A growing business uses a lot of software tools. Before long, you’ll need someone to manage the upkeep and security of your ecosystem. But how do you know what to look for in a new systems admin, especially for mission critical platforms like Salesforce, when you’ve never done the work yourself?

To make a successful hire, you need to be aware of two things. One is exactly what skills and experience your company needs now to meet your business goals. The other is awareness of the current trends in hiring that shape the labor market and the expectations of job candidates.

What to look for in a Salesforce admin 

Hiring starts with reviewing resumes. But what happens if you aren’t familiar with the specific skills that are needed for a systems admin role? You’ll struggle to know which candidates to shortlist when interviewing.

That’s because resumes don’t really provide context to someone’s expertise or accomplishments. For example, a candidate who’s currently at a small company might be working on complex Salesforce implementations, while a candidate working for a large company may only focus on maintaining systems.

Without understanding this nuance, there’s a high chance you’ll waste your time with candidates that aren’t the right fit. Differentiating between experience and competencies is a skill on its own.

 You may end up with a disconnect between what your business needs and the technical know-how of your admin. Onboarding a new hire can take months, especially for a salesforce admin, leaving important projects delayed or never completed. After months of trying to make things work, you can still see turnover in the role.  

You may even have done all the homework required in assessing the candidate’s fit but still lose the best fit for the job because you failed to meet the applicant’s expectations or did not establish enough communication to get the person on board. That’s why you need to be aware of current hiring trends.

 Top 5 hiring trends for 2023

1.  Matching people to jobs has grown more challenging

Why is this happening? Workers are far more specific about what they’re looking for in their careers and will leave their job to find the best role for their professional and personal needs. They also have much higher expectations for how their employers should behave.

 Here are few of the newest table stakes for candidates:

• Role descriptions must be built out with a career path and training opportunities.
• Flexible work and remote work are non-negotiable.
• Employers must be wage competitive.
• Better benefits are expected for things like childcare, mental wellness, and even higher education stipends.
• Micromanaging isn’t acceptable anymore. Show candidates that you trust your employees to do their jobs.

 2.  Email alone doesn’t cut it

Does your company still rely on templated emails to stay in contact with candidates? That’s not going to cut it in moving forward. Stop sending standardized emails, especially rejection emails, to candidates who made it through the early stages of interviewing.

Give them some idea of why you’re passing on them. Maybe they don’t have the right skill set or industry experience for the role. Perhaps you have other high quality candidates that you’re about to give an offer to. These applicants may be a great fit for a future role, so don’t treat them like they’re expendable. 

Successful recruiters are increasing the number of touch points between themselves, the hiring manager, and the candidates to ensure they don’t lose out on top talent. If your recruiters or managers are taking too long to update candidates on next steps, people will move on to other opportunities.

Companies focus a lot on customer experience and employee experience but forget that the candidate experience is also important. It’s a potential hire’s first impression of your organization. If you don’t respond to emails or voicemails, wait a month before giving any updates, or simply ghost candidates, you’re showing them exactly what it’s like to be an employee at your company.

3.  You need more digital tools

 Companies that use recruiting software tools perform better. These technologies speed up the hiring process and eliminate the burden of manual data entry for both candidates and recruiters. In fact, 57% of talent leaders report that using job matching technologies helps them hire the right fit for the role. By combining automation, AI, chatbots, and assessments with face to face interactions, you can reduce employee turnover by making sure the candidate is the right fit from the start.

4.  Contract work will continue to rise

On average, 13.6 million temp and contract workers were hired during the pandemic, making up a big part of the workforce. Instead of relying on one employer, workers are putting their eggs into different baskets and diversifying their work, clients, and skills. This gives them more flexibility in how they work.

 The main advantages of contract work include having more variety in types of work, opportunities for continuous learning, true ownership of work output, the chance to be part of multiple teams, and the ability to scale one’s workload up or down when needed.

 Contract work offers some measure of stability and income security – even at a time of economic downturn and mass layoffs – because these employees aren’t depending on one company for their livelihood. This is especially true for specialized contract workers like Salesforce admins.

5.  More businesses will turn to fractional talent 

Hiring talent on a fractional basis allows businesses to gain the insight admins equipped with a wealth of experience across systems and companies without having to extend their budget to a full-time hire. When the economy is uncertain, outsourcing your Salesforce administration can even help create more stability for your company.

These fractional admins come to  the table with a collaborative ownership model; admins and clients work together to create action plans, schedules, and workflows that work for both parties. Admins take on projects that they care about and bring real expert experience to the table. Compare this to traditional in-house hires who have to follow rigid internal processes, often working on projects that they aren’t equipped for in the first place.

 What happens when you don’t have any Salesforce projects on the docket? With in-house admins, you probably have to let them go, only to rehire someone new in the future. Outsourced workers, on the other hand, can move on to other clients while leaving the door open to work together again in the future.

 Fractional  hiring also helps manage the challenges that arise from a rapidly shifting labor market. The candidates’ market, which has held over the past few years in the tech sector, may be history as primary centers of tech jobs announce mass layoffs.

As we navigate through an economy fraught with uncertainty, the right hires make all the difference. Learn more about fractional hiring, Salesforce, and creating a new model for work by subscribing to the Delegate blog.

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/technology-chiefs-seek-help-wrangling-cloud-costs-61ba0b50?mod=djemCIO