Remaining Indispensable in an AI Enhanced World - AMA On Stage at Florida Dreamin'

It's Florida Dreamin' and we're here in Clearwater , florida , and you know what ? It almost didn't happen . It almost didn't happen because of Hurricane Helene , and the city and the state and the county have done an incredible job . Don't you think of getting this open , clearing the streets of the sand and a lot of folks .

Just a little shout out to all the people who were impacted by this hurricane Absolutely devastating , absolutely devastating .

We're so fortunate because this whole Dreamin' event almost got canceled and , in fact , the mayor came in two nights ago and shared with what I think it was with Mike , who is one of the key organizers of the event , and told him you know , this is the only hotel on the island that didn't get water inside of the event , and told them you know , this is the

only hotel on the island that didn't get water inside of the building . So you know , we're all nice and dry , and that's thanks to a lot of the city officials , and then they're really good management of the hotel . Now , before we get going , I want to thank our sponsors . These Dreamin' events .

They're not free and they're not cheap , and we have some amazing sponsors , including Sumo , scheduler , cloud Files , airslate , campfire . We've got Match , my Email , peaklogic , blackthornio , and from the silver sponsors , I'm definitely going to mention my friend's company , breadwinner , that's Stoney's company . Breadwinner won the demo jam yesterday .

Who here saw that they did a pretty good job . I thought so thank you to all of our amazing sponsors . Now let's get down to figuring out what's going on with people's careers . Who's got a question ?

So shout out to to josh for finding a great talent . Either you placing someone at a company or finding someone for a company . What's been your most soul rewarding placement of your career ?

And I think the biggest the times I'm not going to pick one , john , I wish I could , but my brain doesn't work that well at 9.30 in the morning , for some reason , I have to wait till like 9.30 at night , but basically it's when the client thinks they know what they need , but they don't and they say no , but I do , or someone on my team does , and

through a series of discovery questions , because we really act like business analysts what's going on , what's getting impacted , what's this ? I know you want this person with this title , but what's the problem you're actually trying to solve ? And I know you know what that's all about because you're an SI , so you have to go into your clients and it's no different .

It's no different for us . So when I go in and I talk to a client and I'm able to help them understand what they really need , and then I present a candidate and they say no to that candidate . And then I stick my neck out for that candidate and say you're wrong . I'm sorry , mr Customer . Mrs Customer , you're just flat out wrong .

And it happened this summer . It happened in fact in August

. Longtime client of mine I'm not going to mention names , but a wonderful guy . He'd hired several people from me at a billion-dollar organization where he was vice president of all technology and business systems . And then he moved . He went to a different company .

He needed to hire another architect and , for whatever reason , the organization and the way the talent acquisition team worked they talked to the manager and the manager said I don't want this , I don't want that and I don't want this other thing . So if you see that , just like skip it , okay . So then we found a candidate .

He's amazing , he's incredible , he's dynamic , he's an interesting guy , like really interesting guy . And we put them through . We didn't hear anything . I asked they said yeah , no , we're passing on him because he was a consultant and he's been for the most part of consultant . We want someone who worked at a company for years .

Well , that was the wrong thing to say to me , because I know for a fact this guy's absolutely amazing . So I stick my neck out . I say listen , not only are you wrong , okay , but you're dead wrong . I'm gonna tell you why . So don't feel bad , it's okay if you don't get it right . I do this all day long and you don't . So let me tell you exactly why .

This person's absolutely incredible and I texted the hiring manager and I just said look , whatever you do , like 30 minutes phone call doesn't even have to be a video , but you've got to talk to this guy , and if you don't talk to him , then I don't know . I'll know that you don't trust me , and if you don't trust me , it's not a real partnership .

But we've had a partnership for years . So let's keep this going . Talk to him , okay . Anyway , he started like last week and they love him and he's amazing . So those are the kinds of stories when I get to feel like I'm not just slinging resumes , right , oh , you need this . Yeah , I got one . Boom , boom , boom , boom , boom , right .

It's really deeply understanding what the needs of the candidate is and what the needs of the client is . So great question , john , thank you and thanks for being a great friend and an awesome customer too . You rock all right . Who's got another question ?

