Developing Junior Salesforce Talent with Pracedo
We've worked with Pracedo for a number of years and helped several young people kickstart their careers within the world of Salesforce!
As we prepare to induct our first cohort of LDN Salesforce Professional Apprentices, we talked with Pracedo’s Chief Executive Officer, Matthew Schutz.
Matthew Schutz is the CEO at Pracedo, a Summit Salesforce Partner
Matt has played a huge part in the success of the apprenticeship scheme at Pracedo and has worked closely with LDN for a number of years to give opportunities to young people starting their careers within the Salesforce ecosystem.
We asked Matt about the benefits of hiring an apprentice and why Pracedo are continuing to work with LDN as we launch the LDN Salesforce Professional Apprenticeship.
Pracedo has worked with LDN Apprenticeships for over 5 years – what have been the major benefits of hiring apprentices for your team during this time?
Without the apprenticeship scheme, we would not be able to hire young, junior employees. The risk and the training input required would be too great. Using LDN Apprenticeships de-risks the selection process because every candidate we meet has already worked with LDN on getting ready for the apprenticeship and their core skills have been tested.
This means the candidates we see from LDN are of a fantastic calibre, of our last recruitment round I could happily have hired all 12 candidates from the first round and selecting was incredibly tough.
Hiring apprentices is great because it means we can shape their work personas, their skills and their approach to reflect our values and priorities. They are open to learning and hard working with energy and hunger that delivers great results and inspires the rest of the team.
What skills do you look for when hiring an apprentice and how do you bring them up to scratch?
The key things we look for are:
Genuine commitment to the work in the apprenticeship
We don’t want someone who has accidentally fallen into this or has been let down by other opportunities. We want someone with a demonstrable desire to build a career in this space.
Bravery
We don’t want crazy risk-takers but we do want apprentices who are prepared to take managed risks. Being an apprentice frequently involves being challenged and being put in situations outside of your comfort zone. We need apprentices who enjoy taking those kinds of risks.
Values
At Pracedo our culture and values aren’t just important to us as people but they are at the core of how we deliver projects and how we are successful. That’s about trust, authenticity, philanthropy and education we look for these values reflected in the people we hire.
LDN Apprentice Henry Maxwell, who now works for Pracedo as a fully fledged Salesforce Consultant, presenting to candidates at one of our Career Kickstarter events.
On average, how long does it take to see a return on your investment in your apprentices?
This is something we’ve got better at over the years that we’ve been recruiting apprentices and although this varies it’s certainly within 3-6 months of them starting their apprenticeship.
What does your induction look like?
We are a small business and so our induction process is fairly informal. The new apprentice has a mentor and will go straight into shadowing a project and the project owner will start to give them productive work to do and gradually scale that work.
We also try and get the apprentices on a project kick-off as soon as possible so they see a project from beginning to end.
We are lucky because having their Skills Coach helps us make sure the Apprentices are keeping on track and getting everything they need from us while for the most part, we treat them like any other employee.
What additional training do you offer for your apprentice outside of the apprenticeship?
Lots! We are very fortunate that the Salesforce space is incredibly rich with opportunities to grow and learn.
Everything from soft skills, project methodologies and technical skills. In addition to the sessions described above we put a lot of value in Trailhead and Certifications.
As a Salesforce partner, we get great access to Salesforce training materials and we pay for our Consultants Salesforce exam fees.
We encourage and incentivise our Apprentices to take certifications and not just to pass the exams, but to take exams even though they might fail, it’s all good learning.
How has hiring Salesforce Apprentices helped your line managers to develop their management skills?
Having Apprentices in the team is really great for everyone’s career development. As the saying goes a rising tide lifts all boats.
It’s been great for our more senior team members to take on leadership roles but most importantly I think it’s for the previous apprentices, the new cohort joining is a really important part of them making the next move onwards and upwards in their careers.
They get to be full consultants and not the most junior people in the team anymore. It really helps them distinguish the end of their Apprenticeship.
Do you feel you’ve been able to harness talent you otherwise wouldn’t have known about by hiring an apprentice?
100% there is no way we’d be able to hire these young, junior people without the support of the apprenticeship.
What would your advice be to a business or line manager who is thinking of hiring a Salesforce Apprentice?
Consider how your culture and work practices can enable the apprentice to be successful. They need to be part of a team and they need hands-on work to do not just shadowing while doing basic administrative tasks but real work.
We’d like to say a huge thank you Matt for taking the time out to talk to us about Pracedo’s growing relationship with LDN. We’re always privileged to work with businesses like Pracedo and look forward to that continuing with the LDN Salesforce Apprenticeship.
To find out more about the LDN Salesforce Apprenticeships, head over to the Programmes page of our website here.