In the Salesforce world, certifications are kind of a big deal (*insert Ron Burgundy’s voice*). Like any completed, continued education, earning a certification bumps up a person’s credibility in the work they do. Not only are they expanding their knowledge, but they are allowing for deeper trust in current client relationships and preparing themselves for different, perhaps more intricate types of projects in the future.
In order to assist our people in growing via certifications, Penrod has a resident trainer: Batman.
Yes, Batman. Warmly nicknamed is our very own Salesforce MVP who heads up Salesforce Technical Enablement at Penrod— Jake Brushafer.
This dark knight is extremely passionate about teaching and learning, and has a wealth of knowledge around certifications, which he patiently passes along to others.
My main role is Training and Enablement and I help people level up their Salesforce Skills. We take a focus on skills that are needed to stay up-to-date with the ever-changing technology in Salesforce and in Health and Life Sciences. Salesforce is always changing their landscape and you need to keep up on them, especially with three releases a year. The other major focus [for me is] our Salesforce Associate program, where we take entry level talent and train [them] in Salesforce for 12 weeks and come out of the program with a certification or two.”
Our Salesforce Associate program offers a unique opportunity for completely green talent to become Salesforce consultants within months, trained freely by us (AKA Batman). He designs and teaches classes, holds Q&A sessions in office hours, and is always one instant message away for any ad hoc inquiries.
There are boatloads of certs out there, so what ones are most important to us? Jake weighs in: “We value all kinds of certifications and, depending on your role, certain ones are more practical. Some common ones that are needed across the board are Salesforce Administrator and Platform Developer I.”
For some insight: Developer I is a certification that helps our developers on their way to other certifications, and Salesforce Administrator is great for everyone, as it’s the foundational certification that sets up the building blocks for the rest of certifications.
That said, we evaluate which certs a person may need based on the role they have or the role they will be growing into. “Typically after the Admin cert I like to suggest that [our employees] go for Service Cloud Consultant. But it really comes down to your role here at Penrod; if you’re in Marketing, [you’re] going to be pursuing Pardot and Marketing Cloud certifications,” says Jake.
(As an aside: beyond Salesforce certs, we also look for others such as Scrum Master.)
We firmly believe that this form of continued learning results in much more than just a name on a certificate; in studying, a person stays ahead of the technology curve, and is able to learn many things which can be directly and immediately applied to the work they may currently be doing.
“You get to learn features that maybe you didn’t know about or [that you] steered away from; [they] now may be the best tool in your box,” Jake says.
We encourage our people to forge the path they want to forge at Penrod; we will always come alongside our employees in the ways we are able in order to help them grow.