That's all the basics . Now you've got to make them incredibly awesome , Incredibly awesome , right ? I always think about that story of it's like you don't have to outrun the bear , you just have to outrun the person next to you , right ? And then the bear will get them . It's that idea , right ? You don't have to be the most perfect person . Like .

You can be a great football player and play in the NFL . It doesn't mean you have to be Tom Brady , Like . You don't have to . And guess what ? No one gets to be Tom Brady , but Tom Brady , right . So you don't have to be absolutely like the most amazing thing .

You just have to be able to be better than the other candidates , or at least communicate your value more effectively than the other candidates . Now , you're not going to get an at-bat , right . You're not going to get a phone call .

You're not going to get an interview and you're definitely not going to get a job offer if you don't initially stand out with what I call just your materials , your LinkedIn profile , your assets right Now . There are a lot of videos on my website about that . You can go to Josh Force on YouTube and watch some videos on that .

I am not the ultimate expert there are people who put together way better articles than I do but I still think I've got some good stuff up there right . So I would start with that , okay . Next thing don't be a job hopper . Don't be a kangaroo . If you are job . Look , if you're jumping from job to job to job and you're in your 20s , that's cool .

We expect that . If you're in your 30s and you haven't had a job for a single job for more than two years , now it starts to become a little bit of an issue . If you want to stand out , be a job hopper , but you won't get the job . You want to stand out for the right reasons . You want to demonstrate loyalty .

Three years here , four years there that looks really good . It's healthy . It's a healthy time at a job . You can be somewhere for 20 years too . That's great . But later in your career , that can pose some challenges too , because all you know is that company , All you know is Deloitte .

In your career , that can pose some challenges too , because all you know is that company , All you know is Deloitte , or all you know is Staples or whatever . Okay , so you do that . The next thing that you want to do is be able to articulate your value really , really , really , really well , and so that means understanding .

Well , what is the hiring manager looking for ? Right , you know , read the job description . Take it with a grain of salt . Look at their posts . Look on LinkedIn . Call your friends over at the company , right , I mean pay . Did you ever do that ? Before you joined higher echelon , Did you call anybody that you knew ?

Okay , she's saying yes , yeah , so you do a little bit of investigation .

The other thing that you can do is just honestly protect yourself from joining the wrong companies , because sometimes people are kangaroos or job hoppers because the companies didn't work out right , Whatever , they just didn't research them enough , and so they didn't see the red flags and they said yes when they shouldn't .

They got wowed with an offer , they got wowed with a sign-on bonus . They didn't do their research . There is an article on Salesforce Ben called the career checklist , and I highly recommend you go check that out because it will teach you exactly how to research any company that you're interested in and that you are interviewing for .

There's also questions that you can use to de-risk your career when you're out there on the job hunt , such as hey , if I were to let's say you hired me , Yvette let's say you hired me and I started on Monday what am I going to find out in three months from now ?

What will I have wished I knew today that for certain , I'm going to find out three months on the job , right , Like I'm going to , I'm going to know . Just tell me now , what is that ? Right ? Oh , I'm actually leaving . My boss doesn't know I'm quitting , so I won't be your manager . They might say that and they do .

Oh , weird , I can't tell you this , but you deserve to know . We're actually getting bought by Aptis . It's like oh , do I want to work for Aptis ? I thought I was going to work for Conga , what's this ? So you want to be able to ask really good questions .

Asking great questions , by the way , in your conversations with recruiters , in your conversations with hiring managers , is very powerful .

Very powerful , right , Because it's probably the number one thing that ability to ask good questions to get the insights that you need to do a successful job , either for your company that you're working for or , Larry , for the clients that you're supporting directly .

Right , that's going to be the skill , because people are asking me all the time like how do I AI proof myself ? You do this . You get good at being a BA , right , you be as human as possible , you do the things that a computer can't do , and that means knowing when to ask certain questions at the right time , so you'll stand out .

For all of these reasons and much more . I mean there's a lot of different ways to stand out . All of these reasons and much more . I mean there's a lot of different ways to stand out .

Some ways that you don't want to stand out , though , are like by having a really bad background on your Zoom meeting when you're interviewing , right Wriggling in your chair and clicking your pen right , Having your face , you know , just like from your nose up on the video , things like that . Having dogs yapping during an interview .

Those are all ways that you can stand out , but I promise you you don't want to stand out , for those Make sense , Okay .

