As I progress in my Salesforce career, I have found a lot of use for my Six Sigma training (see my LinkedIn article). Throughout the years I have been part of various training programs but have not had a chance to get either a green or black belt. I have been exploring contract jobs and have gotten a 3-month gig starting in November.
As part of this exploration, I learned that I needed to start an LLC (KGForce, LLC) in order to get paid. I am in the process of creating a website (no content yet), though I will still blog here and link to the website. I am generating content for the website and I have decided to highlight my six sigma approach to setting up Salesforce organizations. Discussing this approach raises the issue of belts and certifications.
From a training and certification perspective, I expect that Salesforce certifications will be more influential in getting contracts than a Six Sigma belt. In reading about the belt process, there are a lot of certification programs. The best ones all have projects associated with them. This suggests that experience is more valuable than education.
I have found in the interview process, that this is also true. I got the most interest in my resume once I became certified. However, beyond certification, recruiters and hiring managers wanted to know about my experience. So I will work on both Salesforce projects and certifications. The six sigma belts will have to wait. I have created a training roadmap based on what I think is a mix of logical progression and quality of training materials available.
I have tried to stay with the declarative aspects of Salesforce. I get the sense that they are driving users towards this via increasing functionality with the declarative features. I think marketing automation will be a good area to focus on and the training plan reflects that. Eventually, I’ll get a belt or too, but for right now I’ll have to let my experience to the talking.
