your past contacts and ask whether they would be open to vouch for you as a Salesforce developer.
Don’t automatically assume they will do so – your future employer will likely contact them and ask about your performance and character. If you surprise them without an announcement, it might have negative results for your employment efforts.
Spruce up your Online Profiles
As a Salesforce developer, you will be in charge of developing CRM-related code for your employer. Customer relations are an essential part of any online business, and so is its reputation management. As such, employers will definitely look for your online profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to determine whether you fit into their company culture.
Be proactive and clean up your profiles before applying for a Salesforce developer position. As we’ve mentioned, you can pre-emptively add your social profiles to the contact section of the CV and openly invite HR managers to vet you. This will reflect positively on your attempts to land the position, so be as open as possible and make your social profiles presentable.
Follow up on your CV (Conclusion)
Once you submit your Salesforce developer CV for review, make sure to read through it several times before the interview. Your interviewer will likely extrapolate different questions and talking points from the data you’ve accumulated about your career so far.
Don’t be caught off guard and unprepared to explain a certain project or to address your reasons for reaching out to this particular company. Keep it friendly, professional, and centred on Salesforce – before you know it, the right employer will spot your value and keep you on full-time.
source: https://www.forcetalks.com/blog/5-ways-to-optimize-your-cv-for-a-salesforce-developer-career/
