Ever considered a career in Salesforce after serving in the military? What if I told you that transitioning from a military career to a Salesforce professional isn't as daunting as it seems? Join us in this episode as we chat with Phillip Anderson and Dave Nava, two veterans who've walked this path successfully. They share insights from their journey and the resources they found invaluable.
Have you ever wondered how to stand out in a slowing job market? Phillip, Dave, and the panel share some of their strategies for breaking into the Salesforce ecosystem. They discuss alternative ways of gaining work experience such as volunteering and earning super badges. Staying active within the community and building a diverse skill set is another strategy they emphasize.
As we wrap up, we focus on the resources available to veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses in the Salesforce ecosystem. From Salesforce Military to VetForce and Salesforce Trailhead Military Programs, we've got you covered. We also discuss the unique advantages of the Mentor Connect platform. Our heartfelt gratitude goes out to every veteran for their service and sacrifice. Tune in to start or further your journey in Salesforce with us – you are not alone!
Ever considered a career in Salesforce after serving in the military? What if I told you that transitioning from a military career to a Salesforce professional isn't as daunting as it seems? Join us in this episode as we chat with Phillip Anderson and Dave Nava, two veterans who've walked this path successfully. They share insights from their journey and the resources they found invaluable.
Have you ever wondered how to stand out in a slowing job market? Phillip, Dave, and the panel share some of their strategies for breaking into the Salesforce ecosystem. They discuss alternative ways of gaining work experience such as volunteering and earning super badges. Staying active within the community and building a diverse skill set is another strategy they emphasize.
As we wrap up, we focus on the resources available to veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses in the Salesforce ecosystem. From Salesforce Military to VetForce and Salesforce Trailhead Military Programs, we've got you covered. We also discuss the unique advantages of the Mentor Connect platform. Our heartfelt gratitude goes out to every veteran for their service and sacrifice. Tune in to start or further your journey in Salesforce with us – you are not alone!
And now the number one audio program that helps you to hire, get hired and soar higher in the Salesforce ecosystem. It's the Salesforce career show with Josh Matthews and Vanessa Grant.
Josh Matthews:Hey everybody, welcome to part two of our military show, which is dedicated to communicating and listening to and learning from Phyllis Anderson, former Air Force, and Dave Nava, golden Hoodie recipient, former pilot for the Navy, and in this segment we're going to be talking a little bit more about the current state of the economy how to identify opportunities and help yourself stand out as a top candidate in a market where hiring has slowed down. So definitely stick around. I'm going to do a quick little introduction of myself. My name is Josh Matthews. I run the Salesforce recruitercom, aka Salesforce staffing. I've been in the industry for coming on almost five years right now, and my wonderful co-host, vanessa Grant. Let's hear an intro.
Vanessa Grant:Hey everybody. I'm Vanessa Grant. I'm an associate principal consultant at a Salesforce partner and also a part-time click coach and a part-time helping Josh host the Salesforce career show person.
Josh Matthews:You are a helping Josh host the career show, the Salesforce show person. Maybe I said that wrong, I don't know. We've got a couple of wonderful guests with us on this program Phyllis Anderson. Let's hear a quick intro.
Philip Anderson:Philip Anderson here, Air Force veteran of 13 years in special warfare and special operations. Currently now I'm a GPS consultant at Deloitte.
Josh Matthews:Thanks, phyllis David Scott now.
Dave Nava:Hey everybody, dave Nautic here lead solution and generate Salesforce. 20 year Navy veteran and currently helping customers within the DoD and beyond. Explore the power of Salesforce solutions.
Josh Matthews:All right, great to have you guys here. So in this episode we are going to open up the floor to questions. So if you're listening to the show live on a mobile phone, all you have to do is go ahead and raise your hand. And, by the way, we've got some wonderful folks up here, including Larry Lee. We've got Jason Zygwitz, peter Ganza I see some familiar faces with. Vanessa. Thomas is one of our most dedicated listeners. Thank you for being here. Jesse Twazan, who's been a critical and important part of the Salesforce recruiter. She's worked with me for I don't even know. It's like three and a half years or something like that. It's a long time, relatively long time. Thanks everybody for being here today. Vanessa, someone's got a question, but they are listening on. If they're listening on a browser and not on their mobile, how can they ask a question? Or maybe they're just shy and they want to ask a question. How can they ask your question?
Vanessa Grant:Absolutely. Feel free to send me a DM on Twitter, rl Vanessa Grant or on LinkedIn real Vanessa Grant. I have both of my inboxes open and ready.
