How one Pathstream student pivoted her career from customer service to pursue her passion for Salesforce

Lauren first discovered Salesforce after working in customer service roles for many years. She had started her career working with customers at Walmart and Chick-Fil-A and eventually found herself in support roles in the banking and mortgage industries. In those positions, she tapped into her strong people skills and vibrant personality to support sales team operations, which is where she was first exposed to Salesforce, the world’s leading customer relationship management platform (CRM).

When she enrolled in Pathstream’s Salesforce program, she wanted to gain skills to support her organization’s sales team. She didn’t realize Salesforce would have such a big impact on her career trajectory. But the deeper she explored Salesforce, the more she discovered it could do and the more she began envisioning herself in a tech role. Her love for Salesforce came suddenly and out of nowhere.

I was learning all the cool things that Salesforce could do, and all the things that could be added onto it. It was like oh my gosh, this thing is amazing! What can Salesforce not do? Can Salesforce clean my house? Can it do my taxes? Salesforce was just almost an infinite platform for learning.

With this newfound excitement, Lauren dug in as deep as she could. As she moved through the Pathstream Salesforce program, she also explored Trailhead and the Trailblazer community and started taking on Salesforce administration projects at her job at the time. She also started networking with more Salesforce administrators. She met several people looking for her specific skillset: a marriage of customer service know-how and technical Salesforce administration skills.

I had that human element of having worked with people before and also had that customer service background which was awesome, because that’s not always part of the package with tech jobs.

After completing Pathstream’s Salesforce program, Lauren realized she wanted to go deeper with Salesforce in her next role than what her job and company could offer. So, she focused on using Pathstream’s Career Services to pivot from more customer-facing work to establishing a dedicated career path in Salesforce administration. She worked with a career coach at Pathstream to set career search goals, revamp her resume, craft a job search timeline, and get connected to various recruiters. She even built her own spreadsheet CRM using her new Salesforce skills to track job leads and opportunities.

Within months, Lauren found a role at a larger organization with much more complex and exciting Salesforce instances where she could continue to learn and grow her Salesforce knowledge. Previously, she worked with a much smaller organization, supporting only 7 to 10 people simultaneously with just one simple Salesforce instance. Now, in her new role as a senior administrative project coordinator, she uses her dual skill set in customer service and Salesforce to support her new company’s strategic initiatives.

Her reflections on transitioning from customer support into a more Salesforce and tech-centered role:

I was always afraid of tech stuff. I was like, that’s not for me. That’s not anything that I would be good at. But, low and behold, yeah, if you operate a phone or a computer, you can do tech stuff! I love that there are more people that are coming from customer service backgrounds and from more people-facing backgrounds into the tech world.

Lauren eventually hopes to take her career to the next level through Salesforce consulting by tapping into the Trailblazer network, continuing to grow her skills, and working on as many Salesforce-focused projects as possible.

Learn more about Pathstream’s Salesforce Administrator Career Certificate.