In December 2022, I participated in the Salesforce IBSP, jointly curated by the SUSS Student SUcceSS Centre and Salesforce’s Trailhead Academy. Over 10 days, I went through online training conducted by a Salesforce trainer. The training was very hands-on as the trainer explained how to administer the Salesforce platform and had us follow along and try out the steps in Trailhead (Salesforce’s online learning site).

As part of the program, I got to listen to Salesforce employees sharing their stories about their careers, how they came to be employed at Salesforce, and their Salesforce working life. A highlight of the program was being invited to visit the Singapore Salesforce office at Suntec City on the final day.

On my own time, I earned additional badges on Trailhead on top of what was required for the program. This gave me more practice and helped me develop familiarity with the Salesforce platform. I also enhanced my knowledge and skills in areas other than general administration, like data security, reporting, and CRM. I believe this helped me to pass my certification examination, becoming a Salesforce Certified Administrator.

The biggest challenge throughout this was completing the Superbadges - complex challenges with many steps. I was expected to apply knowledge and skills of the Salesforce platform to solve mock business issues (like configuring user interfaces, managing users’ permissions, and designating dashboard access). I did not get a lot of the intermediate steps correct the first time. Sometimes, it felt like I had followed and delivered what was asked but I was still incorrect. It took plenty of persistence, changing my thinking and approach, and repeatedly referring to help articles to finally reach the right results.