I've been using also propensity , but before I knew that one , I reworked my storytelling because I jumped from Venezuela , then to Italy , then to France and I needed kind of to not to justify , but at least tell the values that I've got while moving into each country and from different job experiences , and it helped me a lot .

So now we have these amazing tools , if you want to stand out , you can use them and it'll help a lot Like after I did that and also working on your confidence , because you need to be sure of your values and you need to express it and let them know that , even if you don't know something at the moment , you know where to find it .

You know that you have the community and they'll always support you . That's why I fell in love with this Ohana . It's really incredible . They're always going to help you and even if you're already in the job , you have questions and they'll answer , and that's incredible . That's really nice . So , yeah , stand out , use the AI tools now . It's really nice .

But my question is with Clicked or any other training environment , how do you spin that during an interview and make it ? Do you count that as experience ? Or how do you come off to the hiring manager that you're using your downtime to progress further ?

I actually got to meet the founder at Dreamforce and share a drink with him and Vanessa , so that program is coming down . Okay , great question . It's not experience , it's training , okay , and so training counts . Certifications are what ? Certifications are just proof that you know the answers .

My first job and whoa , this is not quite the same environment that I learned in , right , but I think it demonstrates .

I mean , you just tell them , you say , hey , just so you know , I'm so passionate about this ecosystem , I'm so passionate about the technology that I take my time , all of my downtime , or the vast majority of my downtime , is focused on upskilling myself so that I can bring more value to you .

Right , and , by the way , I'm a lifelong learner , so this is the kind of thing that I'll do when I'm working , not just when I'm looking for a job hunt . Right , I do this because I care about it . I do this because I'm passionate about it , and I do this because when the proverbial , you know what hits the fan .

I want to know how to help you navigate out of that and make your system function like , be used and generate most likely sales or high levels of customer service to your , to your clients , right , and to your customers . So you can just say it like that . Does that make sense ?

Yeah , and , by the way , you can just go to the podcast and grab the translation . It's on the website , right , it's on our Buzzsprout website . But you can also go to SalesforceCareershowcom and you can find some of this as well , and then you just take that stuff and drop it right in . Okay , talia , it's nice to see you again .

Welcome back to Florida , dreamin' .

. I used to be the Salesforce program lead at Clicked and of course , this was a common question , so it also comes up with Talent Stacker's experience project . So one of the things that has been recommended is that you screen record yourself walking yourself through whatever you've built within a clicked experience or any kind of training environment .

You might have some kind of output at the end at in clicked experiences , many of them .

They give a presentation at the end and you might want to separately record yourself in a very nice way mistakes right and share that wherever you can , whether it's a link to it within a page somewhere that you've shared or just even hey , I , by the way , I also have this up on YouTube . If you'd like to take a look at it , maybe just make it short .

And on LinkedIn , et cetera , maybe just make it short and on LinkedIn , et cetera . You can . You can put it in your highlighted posts . You know , make sure that people see it and you people don't forget that you actually have had your hands on these tools . Okay , Excellent .

The learning , because we all know right , salesforce , three releases a year , cloud , new , new cloud , new industries , ai , data , cloud , agent force , you know buzzword du jour kind of a thing . So that being able , knowing the foundation is important . And then it's what ? Can you ?

Are you a learner and can you learn it , because the landscape is always changing and can you adapt right ? Can you be agile ? Can you fail fast and move forward after that ? Or you know you may have a project here , or you have a customer that wants you to learn a cloud because you're in there and you have their trust . So that's important .

So just to add to that point yeah , I appreciate that , john .

So the first one that we got was what do you feel are the most in-demand skills in clouds at this time ? What do you think the most in-demand skills will be in four to five years from now ? Now , I'm not sure if someone in this audience wrote that , but that's a fair question . Okay , a very fair question .

So , starting with , you know the first one , which is what do you feel are the most in-demand skills and clouds at this time ? Omni studio , data cloud , right , getting comfortable with agent force . You have to be at a company of a certain size to have access to some of these .

Jim's gym , with three locations , is probably not going to have a data cloud set up and therefore they're not going to have Atlas and agent force and this kind of thing . It kind of depends on where you are . As far as the most in-demand skills , I think it's your ability to communicate . I kind of highlighted that a little bit earlier .