Josh Matthews:Fantastic, and if you weren't just joining us and you have not yet listened to the last episode, you'll definitely want to check that out, because Dave and Phillip give incredible insight on making it. They tell their own personal stories of transitioning from the military into the Salesforce ecosystem with some wonderful advice, and what I'd like to do to start this episode out is have Vanessa share with us some of the critical resources that are out there. These are groups, organizations, training academies what have you that can help you make the transition a little bit easier from military to Salesforce professional. So I'll pass the torch to you here, vanessa.
Vanessa Grant:And absolutely, dave Phil. You guys would know these organizations better than I, so how about I start talking about them and then you guys can add your experience or whatever tips you have as far as how to get the most out of leveraging the resources that these organizations have? The first one I've got is is Marivis, so I know I've spoken at the Marivis summit. Marivis has a few different paths to go on as far as cohorts, so that they train admins, platform at Builders, so so help prepare you for those certifications. It says that it's a two to five weeks of self paced virtual training, approximately five to 10 hours per week, followed by one week of intensive training located online or in the host city looks like they're in Austin or Seattle, but they also have virtual and then finishing with one to two weeks of virtual certification exam preparation. What's been your experience with Marivis, guys?
Philip Anderson:So I went through Marivis to get my Salesforce admin and when I first started Trailhead I it was so complex, there was so many trails and I was that dog just chasing squirrels. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know where to begin and Marivis gave me that focused path on what I needed to do to be a Salesforce admin. I went through their platform app builder same thing. I didn't even know where I needed to go and then they just they zeroed it in on the absolute, on how to pass those tests. So that's what Marivis really offers is that path, those trails for you.
Dave Nava:And I had a similar experience. So 2018, I leveraged Marivis to earn my admin cert as well as platform app builder, just like Phil. And for those that aren't aware, when you go through Trailhead Military and you get your vouchers for the courses, you can cash those vouchers in, so to speak, with Marivis. We'll accept them and then you can attend their cohort for a variety of different courses, and it's taught by Salesforce professionals, so you're getting expert advice. You usually have a one day follow up as well, prior to the exam.
Dave Nava:But what a lot of folks may not realize, who aren't familiar with Marivis, is more than just educational resources. It's also community, and if you know anything about the Salesforce ecosystem, community is huge here. It's how we ensure that we're successful by participating in community events, by giving back to the community, and Marivis has its own micro community within the Trailblazer community of allies as well as military Trailblazers that all support each other. So when you become an alum, you get access to that community, and I, of course, still talk to all the Marivets that I went through with and as well as new Marivets and just an awesome resource.
Vanessa Grant:Awesome. Thank you, guys. And of course, I have to bring up the military Trailblazer office hours. I know I did speak at one when Jade was hosting, but I think now they just have the two the one that's hosted by you, david, which is more focused on career and branding, and then one that's more focused on Salesforce technology that's hosted by Bill Kieler.
Dave Nava:So there's actually four. Okay, We've become a family of military Trailblazer office hours providers. Every other Monday, I think it's let's see. Second and fourth is off the record chatter, which they do a variety of different sessions I like to call it Salesforce potpourri and they have a variety of different topics and it's very informal off the cuff but really interesting and fun. Trailhead Tuesdays are now run by Jade, For Tuesday she does a different Trailhead based engagement sessions. Sometimes it's working on a badge, Sometimes she's just talking about Trailhead topics. I do first and third Wednesdays of the month on professional development, and then Bill, the original the OG, does Fridays noon Eastern technical sessions. He'll invite some guests on occasionally. For the most part, what he'll do is you bring your problems to Bill, either declarative or programmatic, and he'll show you how to solve them within that session. If it's code based, he'll usually give you the code as well, and so it's really really great resource. Regardless of what your your technical needs are, there's a office hour session to help.
Vanessa Grant:Yeah, what I also love about those office hours that they're available to anybody. Just anybody can join, whether you are military or not. Of course there is a military focus and it's a great way to meet folks that are kind of on that same path. But I've also found them just useful as a non military spouse or veteran just to skill up or even learn about career stuff. And now you post them all on your YouTube channel, which is another great resource for folks transitioning.
Dave Nava:Yeah, everyone's welcome to join. You don't have to have a military affiliation, and we do have 180 videos on the Wednesday session office hours YouTube channel. And then Bill has his own channel as well, I think it's. If you search for resource hero, you'll find it, and he's got his technical sessions on there also.
