How do you find the right people for your team? And how do you help them progress and grow? How to make sure they stay? Attracting and keeping diverse Salesforce talent is a key priority for the entire Salesforce ecosystem.
London’s Calling, Europe’s largest community led event for Salesforce professionals, offered a number of insightful talks on these subjects. It’s a great event aimed at helping Salesforce professionals and companies develop and grow.
In this blog, I’ve gathered key takeaways from sessions I attended around attracting diverse Salesforce talent, mentoring in the Salesforce ecosystem, and ways of getting past “Impostor Syndrome”. Enjoy!
How to find the right people
Today, a lot of recruiters in the market use the system of checklists and automated CV screening to find ‘the best’ people for the job. But does it really work?
Refugee Force – the company helping refugees learn digital skills, grow their network, and launch their Salesforce careers – analysed the current employment situation by assigning their students such attributes as Low/High Risk, Low/High Need and Low/High Potential. Unsurprisingly, they found that Low Risk and Low Need candidates are disproportionately preferred by the employers, with both these factors being sometimes the main reasons to choose one candidate over another. But at the same time, it’s High Potential candidates that are the most in demand, regardless of Need or Risk. That creates one of the biggest recruiting challenges in today’s market.
So, what can you, as a company, do to overcome those challenges?
- Hire for skills that you cannot teach (e.g. being the fast-learner, good conversationalist, etc)
- Hire for attitude that you cannot enforce (e.g. being punctual & hard-working)
- Remember that anyone can learn Salesforce!
- Keep in mind that CVs don’t really tell you much about the person – choose real conversations (phone, video call, in-person interview) whenever possible
- And once you’ve hired someone:
- Provide internal mentorship & a structured development plan
- Set clear milestones & targets
- Make time for learning
Find out more about the RefugeeForce programme to learn how to attract diverse Salesforce talent.
How to help each other progress & grow
Being a specialist in an ever changing field is never easy, but it can be managed better when combined with the right kind of help.
Mentoring is a big thing within the Salesforce ecosystem – and the main reason for that is that it helps both the mentor & the mentee to stay on top of their game.
In their talk, Nathaniel Sombu & Silvia Denaro went through their personal experience of participating in the mentorship programme and shared the conclusions that they drew from it.
Here are just a few tips out of many they gave that could help your mentorship to be successful:
- Establish your goals through an honest conversations between the mentor and the mentee
- Remember to re-evaluate those goals throughout the programme
- Ensure regular communication
- Be grateful & be on time
- When faced with a problem, ask for help, not for solutions
- Share all your experiences – not just successes but failures as well
- Talk things over even if you think the problem you’re trying to solve is irrelevant to the other party – the ‘outsider’ approach could be useful
- Celebrate your differences
- And always remember – encourage, not push!
Find out more about Trailblazer Mentorship.
How to tackle Impostor Syndrome
“Impostor Syndrome” refers to an internal experience of believing that you are not as competent as others perceive you to be. It’s the feeling of self-doubt and personal incompetence that persists despite your education, experience, and accomplishments. Impostor Syndrome can be a disempowering experience, and is also common.
In his talk, Leon Crisp, founder & CEO of Ortoo, went through the biggest dangers of Impostor Syndrome and laid out the ways that could help any professional lean into a growth mindset.
Here are a couple of key takeaways from his speech:
- Awareness is always the first step! Seeing where you are at the moment and creating a picture of “what good looks like” is helpful when trying to move from a fixed mindset to a more productive growth mindset
- Changing your mindset is a big step that could be achieved by completing some smaller ones first:
- Gradually aligning your beliefs with a growth mindset
- Believing that your abilities are not inherent, but rather developed through constant effort
- Understanding that it takes a lot of effort to be great at something even when you have a natural inclination to it
- Attributing your success to your efforts
3. Changing your habits is the final step towards embracing the growth mindset:
- Setting learning, improvement and development goals – rather than performance or result-oriented goals
- Using the right language to describe “failures” – employing the power of “yet”
- Making your own “safe spaces” to try things without fear of failing
- Remembering that there is no shame in being a learner or beginner at something
Watch Carold Dweck’s TED talk on the power of Yet.
Read more on the subject: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
Thank you to all the wonderful speakers at London’s Calling for the most interesting, insightful and encouraging talks. Make sure to check their website for the recording of the select sessions from London’s Calling 2022 and previous years and for more information on the future events.
Education, professional growth and well-being of every member of the team are at the top of our priorities here at BrightGen. If BrightGen sounds like the right kind of company for you, check out our open roles here and join #TeamBrightGen!