Naturally, hiring the right Salesforce talent is critical, as they will serve a vital role on your team. Salesforce professionals are the center of modern business operations using the Salesforce platform. However, because the hiring process is time-consuming, planning carefully to fill your Salesforce professional roles on the team is essential.
Whether you have an on-staff Salesforce pro who can guide your hiring or are starting from scratch, here are some recommendations for how healthcare companies hire Salesforce talent.
Challenges in Hiring Salesforce Talent
First, plan for the challenges ahead. Hiring salesforce professionals will introduce several hurdles to the recruiting and onboarding process. These include:
- High demand for Salesforce pros
- Evolving ecosystem with changing demands
- Retention, attrition, and hiring cycles
- Lengthy onboarding process
- Navigating specialized skill sets.
When looking for a new team member to provide your company's Salesforce expertise, it's important to note that there is a high demand for Salesforce skills in the workforce, and Salesforce is such a large platform that you may need more than one person to cover all the essential skill sets. There are also the issues of an evolving ecosystem, a high attrition rate, and the length of the onboarding process - which can lead to project gaps between vacancies and a new hire ready to begin work.
If you are prepared for these challenges, you are ready to begin recruiting and start interviewing.
What to Look for During Salesforce Interviews
Some companies do not have a current Salesforce expert on staff to guide the hiring process. When this is the case, it’s all the more important to know which questions to ask and what skills to look for during interviews with potential Salesforce professionals who might join your team.
We have compiled several valuable questions and answers to listen for as you interview to fill your Salesforce roles.
Technical Questions
Salesforce expertise is identified through technical certifications and a comprehensive knowledge of the Salesforce platform.
- Review and verify Salesforce certifications.
- Ask technical questions regarding specific procedures, tools, and solutions.
- Listen for practical and knowledgeable answers indicating the candidate is well-versed in Salesforce technical skills.
Compliance Questions
Salesforce provides tools to comply with healthcare industry regulations such as HIPAA and data security standards, but the Salesforce experts on your team must implement them properly. You will need to gauge whether candidates are familiar with HIPAA and other relevant healthcare regulations, understand key issues, and know how to enforce HIPAA compliance using Salesforce tools.
- Guage familiarity with healthcare regulations like HIPAA.
- Ask questions about patient privacy, fraud prevention, and other healthcare compliance matters.
- Review how Salesforce achieves compliance and protects patient data.
Behavioral Questions
Salesforce empowers healthcare companies to collaborate through shared data, coordinating tools, and communication channels. Your Salesforce hires need soft skills to implement these, including:
- Problem-solving
- Teamwork
- Communication
- Collaboration
Industry-Specific Work Experience
In addition to Salesforce expertise and the skills that make a good employee, you likely also need someone familiar with the healthcare industry and can use Salesforce tools to empower your specific use cases, such as:
- Provider relationship management
- Credentialing
- Patient tracking
- EHR integration
- Experience with Salesforce applied to healthcare business needs
Onboarding and Recruit-to-Value Time
Once you have found the right candidate, the next consideration is the time between extending the job offer to their first day fully contributing to the job. It is typical for the recruit-to-value time to take as long as six months, including both guided onboarding and integration into the new hire's role on your healthcare business team.
Onboarding requires between two weeks to two months of guided introduction to your business, operations, software integration, policies, company culture, and the business use cases that your Salesforce professionals will be working with. In addition to learning their way around the company, they must also build a customized strategy for your Salesforce implementation.
Slow onboarding may be necessary, but it also can exacerbate an already urgent need to actively fill the open role of Salesforce expert on your team. In a healthcare business, every delay can lead to lost opportunities, poor patient experiences, and inefficiencies.
Hiring Multiple Specialists
Salesforce is a vast platform with many specializations among Salesforce professionals. Healthcare businesses benefit from access to the full range of implementation and support strategies, which can require hiring multiple Salesforce professionals to meet your needs. Building your on-staff Salesforce team can multiply the effort, expense, and delay.
Alternatives to Internal Hiring
You're not alone if you don't have time to recruit, interview, hire, and onboard a Salesforce professional for your healthcare business. Often, Salesforce offers urgently needed solutions, and unskilled implementation is less than ideal. Therefore, you may benefit from alternatives to direct hiring for the Salesforce talent you need.
Penrod provides that alternative through professionally managed services. Salesforce managed service includes a comprehensive approach to your Salesforce implementation, including custom use cases tailored to your healthcare industry requirements and unique business needs. We offer the benefit of flexible and immediate access to a team of Salesforce experts, each representing essential skill specializations to fully cover the scope of Salesforce implementation, solutions, and support you may require.
Access Your Salesforce Talent Team Today
If you need Salesforce talent, you have two potential options. You can go through the extended process of hiring and onboarding one specialist at a time or connect with Penrod's Salesforce-managed services for immediate and personalized Salesforce support. Explore Penrod's managed services to avoid the challenge and delay of hiring an entire team of Salesforce talent for your healthcare business.