Josh Matthews:And I'll tell you, guys, I think we're going to make a point of adding on some additional resources to expand exchange. And if this is your first time hearing about the expand exchange, it is a directory that was curated by mostly Vanessa and a little bit me. It's hosted on my website, the salesforcerecreatercom, including David's office hours, so you can go there and just click military and you'll find a number of different resources. We'll make sure that we get some additional ones up there before this gets launched on our podcast, but be sure to go to expandexchangecom and then just click military and then, of course, explore all of the other avenues, whether it's YouTubers, podcasters, chat rooms, slack channels, things like that too. So that's a real quick, short, easy way to identify some additional resources. And thanks for bringing those up there, vanessa.
Josh Matthews:I'd like to make sure that just because we're going to run out of time here in just a little bit. So I want to make sure that we're addressing what, for many, is the elephant in the room, and that is what the hell's going on with hiring and recruiting, and there are way more available candidates now than there were in the past. That does not necessarily mean that there are that many more top professional candidates. Most of the people who are in the top 10% are still working. That's not always true. So from a comment standpoint, I don't want anyone to be offended, because good people, highly successful, engaging, competent professionals, can get laid off and it can have nothing to do with what's going on with them. It can have everything to do with the economy or the way that their organization has been run. But the majority of top performers are still going to be actively working, actively engaged or soon to be hired. Right.
Josh Matthews:But given that there are way fewer opportunities being advertised and marketed now than, say, even three months ago but I'll go back six, seven months ago and really a year because it started to slow down around last fall the world did not see the hiring season. The hiring season is generally February, march, april, may, sometimes June a little bit, and with a kick, another uptick a little bit before the holidays. In the fall it just didn't really happen. It used to be 3,000 new postings every single day of the week on LinkedIn. That's not the case now by a massive margin, by at least a 60% or 70% reduction in ad spend or postings for jobs. So that means that there's fewer jobs for more people, and that means it's going to be more competitive.
Josh Matthews:So, with that in mind, I'd like to hear from both Phil and Dave a little bit about what they would recommend given the current economic situation or hiring situation. What are some of the best tips or recommendations you can give to those Either A trying to break in or B trying to level up to a different role in a different company right now, and either of you can start on this?
Dave Nava:I'm happy to start. A couple of things come to mind because, you're correct, there's been a reduction in force across salesforce jobs and then there's been a reduction in new jobs being offered. Having said that, the salesforce ecosystem obviously is not going anywhere. These things happen in cycles and we're still experiencing, relatively speaking, tremendous growth. It's just less growth than we've seen in previous years, but now more than ever and I've brought this up a couple of times community is everything.
Dave Nava:So I often tell people you need three things to break into any ecosystem, salesforce or otherwise you need education and training, you need work experience and you need to have a personal brand. Salesforce handles the education and training piece for you right. With Trailhead, with certification, it's all kind of mapped out. You just have to figure out what you want to do and then the map is there on the website. You've got tons of certs.
Dave Nava:Work experience is more challenging and I think this directly answers your question. You have to show work experience without necessarily having the opportunity to get work experience, which is the chicken or the egg kind of thing. How do you do that? And that's where we get into what I call alternative work experience, and that's super badges are one great way to get there, taking that knowledge and transforming it into solutions, and then that's a demonstrable skill that you have on your Treblazerme profile. Other ways are to create an experience cloud site and have your professional portfolio on there, showing that you can build on the experience cloud platform. Sign up for free developer org and build apps. All these things are ways to generate alternative work experience.
Dave Nava:Volunteering sometimes gets a bad rap these days, but I still think that it's a great way, as long as you put certain guardrails in place, to get experience working in the ecosystem. And so all these things come from learning about opportunities out there in the ecosystem, which comes from being present in the community, whether that's online meetings like this, where you're meeting with folks, you're talking, you're chatting, whether it's in-person events, whether they're dream events Treble is your DX, dreamforce, so on and so forth you have to be active in the community If you expect to meet the folks you need to meet and learn about the opportunities you need to learn about in order to generate leads to get employed. Then I'll say one more thing, and then I'll pause here, because I want to hear what Phil has to say as well. It's not necessarily fair, and this is just my opinion. This is Salesforce according to Dave Nava. You're welcome to disagree, but I think you have to be multi-skilled.
