By Joanna Bak, Associate Developer and Paige Thompson, Client Services Consultant
Last month, Silverliners participated in volunteering with COOP, an organization that enables recent college graduates from underemployed groups to learn digital skills and pursue digital jobs.
The partnership with COOP started with current Salesforce MVP and Silverline consultant Umair Ilyas. He worked with the NYC Trailblazer community group leaders to organize volunteers to help teach and run the three-day Salesforce course. Silverline has participated twice before, and we — Paige Thompson and Joanna Bak — were among the community volunteers this time.
What Does the Course Entail?
The volunteer work focused on exposing the students to Salesforce as a platform, a career, and a community. The intent of the three-day session was to expose the students to Salesforce administration skills and to also get them thinking about career opportunities and plug them into the community resources if they want to continue. The course involved an overview of creating objects, creating fields, importing some sample data and running some reports to gather insights into what the sample data contained. As volunteers, we helped lead small groups during the three nights, answering questions and providing more personalized guidance.
COOP students were invited to attend a NYC Admin Trailblazer Community event the evening before the NYC Salesforce World Tour and were also invited to check out the event at the Javits Center. The hope was that some of the students would be inspired to pursue Salesforce careers. In any case, the students would be exposed to opportunities they otherwise would not have.
Why Volunteer with COOP?
As consultants in the Salesforce space, all of us volunteering know the impact that learning Salesforce have had on our lives and careers.
Paige was a user of Salesforce in her first job out of college
“Ever since I figured out how to run my first report, I was hooked. I went to COOP because I had such a great opportunity to stir curiosity for my favorite platform… and I wanted to make sure this group got the same chance to interact with us and make those connections.”
Joanna was introduced to Salesforce by a friend
She wanted to pursue a more technical career using her Computer Science degree and writing code, but also wanted to leverage her skills as a business analyst and her understanding of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC). As a Salesforce consultant and developer, she gets the best of both worlds.
The added benefit is having a community that supports continuous learning. “I still remember when it was first suggested that I look at Salesforce careers, I didn’t know anything except that it was a CRM. Once I got into it though, I knew I found something I really enjoyed doing. Volunteering to teach others allows me to offer that same opportunity to open doors to something that otherwise wouldn’t be known, let alone considered.”
Future Opportunities to Mentor and Learn
Joanna says, “As long as my schedule continues to allow it, I would love to keep helping out in anyway I can.”
Paige noted that she won’t be in New York much longer, but looks forward to getting involved with the local Salesforce community in her hometown. “I would recommend this opportunity to anyone, both on the mentoring side, and on the learning side. It’s a great chance to bring your passion for Salesforce to others.”
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Silverline is dedicated to continuous learning and volunteering opportunities for employees. Check out our Careers page to learn more and for current openings. Be sure to check us out on Glassdoor and LinkedIn too.
