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Launch Your Salesforce Admin Career With Trailhead Academy

Trailblazers in a classroom setting being led by a Salesforce Instructor next to Hootie standing on a log.
Explore a Salesforce Admin career with Trailhead Academy.

Get helpful admin tips from Salesforce Certified Instructors and learn how high-touch, expert-led classes can teach you the fundamentals of being a Salesforce Administrator.

The Salesforce ecosystem is an interconnected network of Trailblazers building successful careers, communities, and companies with Salesforce. According to IDC, Salesforce and its global ecosystem of partners will create 9.3 million new jobs by 2026. The roles span different career paths, from business analysts to sales and service managers to marketers. Securing one of these jobs is in reach.

Let’s take a look at one of the most popular roles and how you can build a successful career as a Salesforce Admin.

What does a Salesforce Admin do?

So, what is a Salesforce Admin? A Salesforce Admin solves business problems by customizing the Salesforce Platform. They build, configure, and automate technology solutions to deliver business value. Core responsibilities include supporting users, managing data, maintaining security standards, and delivering actionable analytics.

Let’s take a look at how you can start learning the skills you need to be an #AwesomeAdmin.

How do I start building admin skills?

With Trailhead, Salesforce’s free online learning platform, you have access to free learning content spanning an array of in-demand skills. No matter your experience level or expertise, there’s admin content for you on Trailhead.

Trailhead Trail: Admin Beginner

Start your #AwesomeAdmin journey by learning the basics of customizing Salesforce.

For Trailblazers looking for a higher-touch, expert-led learning experience, that’s where Trailhead Academy comes in.

How do I take my admin skills to the next level?

Trailhead Academy offers expert-led learning experiences that dive into “how” and “why” you do something. That’s actually the best part of learning from Salesforce experts. Not only do you get in-depth explanations, real-world scenarios, and live Q&A sessions, Salesforce Certified Instructors also share insights, best practices, and tips (more on this to come) to help you be successful with Salesforce.

Here are three key resources you can use to learn fundamental admin skills from Salesforce experts.

1. Administration Essentials for New Admins (5-day class)

Discover the world of a Salesforce Admin by working first-hand to configure and customize a Salesforce org. In this refreshed class designed for new admins, our experts guide you through the important tasks and features that Salesforce Admins encounter daily. You’ll get hands-on with Salesforce, engage in group discussions, explore real-world scenarios, and complete quizzes to test your knowledge.

In this class, new and expanded topics are covered including What Is a Salesforce Administrator, Application and Lifecycle Management, Sandboxes and Change Sets, and Flow—all crucial topics for admins to succeed in their roles.

I’m especially excited about this expert-led class because it’s a totally revamped version of our most popular 5-day Admin Essentials class. With this class, we’re introducing new teaching methods to drive engagement and improve alignment to the Admin credential.

It also covers new and expanded topics including What Is a Salesforce Administrator, Application and Lifecycle Management, Sandboxes and Change Sets, and Flow—all crucial topics for admins to succeed in their roles.

2. Trailhead Virtual Bootcamp (TVB) for New Admins

Learn the fundamentals of being a Salesforce Admin in just 30 days! TVB for New Admins is a blended, prescriptive, expert-led program that gives you a 30-day plan to learn what you need to be an awesome Salesforce Admin.

This program fast-tracks you to the Salesforce Certified Administrator credential. The bootcamp is a mix of bite-sized Trailhead content and live coaching from Salesforce Certified Instructors.

Trailblazer Craig Warren has always been passionate about learning new skills. Visually impaired since birth, Craig is an advocate for digital accessibility. Thanks to his determination and curiosity for learning, CareerCircle offered him a place to join a Trailhead Virtual Bootcamp.

“My main goal for attending Trailhead Virtual Bootcamp was finding employment. It turned out that I got much more out of it than that! I’ve met an amazing instructor and an incredible Trailblazer Community who supported me along the way.”

Craig Warren, Marketing Consultant and Salesforce Administrator at Hope Floats

3. Trailblazer Bootcamps

Discover the ultimate in-person learning experience. With multiple days of expert-led learning, role-based tracks, two certification exams, and endless networking opportunities, Trailblazer Bootcamp (coming soon to Washington D.C.) is your go-to place to build Salesforce expertise and accelerate your path to certification. Select the Admin track and pack your bags for an amazing learning adventure.

Why go expert-led for my learning?

Trailblazers like Joy Hintz are building their careers with the help of amazing Trailblazers and Salesforce experts. After a nudge from a fellow Trailblazer, Joy started to learn Salesforce on Trailhead, then deepened her Salesforce knowledge with an expert-led class before earning her Salesforce Administrator credential.

