5 Soft Skills to Evaluate When Hiring Salesforce Professionals

Finding the right Salesforce professional can be a challenging task. Many professionals are technically apt, but a few have the combination of technical and soft skills required to excel in team environments or client-facing roles.

While technical proficiency will always be a prerequisite for any Salesforce role, soft skills are increasingly becoming important. They help build strong relationships with clients and team members.

Thus, you must also evaluate soft skills in addition to a candidate’s resume and technical qualifications.

We’ve compiled this blog post to help you make a great hire. It highlights the essential Salesforce soft skills you should look for and also includes tips on how to evaluate them. Let’s get started.

1.

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Communication

Communication includes the ability to understand and convey information clearly and concisely. A good communicator can collaborate, solve problems, and train team members effectively.

To assess communication skills, start by reviewing the candidate’s resume. A well-written resume that clearly indicates the candidate’s skills and experience is a good indicator.

During the interview, ask open-ended questions and observe how they respond? Do they listen actively and respond thoughtfully to your questions?

You can also provide feedback during the interview and see if they apply it in their subsequent responses. This would indicate their ability to learn and adapt and how receptive they are to feedback.

In addition, you can ask the candidate to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders. For instance, if you’re hiring a Salesforce developer, you can ask the following basic questions:

1. How to create flows in Salesforce?
2. How to customize UI in the commerce cloud?

In addition to strong communication skills, effective collaboration is important for Salesforce professionals. If your current development team is remote, you can refer to this blog outlining tips for collaborating with contractual remote Salesforce developers.

2. Teamwork

Teamwork is the ability to collaborate and work towards common goals and objectives. Effective team players can build strong professional relationships, boost team morale, and drive overall success.

To evaluate teamwork skills, start by reviewing the candidate’s LinkedIn profile. Do they have endorsements or recommendations on their profile highlighting their teamwork abilities?

Once you’ve gathered this information, you can ask behavioral questions. Remember to follow up on their responses to understand the context and details of the situation.

Here are some examples of behavioral questions you can ask to assess a Salesforce professional’s teamwork skills:

• Have you ever had to work with a difficult team member? How did you handle the situation, and what did you learn from it?

• Give an example of a project where you had to work under a tight deadline with a team. What was your role, and how did you ensure the team met the deadline while maintaining quality?

• Tell me when you had to delegate tasks to team members to achieve a project goal. How did you determine who to delegate tasks to, and how did you ensure that everyone was able to contribute effectively?

You can also conduct a team exercise and observe how candidates interact, convey ideas, and handle conflicts that arise.

Lastly, you can contact the candidate’s references to better understand their teamwork abilities.

3. Adaptability

Adaptability includes keeping up and adjusting to changes in the Salesforce platform. These changes could be in the form of new product releases or updates to existing features.

Adaptability also includes customizing the Salesforce platform to meet client’s specific needs.

The most effective way of assessing adaptability skills is by asking behavioral questions. Here are some examples:

• How do you keep yourself informed about the latest developments in the Salesforce ecosystem? Can you tell me some key highlights in the most recent Salesforce product release and how these can improve our business processes?

• Tell me about a time when you had to quickly learn a new Salesforce feature to meet a client’s needs. How did you learn it, and what challenges did you face?

• Tell me about a time when a project didn’t go as planned in your Salesforce role. How did you adapt to the unexpected situation, and what steps did you take to ensure the project’s success?

4. Problem-Solving Skills

Problem-solving involves analyzing problems, understanding their causes, and developing solutions to address them.

To excel at problem-solving, a professional must have deep knowledge of the Salesforce platform, along with analytical and critical thinking skills.

To assess problem-solving skills, start by asking behavioral questions. Remember to follow up on their responses to understand the context and details of the situation.

For example, you could ask, “Give me an example of a problem you encountered while implementing a Salesforce solution for a client. How did you identify the problem, and what steps did you take to address it?”

Additionally, you can provide them with a case study requiring careful analysis and resolution. For instance, here’s a case study on Salesforce customization that you can use when hiring a Salesforce developer.

Case study: Customizing a Salesforce application for a Non-Profit Organization

ABC is a Non-Profit Organization using Salesforce to manage its donor information and fundraising campaigns. The organization’s team has identified several areas where they need to customize their Salesforce application to better meet their needs. They have asked you to help them with the following:

1. Customize the Opportunity object to track fundraising campaigns’ progress and add custom fields to capture the campaign’s target and actual fundraising amounts.
2. Develop a custom Visualforce page to display a dashboard of the fundraising campaign’s progress, including charts and tables that show the campaign’s target and actual fundraising amounts, as well as the number of donations received.
3. Automate the process of sending thank-you emails to donors after they make a donation. The email should be personalized with the donor’s name, donation amount, and other relevant information.
4. Ensure that the customizations are designed to scale as the organization grows and adds more donors and campaigns to its Salesforce application.

Questions:

1. How would you approach this project, and what steps would you take to ensure its success?
2. What Salesforce customization tools and techniques would you use to implement these changes?
3. How would you ensure that the customizations meet the organization’s needs and are designed to scale as the organization grows?
4. Can you walk me through how you would test and deploy these customizations in a live Salesforce environment?

5. Time-Management Skills

Time management involves prioritizing tasks, setting goals, and staying organized. An effective time manager will stay on top of their responsibilities, meet client needs, and drive business results.

To assess time-management skills, start by reviewing the candidate’s resume. Do they have experience working in a dynamic environment such as a startup? These types of organizations often have fast-paced environments and demand effective time-management skills.

You can also ask behavioral questions. For instance, you could ask, “Tell me about a time when you had to balance multiple projects with tight deadlines. How did you prioritize your tasks, and what was the outcome?”

Conclusion

There you have it, the top soft skills you should look for when hiring a Salesforce professional. Regardless of the role you’re hiring for, these soft skills apply to all tech professions and will help you make a great hiring decision.

Remember, soft skills complement hard skills, and a candidate who excels in both will immensely contribute to your organization’s long-term success.

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