Dave Nava:These days, like a while back, it was enough to have your admin cert and maybe you've built a few apps. These days, because employers are having to do more with less, they want to see more skill sets. That's where you see these. We're looking for an admin who has Apex and all these other things. You have to have diverse and wider skill bases. If you can get into things like Omni, studio, crma, maybe you have a project management certification. You can dust off and show that your skill in other areas, that will add additional value and then you're not just a single threat Like I can configure no, I can configure. I can write a bit of code, I can project manager, project. I can do all these things. That'll help you as well.
Josh Matthews:Great points, vanessa shares. Often, once someone's got a couple of certs under their belt, to really consider pursuing a Scrum Master cert as well, it doesn't always have to be to your point, david, and your PMP which, by the way, I don't know if anyone else on this show right now is a PMP but it's not the easiest path in the world. You guys got to get 2000 hours of documented work under your belt. It's complex. It makes the admin cert look like take and maybe I'm speaking at a turn here, but that's been my experience with all of the PMs that I've placed over the last 20 plus years. Great points, thanks, dave. Phil, I'm curious if you've got some thoughts on this.
Philip Anderson:Yeah, I can't agree more with David. If you were having trouble finding a job, one of the things to think outside the box with Salesforce is a CRM platform and so much more. They also have Tableau. Look for jobs that are using and need those SMEs in a CRM platform. It doesn't necessarily have to be Salesforce, it could be ServesNow, it could be something else. Or, if you're with Tableau, it doesn't have to necessarily be Tableau, it could be Microsoft Power BI, because you've shown the ability to learn a new technology and that could be something a recruiter is looking for. Then, on top of that, one, you're getting employment. Two, you're gaining another skill that's going to be valuable. It's going to be able to widen your resume and broaden your network. That goes into.
Philip Anderson:My next point is keep networking. If you're having trouble finding a job or because of the hiring freeze or the hiring slowdown, keep networking and stay on those individuals' radars, because it's not going to last forever. Every once in a while, check in with them hey, is there anything opening up? Do you have any idea when this hiring slowdown or freeze is going to be lifted? Like I said, stay on their radar. Let them know that you're still interested in that company or that firm. Yeah, that's all I got for that issue.
Josh Matthews:Critical points, phil, truly Right. Look, two things come to mind. One is people can work really hard to build up a network. All you have to do to destroy a network is just leave it alone for long enough. If you're not active in the community today's point earlier you're going to be in trouble. You've got to. All relationships require some level of maintenance and, consequently, some level of interest and some level of contribution. We can't just always be asking people you got something for me, you got something for me, you got something for me? I get about 12 or 15 emails a day from third party these third party visa companies, bench sales companies every day. It's like stop asking what I can do for you, what are you going to do for me, because otherwise the interest will wane very quickly, very, very quickly. We have Navy veteran Jonathan Forster with a hand raised, so come on board, jonathan.
Jonathan Forester:Hey everyone. Yes, jonathan Forster, salesforce consultant at Deloitte. Hey Dave, hey, jason, been a while. Hey, good to be here. I just wanted to add that one of the things that helped me when I was trying to find my first job and get that experience is I went to Upwork and it's a freelance site and they post a lot of Salesforce jobs and it runs the gamut of developer to doing data loads, and so the trick that I did is I would take some of those jobs but then I would put it under in my resume. I put under as that I was a freelance consultant and this was the experience I had, and all the experience was from those Upwork jobs. And then I had things to talk about in job interviews and companies would say, oh, he's done some Salesforce work, just a suggestion and thought.
Josh Matthews:Thanks, jonathan. I'd like to bring Dave to the stage again on this, because I think this was a question that was asked in your show in your office hours earlier with Salesforce bed, and I think you had a point of view, unless I'm confusing myself here.
Dave Nava:Yeah, refresh me one more time on the question of apologies.
Josh Matthews:It was when someone's brand new should they go get? Oh, I am confusing the question. I think the question was should I go volunteer for free, right, and can I, you know, can I like? So if you're brand new and you're putting yourself out on Upwork, I'm kind of like Jonathan, like you know, go ahead and unmute. But I'm kind of curious about this, right, because if you're putting yourself out there on Upwork, it's like, hey, I'm the professional and I do this, right, was it a struggle to like did people when they hired you, did they have? Did they know that you were brand new to this type of work?
Jonathan Forester:Yeah, I mean I was, I mean I've always been an upfront and honest person.