Nine months ago, I landed my first dream job as a Jr Admin at Perforce Software. I’m part of a team, solving problems that help our customers, and I’ve found a company that supports me as I grow my Salesforce career.

Joy Hintz, Jr Salesforce Admin at Perforce Software

The value of learning from Salesforce experts is in the insights, best practices, and tips that Salesforce Certified Instructors share. Let’s hear a few admin-specific tips from some of our awesome instructors.

Discover Trailhead Academy

Accelerate learning across your organization with access to Salesforce experts.

What tips do you have for admins?

First and foremost, be patient with yourself! Learning Salesforce doesn’t happen overnight—it takes time and practice! I’m really passionate about change management, and doing change right, so here’s my change management tip:

When tracking configuration changes, keep a running list of your changes as you go to make it easy to know what metadata you need to deploy!

Let’s look at some Security, Flow, and Change Management tips from my fellow Salesforce Certified Instructors that you can put into practice today.

Security Tip from Mari Greenberg, a Salesforce Certified Instructor teaching Salesforce Admin and Tableau CRM classes with more than 6 years of experience in the healthcare tech industry focused on EMR and big data/analytics training:

Always err on the side of caution when setting your organization-wide defaults. Open up record access to others using additional security features.

Mari Greenberg, Salesforce Certified Instructor

Flow Tip from Kevin Corcoran, a Salesforce Certified Instructor with more than 30 years of experience in education, corporate training, and business development:

If you’re new to Flow, start with record-triggered flows—they’re not as scary as they seem and they’re fairly simple to create! Also, don’t hesitate to sketch out your flow on paper before building in Flow Builder.

Kevin Corcoran,Salesforce Certified Instructor

Change Management tip from Rahul Shah, a Salesforce Certified Instructor with more than 20 years of experience in education and corporate training with specialties ranging from Salesforce CRM, Apex, Visualforce, Aura Components, LWC, Integrations, Tableau CRM, and Java:

If a shared sandbox needs to be refreshed, notify all stakeholders so that the changes which are not yet deployed to production are not overwritten. Communicate the changes to the user and share the timelines of when they would be available in production.

Rahul Shah, Salesforce Certified Instructor

Now that you have this admin knowledge, you’re ready to show it to the world (and employers) with a Salesforce Certification.

How do I earn my Salesforce Administrator credential?

Becoming a Salesforce Admin can be a valuable, long-term career path or a way to improve the career path you’re already on. The Salesforce Administrator credential is designed for those who have experience with Salesforce and continuously look for ways to help companies get additional features and capabilities.

Earn role-based Salesforce credentials

Prove your hands-on experience with Salesforce and get a competitive edge that leads to new opportunities.

Discover how #AwesomeAdmin Chris Randolph didn’t let challenges arising from the pandemic deter him from his mission. Determination helped him earn his Salesforce Administrator credential through Climb Hire, an accelerated training program in San Francisco that assists individuals with developing the technical and soft skills needed to launch into the tech industry.

I knew that getting my certification would open up more doors and opportunities for me, especially being a young Black man in the tech industry and not having a college degree.

Chris Randolph, Climber (Cohort 2) at Climb Hire

You can also earn superbadges and Super Sets along the way to indicate extra learning concentrations, such as the Business Administration Specialist and Lightning Experience Reports & Dashboards Specialist superbadges.

Make sure you check out the Prepare for Your Salesforce Administrator Credential trailmix on Trailhead to get credential-ready!

Connect with #AwesomeAdmins around the world!

The Trailblazer Community is an amazing network of millions of people who help each other along their journeys as they learn and succeed with Salesforce. Join Trailblazer Community groups, such as Admin Trailblazers, Salesforce Certified Professionals, or your local Trailblazer Community Group to start networking and sharing tips and tricks as you navigate your new Salesforce Admin skills.

Connect with Trailblazers from anywhere

Join the conversation in the Trailblazer Community.

Now you have the information and resources you need to go out and launch your Salesforce Admin career. Follow @SalesforceAdmns on Twitter and visit the Admin website or Success Center for additional resources.

The Trailblazer Blog

Discover expert insights to help you develop your career, connect with Trailblazers, learn Salesforce, and earn certifications. Explore practical how-to guidance, authentic peer perspectives, and inspiring Trailblazer stories.

Caitlin Nguyen Principal Instructor

Caitlin is focused on fostering engaging training to help admins learn the tools and practices they need to land a new role or excel in their current one. When she's not teaching, she enjoys game nights, musicals, and hiking.

More by Caitlin

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