There are so many admins right now . First time or never have been an admin admins in the world , in the United States and really across the world , because the massive push and lift that we had with Trailhead really going from , I mean , the demand was huge .

It spiked over 300% in 2021 , I think it was 300% demand for new employees , right , but that's because of the COVID backlog . That's all that was . That's all it was right . So now , most in-demand skills , you know . As far as certifications , I try not to answer this because I just say like , hey , look like , do what you love . You know what you know .

If , if you're not into CPQ , for God's sake , that's some complex stuff Don't do CPQ . Don't do anything . That's going to make you miserable . If you like doing mass communications , if you are interested and fascinated by the way marketing works , then get involved on the marketing side .

If you like the way the automations operate in a CP2 setup , you know , in those kinds of organizations like a Home Depot or something like that then go for it . If you are interested in health care , right , it doesn't matter what you pick .

You don't necessarily need to use health cloud , right , to work at a healthcare organization that's also selling stuff , and then you're using sales cloud there as well , right , it's not all like electronic medical records . So pick the lane that is your fit , do the thing that you're comfortable with . And then there's another question in here about the five years .

What about in five years ? I promise you it's not going to be . I can't answer that . I don't even know . Do you guys remember five years ago , there were 250,000 people at Dreamforce . They had to pull in a cruise ship to fit everybody in . It was nuts . It was nuts . No one had ever even heard of chat GPT it didn't exist . Data cloud it didn't exist .

Agent force it didn't exist . Okay , we didn't know COVID was coming . So planning for five years , I mean you can . The number one thing that you can work on is yourself . Right , nevermind the certs for a minute . Folks , it's nice , it's not the most important thing .

If you are going to go out and get certs , because that's important to you and it's something you're passionate about , I'd be looking at getting your scrum master and I'd be looking at getting your BA cert right and I would start practicing . I would really work on your communication skills .

I would also and this might sound a little bit strange I would work on your own mental health and how you interact with people , because some of the folks listening to this show you know on the podcast and you could have up to 500 people in 79 countries listening to this episode .

Ok , and I know for a fact , some of those folks will have all the technical abilities , they'll be smart , they'll be proactive , but , god forbid , someone looks at them the wrong way , right , or their boss doesn't communicate exactly how they want their boss to communicate . They may have really thin skin .

They got to get to the bottom of that and thicken it up because in business , particularly with the direction that we're going here with AI , your ability to interact , take feedback , navigate complex personalities . Look , I'm a business leader . My MBTI profile is an ENTJ .

It's just sort of like classic leader kind of profile , and I have not been always the easiest guy to work for . I would not have wanted to work for myself . When I was a manager in my 30s , I just wasn't actually that good at it . I pissed people off . I still piss people off , but I help them so much they forget , so it doesn't matter , right ?

But you've got to work on yourself and figure out , kind of like , what are your triggers and what are the things that are making you job hop , what are the things that are keeping you or preventing you from being direct in your communications when you have to be direct ? Todd , I understand that you absolutely want that feature . I get it .

It sounds like it would make a lot of sense and like it would make your life and the life of your team a lot easier , right , okay , but the challenge with that is we're going to have to code it , because that's complex , and if we code it , we're going to have to maintain it .

And if we maintain it , we're going to have to spend more money maintaining it , and that's going to slow down every other iteration of this product . Right , because now we have to three times a year .

Every time we do a new set , feature set or something , we might have to go in and tweak everything so that your special codes , so that you and your three friends on your team , make it easy for you .

You know , once a day it might take you 10 extra seconds , but it's going to save many , many hours of headaches and problems for the product owner and for the team that's managing the instance . Do you see what I mean ?

But you have to be able to confront people in a diplomatic way and kind of lead them to the light , be consultative , understand what the business problem is

. I was just over at Andy's session and they were talking about will AI replace admins ? Anyone know what the answer is on that ? I got a no . Do I have Raise of hands ? How many people here think AI is going to replace Salesforce admins ? I do , absolutely , of course . Of course it's gonna go away at some point .

That doesn't mean you're gonna go away , right . It doesn't mean that your job won't change , that your capabilities won't change and morph , right ? Admins do a lot of things that are repetitive , don't they ? Not all of them , but some of them do a lot . You just add a new user clear ticket , right .