Jonathan Forester:But what I would tell them is look, I have my admin cert, these are the things that I can do, that I'm familiar with, and then I also have resources to help me get the job done. You know, and you know, that seemed to convince them. Obviously, everyone's mile you know, mileage may vary, but I found that, like when I took on the simple jobs first, like data loads or creating some page layouts. You know that's something you don't need experience with. You know, if you have your admin cert, then you know how to. You know, do that stuff. And so then, as those small jobs accumulated and then it expanded my reach as far as what I could do, and you know, after six months of doing that, I got like my first contract job, you know, working for this consulting group that dealt with nonprofits, and so it just snowballed from there. But it definitely helped me get that going and also gave me some confidence too that you know I knew more than just doing trailheads. You know I can actually do this stuff.
Josh Matthews:The confidence is really critical, right? Because if you can't, you're not gonna talk about things that you're not confident about, like everybody knows that, right? You're not gonna get me on stage talking about biochem. Like I don't know anything about biochemistry and I never will, like it's just how it is. I have zero confidence in this. I'm not gonna talk about it, right? But when you're brand new and you've got just enough of a leg up, but you can start, like you said and I think this is a great point, jonathan is, start doing the small things that you can do, right, and grow from there and again to your point, make sure that you've got. I think it's really important to always have a mentor, someone you can reach out to. We do have a specific podcast episode dedicated towards the mentor-mentee relationship and where you can find that. So all you have to do, regardless of the platform you're on, whether it's Spotify, apple, google or what have you definitely check out that episode that is run by Vanessa, because she does a great job of helping to enlighten people how to obtain a mentor and how to succeed in that type of a relationship.
Josh Matthews:Now there's something that Dave and Phil you guys were both basically talking about cross-training a little bit ago. Right, like getting different types of certs or super badges and expanding your knowledge. And I just have this short memory. I have this small memory of the coach for Ohio State football team when they were crushing it every single year and he said and at the time I was on the board of directors for the youth football league that my kid was in and we were losing players like crazy. We were losing them because athletics and school really started to switch about 10 years ago to one sport a year. Right, because they're all these clubs. You'd have someone playing baseball, you'd just play baseball all year long and by 13,. They need Tommy John surgery. Right, because their arms are just blown. But what he said is that out of 52 players on the team, only two of them were football, only players in school.
Josh Matthews:Everyone else was a multi-sport person and it's exactly what both you, dave, and you, phil, were talking about is like do a variety of different things. It's only going to enhance all of the, the main sport that you do, in this case Salesforce, right? So just for whatever reason, I thought I'd share that. Now I do want to bring our friend and regular contributor, jason Psychowitz, up onto the stage for just a moment here, because, jason, welcome to the show. Maybe give a quick intro about who you are, just a short one, and then I think we'd all like to do some celebration with you. So what's going on in your world, man?
Jason Zeikowitz:Oh, thank you Josh. Yeah, here Jason Psychowitz, currently a technical trainer at Salesforce and social partner, and actually I was thinking about I was going to chime in when, jonathan, you were bringing up your advice and saying, gave me a hello as well, they are good to see you here again. My friend and I wanted to. It reminded me about how I met Jonathan. So I met Jonathan by attending Salesforce Saturdays when they were virtual. But that's another opportunity to be able to network and upwork being able to work Salesforce Saturdays to just a great space.
Jason Zeikowitz:Meeting in person, meeting virtually they both have their own unique flavor. Virtually you can be able to meet a lot more people, but in person the original you get more of the actual Salesforce Saturday path, which is just an open space to work on trail head, to work on projects, and that's a great way to get exposed to what other people are working on, to be able to share what you're working on. And now this goes into also the mentorship thing. It's being able to find a mentor, but also being able to step up to mentor and I'd say that, like, no matter where you are in your journey, even if you just like you got one badge, if you could find someone you can explain that to. It's going to boost your confidence. It's going to boost your comprehension. So it's a great way to learn is to teach, and so, just however started you are you just got a. You know, you just found Trailhead great. Tell someone about it.
Josh Matthews:I love it, buddy, I love it. Hey, I'm kind of curious, like you know with you. Jason. You've been because you've done some things and you've put together some information that help people understand the different trails and the different careers. Go ahead and share where they can find that document that you've put together. On the expand exchange, it sounds like you've been coached or something.
Jason Zeikowitz:Well, it's a great collection to be able to find out and so many more resources. And so I built a website from Experience Cloud, just like David here saying, you know, build a portfolio. So this is an Experience Cloud website that I built that it explains the Salesforce ecosystem and really just any career ecosystem, how to be able to find your way around it. It came out of my experience of explaining Salesforce careers to community, college and high school students, so like at that age, being able to explore a career for people transitioning from the military when you're thinking you know what profession should I do? So this website just it maps out how to map things out, how to explore understanding what is Salesforce, where is Salesforce and who's in Salesforce?
