In recent years, the Salesforce ecosystem has grown beyond what any of us who were there at the start could have imagined. If you told me when I started recruiting for Salesforce roles in 2008 that just over ten years later that the company would dominate the worldwide CRM market, consistently be voted top of ‘best place to work’ polls and would be a household name – it would have blown my mind.
Looking back at the start of the Salesforce story to where we are now, there have been some enormous changes in the Salesforce ecosystem, namely that the highly technical positions are now in higher demand than ever before and it is becoming harder for companies to find the candidates to fill these roles.
As my focus over the last decade has been sourcing senior and executive Salesforce talent, I have come to know personally many of the very top Salesforce players – we recently had Mitesh Mistry on our ROD podcast; he’s one of only 300 Salesforce Certified Technical Architects in the world. When you need a candidate for a senior role such as a CTA, and there is only a handful of them on the planet – how do you find them?
The truth is, you need a Salesforce retained executive recruiter and in this article, I will explain why. Let’s start by taking a look at the recruitment market here in the UK to understand where Salesforce executive search comes in.
Contingency vs Retained Executive Search for Salesforce Roles
When you require a pivotal Salesforce expert, say you need a Salesforce Technical Lead to help deliver on a contract for a top client, a contingency firm who offers you an executive search to find you a candidate will not be able to provide the same level of service as a company who has Salesforce executive search built into their ethos.
A recruiter might be tempted to offer you an executive search for a top Salesforce role due to the increased presence of Salesforce jobs in the wider tech space.
If you are deciding on which recruiter you are going to partner with for an upcoming Salesforce Technical Lead role, and you speak to five recruiters who offer you a retained service, but only one who regularly carries out executive search services for Salesforce companies – which one is going to have access to the best candidates?
It’s a no-brainer.
There is an increased awareness of Salesforce opportunities in the current job market down to the success of the Salesforce brand, which I want to explain in more depth.
An Increased Profile
Just last week I was catching up on the news from the World Economic Forum. The event was heavily publicised as activist Greta Thunberg was a guest speaker, and a picture of her along with fellow activist Jane Goodall went viral on Twitter receiving in the tens of thousands of shares. The pair are pictured in front of a Salesforce sponsor board, as it had partnered with the WEF to spread their message. I looked at the picture and thought ‘wow!’ – the amount of exposure that Salesforce is getting now is monumental.
As the Salesforce brand has grown in the way that it has, the number of candidates attracted to working for this platform has skyrocketed, we are seeing an increase in the number of developers and candidates with other CRM or cloud knowledge being attracted to Salesforce roles.
However – while there are plenty of candidates for Salesforce Administrator and Salesforce Developer roles, the most valuable technical skills are still in high demand and it is for these roles that executive search is needed, and this brings me on to my next point.
Momentum in the Salesforce Ecosystem
As the global platform of Salesforce has increased, so has the number of employees each Salesforce partner needs to keep up with advancements.
Salesforce is currently the world no.1 CRM tool, holding 19% of the market (their nearest rival, SAP, is worth less than half, at 8.3%) and estimates predict that by 2020 there will be 3.3 million jobs in the Salesforce ecosystem.
While these new job opportunities are great news for Salesforce and those wanting to get into the field, Salesforce users in need of the higher-skilled technical roles are left struggling. There is currently a shortage of Salesforce Developers by a ratio of 4:1, and for higher-skilled roles such as Technical Architects, this number jumps to 10:1.
When you require the very top Salesforce talent, in our experience, only a retained executive search recruiter will be able to locate the candidates you need.
Why Retained Executive Search is Necessary for Highly Skilled Salesforce Roles
When a pivotal role in your Salesforce team opens up, such as a Technical Lead or Technical Consultant, you need to be sure that your recruiter can provide the very best available talent for the role.
At ROD, being the first dedicated Salesforce recruiter in Europe, it is safe to say that we have some of the longest-standing knowledge of the UK Salesforce ecosystem!
Many of our partners are candidates turned clients and sometimes vice versa. We know from experience that only the in-depth knowledge that comes from recruiting Salesforce candidates on a daily basis can cut it when you need to source the best talent.
Finally
If you have struggled to locate suitable candidates for your executive roles such as Technical Leads, Technical Consultants and Senior Developers, get in touch with us today to find out how we can help you going forward.
About Resource On Demand
Resource On Demand is Europe’s first specialist Salesforce Recruitment Company, now also focusing on growth Cloud markets.
We assist innovative and disruptive organisations to grow their technology teams. Supporting companies to fill Cloud roles that span across Digital Marketing, Marketing Automation, Human Capital Management and the growing Salesforce.com suite of skills.
The team at Resource On Demand have access to an extensive database of key talent, registering over 8000 Cloud professionals each year.
To find out how we can support you call us on 01322 272 532