So a lot of admins do a lot of these kinds of things and that's going to get automated . And if the company is not going to do it now , they're going to do it within four or five years . So that means that you have to stand apart and someone asked I think it was you , larry like how do you stand out from all of this ?

Well , you've got to be able to do all the things that AI can't do Like , smile , like , ask great questions , be diplomatic and then , probably most importantly , deeply , deeply , deeply understand the business , because businesses don't like AI to know everything about their business , because if AI does , then anyone can go out and replicate their business that they built

from scratch . Someone could come in , swoop in , right , create some software that has lie detection in it and be able to interpret responses , and I can record my voice and it could still be me , right , and it would be using the Turing test and all this stuff . It would be pretty accurate , right , I'm a lie detector , but I can do that .

Now my job may go away , except that it won't , because I can , you know , effectively understand an organization's business challenges and then lead them to a really good solution . Now , I might use AI to help fulfill some of that , but it's still got to be personal . So you're prepped for the next five years , for the next year , the next two years .

One embrace the AI . It's not going away , it's only going to grow , and it's going to grow exponentially . Right , who here remembers 2008 ? It doesn't seem like it was that long ago . Right ? That's when , like Facebook and Google , like , went crazy . That's when we had the global financial crisis . That's when we got the feedback loop going on .

You know the division and ideology here in America , because every time you click or search for something , it's just telling you what it thinks you want to see . Because it time you click or search for something , it's just telling you what it thinks you want to see because it wants you to click on it .

This is why I like perplexity instead of Google more authentic responses . Does that make sense ? Who would have known that in 2007 ? None of us . So we really don't know what's coming . But we know something's coming because it's already here . We just don't know how big it is right .

So that's where we've got to prepare , and I think that we had one other question here . Let me take a peek , okay . What are some outside-of-the-box ways to find your ideal sales force opportunity ? I think that's a great question . First of all , what are some of the in-the-box ways to find , to find your next opportunity ?

So these are all really good answers and , by the way , those are your best answers . Those that's you know we're operating inside of the box really makes the most sense . But they used a word in there . They said your ideal job , your ideal job . Well , if you want an ideal job , you better put your research hat on Right . That's not going to happen overnight .

You can just go ahead and like spray your resume all over the place and then whoever picks you , you know , for an interview , and then you run your search . Then you're doing all of your deep dive on them .

Or you can be super , super , duper proactive about it , which I strongly recommend , and I would go out and invest 140 bucks for a month of sales navigator . Do deep research on the kinds of companies that you want , the size of the companies , the industries that they're in .

You'll be able to identify who are the decision makers that you need to connect with right , that you want to make friends with and network that way . Coming here is great . How many hiring managers has anyone here met since you've been here ? One , talia . One recruiter , okay . Anyone else , okay .

So Salesforce events sometimes are just a little bit self-congratulatory pats on the backs from a networking standpoint . You're going to meet other Salesforce admins . How many Salesforce admins are going to help you get a job ? Well , none , if they're looking to right . So you've got to pick the right events . You've got to pick the right user groups .

You've got to pick the right place to network . I have so many connections in India , right , like you know , I'm not placing anyone in India . They're not hiring people for me . Yeah , it's not working . I guess we're connected , but is it a useful connection ?

You know it might be if they like some of my posts and it might be if I like some of their posts . And that's where it ends . There's no exchange of money , there's no loyalty , there's no demonstration of like career opportunity happening with within these connections . No demonstration of like career opportunity happening within these connections .

So this is one of those things like we can feel like really busy . I'm networking , I talk to everybody . I printed these cool cards and I gave them out to everybody . And look at my followers and you know Larry liked my post . That's cool , I'm growing , I'm getting out there , all right , but who's looking at it ?

I mean , we see this a lot with the talent stacker community . Talent stackers are like oh , I got like a thousand connections now . It's like that's great , but you're connected to other people who are job hunting . Right , they're not going to help your career necessarily . That doesn't mean that town stacker is not a good program . It is Right .

But if that's where you're getting all of your clicks and likes and connections , probably not putting your eggs in the correct basket at all . So you've got to get involved in the industry that you're choosing and go to industry events and start talking to hiring managers . You've got to be proactive and don't be afraid . Don't be afraid to reach out , right .