Jason Zeikowitz:Think of the nouns, no, your nouns. So the people, places and things, the people, all the different positions, and it's good to not just like focus on one but understand the ecosystem of positions, of the sales engineer, of the recruiter, of the BA, who's a bad ass. You know. Also all those different positions that you know create the culture together for Salesforce to get implemented. Then understand the places. So where is Salesforce done? That puts into context. Then, finally, I say understand Salesforce. Last you know, because now you're understanding the context, you're understanding the contacts, and so that's that Salesforce career navigator found on the expanded change.
Vanessa Grant:All right, thanks, buddy. Can I throw something in here? So at least with a lot of the transitioning folks in the military, I see a lot of them end up kind of leaning towards project management, which we really don't have any certifications in the Salesforce ecosystem specifically for them. But there are a lot of project managers that work on Salesforce projects. I don't think that I would work on a consulting engagement without one. At this point, I would love to hear from the folks on the panel what resources you recommend, since Salesforce is a little bit lacking in this regard as far as directing folks to project management careers.
Philip Anderson:Yeah, I think learning, agile learning, being a scrum master, that's gonna help you out a lot. The business analyst cert was a great one. It kind of goes over a little bit of that and anything you can do to you know. You know those certs, those technology certs where you're learning how to not that you're being a project manager or a product manager anything along those lines are gonna be. You know, that's what I would be looking to do, unless what I'd be looking for.
Dave Nava:Yeah, I would. I would agree with that and I would say leverage your previous experience, whether you were a project manager or not, to look for projects that you managed under some other guys. Right, no matter what you're doing, especially if you're coming from the military, you're managing projects or you're managing programs or both so you can create these work experience bullets on your resume, on your LinkedIn, that reflect that. You just have to use the proper language and portray it as such. And then you go out and you get a you know, a certified scrum master, maybe a Lean Six Sigma yellow belt to go with it, and very quickly you can show that you have the technical expertise, the work experience to be able to manage projects. And then I would say you know, obviously, go talk to some project managers, test drive that career field, see if it's a good fit for you, see if it makes sense, see if you wanna do it and if so, then you'll have built some folks within project management background into your network to be able to leverage to look for opportunities.
Josh Matthews:I love it. I love it. Look, guys, when it's tough out there, you just got to be tougher. Okay, there's no way around it. But you can't. You can't quit. Okay, Like even in the boon times, people who are brand new to the ecosystem, two years ago, which was like the fricking heyday of everything, this post COVID mad rush for talent, right is what happened.
Josh Matthews:Because of all the pent up demand from the hitting pause on COVID, things were already going great for the last five or 10 years, but once COVID had I mean man, things just came to a screeching halt. But they came. But then they did a quick. They did a quick start on it too, right, like everyone hit the gas all at once Not long after and started to realize like, okay, like most of us are going to survive this thing, so let's go.
Josh Matthews:But I think that what we're experiencing right now economically is simply going to be a slower region. It's going to be a slower return to what has felt like normal. It might not ever even return to that same state of what we've normalized from a hiring standpoint in the ecosystem. It might. You know, the one thing that's guaranteed is that whatever's happening today isn't, isn't going to be the experience down the road, right? No, no bear market lasts forever, and neither does any bull market. We've talked about this in past episodes. But the thing that you can control is just what you can control. So you can control the quality of your resume. You can control your daily activities, those behaviors and, if you're from the military, those behaviors of getting up early and knocking out the important things first, just like Dave shared going and reaching out to 15 people on LinkedIn every single day, I think some of it like how many people you can invite a week. Some of those rules have changed from when David started, but you want to maximize that as much as you can. If it means spending 30 bucks a month on LinkedIn so you can send out more in males or more invites, it's probably $360 a year worth spending, right? So consider making small investments like that.
Josh Matthews:Grow your network and then maintain that network. That's absolutely critical. And then be working. I can't say this enough, right? Whether you're pumping gas or a barista or like whatever it is that you're doing, and I always seem to go to those two jobs. I don't know why, but regardless, just be working, don't be unemployed. Go do something and there's no loss of dignity based on the job that you've got. Do you understand? My grow has proven this. On dirty jobs, do whatever it takes to put the food on the table and stay active and stay busy. And when you're a working individual, when you have a job, when you're applying your trade or any trade, that means that you're contributing Right, you're providing value for someone somewhere and that's something to be proud of.