A lot of people are like oh , but they're a manager . You know , michelle Hansen did a very good program yesterday on okay , I got an interview . Now what I thought she did an incredibly good job . And one of the things that she said which resonated with me was you know , we all put our pants on one leg at a time , and so do these hiring managers .

Right , they have children .

They've got dogs that pee on their carpet , like they've got , like they've got a sick mom , like they're just like you you know , I'm just like you , like all of you have dogs that pee on the carpet or something like that I'm just kidding so like they're just regular , normal people and they really want you to be the one right , and even when they're not

looking , they'll appreciate someone who's proactive in connecting with them . Guess what that's going to do ? It's going to make their life a lot easier . And I preach this to my clients like network , network , network , and then when you can't find someone , then you call me , right , and then you pay me and I'll find people for you .

I do the networking for them . They pay for the service . You've got no one doing the service for you . I mean , recruiters can a little bit , right , but recruiters work for the companies that pay them . You guys don't pay the recruiters anything . In fact , that would be unethical . They stopped that in the 80s , right ?

So that means you've got to go connect with hiring managers and then demonstrate what your value is . Follow them . Start by liking their posts , right ? Hey , we're both in the same ecosystem . I thought it'd be great to connect . Hey , thank you so much for connecting with me . If there's anything I can do , you know , let me know .

By the way , I see that you're connected to Jim and I know Jim . Jim's a great guy . I hope you're having an awesome week , right . And then you hit them up two months later and then two months after that , hey , happy birthday . You know . Hey , by the way , I wanted to let you know three months down the line .

So that means network now , three months down the line . Then you give them the ask hey , I'm wrapping up a contract and I'm reaching out to my connections on here . Thank you for being one of them . If you could please point me in the right direction .

If you're aware of anyone in your organization or one of your friends is hiring , every hiring manager is friends with other hiring managers . Okay , like , literally all my friends are business owners or hiring managers . Like , it's just how it is . They know other people who hire , right , so got to get up in that crowd .

Take the ladder up one notch , does that make sense ? Okay , all right , let's take . I don't even know what time it is . What do we got there , larry 1020 . Okay , so that's when we're about to wrap up . I would love to do one more authentic question .

This is a backdoor into the way you think I want you to write down the worst job description . I did this when I I mean 30 years ago . I did this . I read it in a cool book and I did it and it was pretty awesome . I was climbing up high towers in the cold and in the rain . I just wrote everything that was crappy .

You know , I had a boss that didn't listen to me . There was zero advancement , like all these kinds of things . Be really crystal clear and specific . Write down your nightmare of a job , your nightmare of a career , your nightmare of a manager . What are you doing every day ? I don't get vacations or I'm on call 24 seven .

Write that down and then go to bed , okay . And then the next day I want you to take it and , by the way , you could just drop it into AI

and do this . I recommend you do it yourself . You just take it and then you write the opposite of that I'm working indoors , my boss listens to me , right , this kind of thing . Or like , oh , I'm doing indoors , my boss listens to me , right , this kind of thing .

Or like , oh , I'm doing , you know , the bad thing might be , I'm stuck on a military CPQ project or something . I don't even know if that exists , but , like , I'm stuck on some you know government project where you know bureaucracy reigns king and it's a nightmare . Like I don't want that . So , okay , what do we want ?

Well , okay , now I know that I want to work with non . You know I want to work with , you know , publicly traded companies or privately held organizations , but not the government , right , not government contracts . So you can find that out through this exercise , right ? Does that make sense ?

Yeah , and then you can take that and just stick it in perplexity or chat CPT and say this is my ideal job . What types of jobs are out there ? What kinds of companies within my field or within my city or my state fit this description ? And it will tell you . And then you say tell me more , because it'll give you like three or five .

I want the full list Now . I want you to rank them based on my criteria , and now you go and do all that networking stuff that we were just talking about . Would that be helpful , talia ? She said absolutely All right . You guys , thank you for coming to my little show . I really appreciate it . You're so good and nice for coming down here .

I think you all deserve a round of applause for participation and for spending your time here today , of applause for participation and for spending your time here today . I want to wish every single one of you the best success , the best career . Okay , if you're struggling , hang on , don't quit .

If it's not working , do something different , right , change , figure it out , but don't quit .