Josh Matthews:Okay, so this is just a word of caution, which is don't give up, don't just sit around not working. You know, spending 20, 25 hours a week on resumes and networking and things like that Go work, go get, make some money. Like, do something, solve problems for somebody. I think it's so critical, and not only is it critical for that communication, those communications that you're going to have with the hiring managers, it's critical to your own self-esteem.
Josh Matthews:Now, I don't know about you, but I've had some real shitty jobs in my life. I don't know how many jobs I've had well over 30. Okay, and some of them were terrible, and I can tell you, the very worst one was I spent a week working for Stanley Steamer cleaning carpets and did a two hour drive out to the middle of nowhere in Oregon to vacuum out four or five dogs worth of urine out of a carpet in the double wide, and I literally wanted to jump out of the van on the way home. It was just so disgusting I couldn't believe. Like what have I? Where have I gone? What did I do to get here, you know? But it doesn't matter, like there's no shame in work, any kind of work. Just do the work and that will help maintain your confidence and it takes some of the burden off of your shoulders a little bit.
Josh Matthews:From a tempo standpoint, if there's one thing that I think people, there's some consistent failure for people who are trying to break into the ecosystem, where they fail, is this they simply give up. It's just like math students with math problems. Right, if you stick with the problem long enough, you'll probably figure it out. But if you get bored and distracted or frustrated, and then you've got a lot of quitting you, you're never going to solve the problem. Well, getting a new job or breaking into a new career, that's a problem and it's one to be solved, and it's not necessarily one to be solved quickly. As David said, you've got to start that hunt a couple years early. You've got to start laying some of that runway down so you can take off Right. So get that runway laid down early and then don't quit just because it's hard. Of course it's hard. If it wasn't hard everyone would do this shit, but not everybody does. There are barriers to entry.
Dave Nava:You know, and I think, to sum it up, you know, josh, really what you're saying is you can also control your level of motivation and how hungry you are, so be hungry.
Josh Matthews:Exactly. Thank you, dave, perfect, yeah, be hungry, don't settle, keep going, you can do it.
Vanessa Grant:So this might be a good segue into. I did get a question from our audience for our guests today, so I have somebody that wrote that with the Hiring Our Heroes program which is fantastic they changed the eligibility to only transitioning veterans and spouses, so veterans who have served for years prior cannot use the program. So a question that would be great for other fellow veterans is what are some of the other resources you can use to get experience if you're not utilizing this program?
Dave Nava:I'll offer one resource, and so you know Salesforce. I'll offer a couple of. Salesforce routinely has many different internship programs, so they're always expanding and I know Trailhead leadership is working on developing more through the coach program. But keep your eye on the Trailhead website. You know the Pathfinder program is one of those resources that opens up periodically in those major metropolitan areas like San Francisco and the Annapolis and others that offer, you know, partnerships with industry partners to serve in a capacity as a consultant. So that's one one asset.
Dave Nava:Another one, and a big one, not so much from the work experience but for building your network. And you know I don't think we've talked about it yet as a veteran, which is, if you're not aware, it's a free online platform to pair mentors with mentees. Anybody can be a mentor, you don't have to be a military and the mentees are all, of course, a military community members. So I would say, get on there, and they've partnered with Salesforce military to provide Salesforce professionals to that program. So get on there and start connecting with folks and you can schedule one on one, 30 minute focused conversations with Salesforce professionals to dive into whatever aspects of the ecosystem that you're interested in. And have you know, have those conversations early and often. I did it for about a year and a half and had 70 mentees and helped one of you to find roles, so that's another great resource.
Vanessa Grant:So you did mention Salesforce military and actually just for me curious because I'm trying to kind of decipher the different resources that are out there what is the difference between Salesforce military and vet force?
Dave Nava:Yeah, so that force is what the program was called way back when they were providing certification and course vouchers, and they went through a rebranding a couple of years ago. So now that force is Salesforce is internal ERG or employee resource group. It's available for employees and it's employee led and focused. Where you have the resources for all trailblazers is through Salesforce military. Salesforce military is a special department of Salesforce focused with a focus staff that focuses on providing educational opportunities and work experience resources for veteran spouses and transitioning service members. They run the trailhead military program, which is where you go and you create a profile, you pick a path and you earn cert course vouchers and cert vouchers.
Dave Nava:And I'll just say one more thing and I forgot another great, another great opportunity to get work experience through the Salesforce hiring alliance. The hiring alliance is a special resource available on the Salesforce military website through the trailhead military program, where they have partnered with over 500 different employers to provide guaranteed first round interviews for anyone that completes their first certification, such as admin or developer. And so you get your first cert by taking one of the paths. As soon as you get that cert, you then have a foot in the door at anyone or all of these 500 companies to apply for that first time interview. Obviously, there's no obligation to hire, but you do get your foot in the door and it's a tremendous opportunity to meet different employers. And again, if you're hungry, if you're motivated, if you're diversifying your skill sets, you're going to do fairly well there.
Philip Anderson:Yeah, and I know a program that Deloitte has is the military spouse initiative or MSI for military spouses. That is a good resource to use. You know, Google it, look it up and I know that they are going to start having an. I believe they're going to start having an in person like internship, so that's. That's another resource anyone could use.
Josh Matthews:Thank you, gentlemen, for being here on this show today. We're going to wrap it up here. I do want to do a big thank you, not just to the two of you, because you've both been extremely enlightening for our audience and for me personally, but I want to thank every veteran out there. Every active duty I did my father my father was non-military, but he spent years in Kabul and Kandahar in Iraq as well, and was protected from tripping bombs, walking into bombs, and I think that's happened more than once. So you know, you've kept my dad alive and you've kept the free world going. So thank you each of you for your contributions and, ultimately, for your sacrifice and for the unique and special emotions that you have had to go through for serving in the military, particularly in the field. It is a sacrifice and it's one that's appreciated. So thank you to Phil Anderson and to Dave Nava. Where can we go to either connect with you on LinkedIn or to find out more information about some of the resources and insights that you share?
Philip Anderson:Oh Phil go first, yeah, yeah, go on LinkedIn and under this podcast post. You know, connect with me. I have no problem connecting with anyone. If anyone has any questions about resume writing and having that Rosetta stone for military to civilian, you know reach out to me. I'll help you out. If you guys need to, you know, help with your personal brand, Same thing Just direct message me. I'm open and kind of on a different note, if there's any veterans out there that are going through some like some tough times and they just need someone to talk to, please DM me. I will give you my personal number. You know, speaking from a personal experience, be having a year to talk to save my life. So I just want to extend that offer to any veteran. Any, if you know a veteran that's having that, just have them reach out to me and I would love to talk to them.
Dave Nava:That's awesome, phil. Thank you. I appreciate that you can look for me on LinkedIn. I'm fairly fairly prevalent on there, david Scott. Now I just do a search. I'm happy to connect with you. Send me a quick message. You're always, always, always welcome to join office hours first and third Wednesday the month. In order to register, just do a LinkedIn search for military trailblazer office hours. We've got our LinkedIn company page and you can click the register button to sign up for any one of the four different sessions, or all of them, depending on what you're looking for. Again, happy to have chats with you, dme, on LinkedIn, if you have questions, and we can continue the conversation.
Josh Matthews:Thank you, dave. Thank you, phil. By the way, we did just release this morning our latest podcast, which was part two of our session with Mark Baker. Mark Baker is a delivery lead for MuleSoft and Salesforce and it's a great session. Vanessa highlights some of her experiences doing a Euro tour of conferences and talks about some of her personal interactions and experiences overcoming stage fright and a few other things we also have Fred Kedena joins in. Fred had a relationship with Mark over at Silverline back in the day in the FinServe business. He pipes up. Jason pipes up as well.
Josh Matthews:Thank you everybody for subscribing, for listening and for participating in the show. I think it's been awesome. I love this episode. It's been a really, really, really enjoyable one and has done, I think, hopefully, a massive amount of good for anybody who's listening to this, giving them great tips, some good perspectives, an idea of what they can expect to transition into the ecosystem and some really just vision about what they can predict so that they can overcome some of the obstacles that they're likely to face, whether it's moving into Salesforce, moving into tech or just any civilian role. Thank you everybody. Vanessa, any closing words?
Vanessa Grant:No, just thank you everybody. This has been a really great session.
Josh Matthews:Okay, guys, we'll be back in two weeks with another live show. We can expect this episode that we've been engaging in to be released probably the day before that. So about two weeks till this episode is released, and the episode that we recorded right before this one should be released no later than next Wednesday. You can find it at the Salesforce career show. What is it? Ford slash, buzzsproutcom, I don't even know. Go onto your favorite platform and type in Salesforce career show and we will come up, follow us and indulge. Okay, guys, happy fifth of July, happy Independence Day for everybody from yesterday. Thanks again to Dave, phil and Jonathan for piping up here today. It's been a real treat. I wish you guys all the best success in the coming weeks. Bye for now.