Welcome Jenny Bamber – Girly Geek of the Week!
Here is a woman who took advantage of a tremendous career opportunity and ran with it! She is a rock star admin with super helpful tips she posts regularly on her blog, has great advice and stays involved in the Salesforce Community! This is key! 🙂 Congrats on all of your Salesforce Success Jenny!
Me: How & when did you start working with Salesforce?
Jenny: I guess my journey with Salesforce started around 3 years ago now. I was fresh out of University, I had moved to different city (Bristol), and was applying for jobs. I happened to apply for a ‘Software Executive’ role, I had no idea what that meant, but I somehow managed to get the job which turned out to be a support role where support queries were managed in Salesforce cases.
My initial response to using Salesforce was a little hazy. I think I remember being the only woman, sat in a room full of technical men, trying to take on a technical role using cloud technology after completing a History degree. It was daunting, however I soon found that Salesforce wasn’t as scary as my non-technical brain first thought and if anything a year and half later it only made me want to know a whole lot more about it.
With my brain wanting to know more Salesforce, I decided to change roles from a front user support role to a back end support role. Best decision ever! I would say so! 🙂
Me: What is your current role working with Salesforce?
Jenny: I am a Salesforce administrator at Desynit, a consultancy based in the City of Bristol – UK, and have been for 1 and ½ year. Not only do I provide Administrative support for Desynit, but for Desynit’s clients too. This provides me the ability to not only learn how to administer different orgs, but it allows me to constantly test my Salesforce knowledge and expand my Administrator skills. I also have a weekly blog – Jenny’s Admin Tips, which is designed to not only answer those questions that I often find myself asking about Salesforce, but to provide tips and updates that will hopefully help Salesforce Admins on their journeys to become superstar Admins! This is a great blog btw!
Me: Are you currently certified? And if so what certifications do you hold?
Jenny: I have been a certified Salesforce Administrator since Sept 2014. This was a great day for me as my journey to becoming certified was not as easy as I first thought it may be as I failed my first exam. My lessons learned from failing my exam was not to be too hard done by it, listen to Salesforce’s advice of having at least 6 months Admin experience before taking on the exam, make the fundamentals book your best friend and take advantage of the success community, Linkedin, Salesforce cert groups, basically anywhere the community is willing to help! Great advice, there is a ton of cert info and help out there!
Me: What are some of your aspirations and/or goals when it comes to Salesforce?
Jenny: I would ideally like to take on the Advance Administrator training in the near future, but for now I’m attempting to get into a programming mindset to tackle Flow Designer! It surely isn’t as easy as point and click just yet, but I am getting there especially with the help of TrailHead.
Me: Do you have any advice for women working with Salesforce?
Jenny: Don’t be intimidated to ask for help, don’t be afraid to learn a new feature or take on a new cert. And if you don’t know where to begin with the above, then get yourself on down to your local User Group where your Salesforce peers will wrap their knowledgeable arms around you and help answer any questions you may have. The same goes for the Success Community. TAKE ADVANTAGE of your peers, they love it 🙂 Absolutely Agree – Get involved!
Me: What kinds of things are you involved in, and/or do you like to do outside of the Salesforce world?
Jenny: I have just got a new pooch so at the moment nothing else exists in my life. Generally I am quite an active person so if I am not running or at the gym, I’m out walking the pooch in a field or wood somewhere 🙂
Me: Are you part of a Girly Geeks Chapter?
Jenny: I don’t believe there is a Girly Geek meetup here in Bristol, however I have attended several Women who code events which are great! I am also a regular attendee at the unique Salesforce London Admin User Group which is hosted by 4 amazing MVPs – Matt Morris, Chris Edwards, Mike Gill and Francis Pindar. It’s fab and provides a great opportunity for those who spend their workings days behind the setup menu or those who are thinking of becoming a Salesforce Admin, to get together, learn about the ever evolving platform and share our experiences of best practice. Maybe you could spin up a GG Chapter in Bristol 😉
It was a pleasure getting to know you Jenny and thank you very much for sharing! You are definitely an inspiration!
For those of you that want to follow Jenny, here are her links:
Linkedin: Jenny.Bamber
Twitter handle @jenny_Bamber
Sfdc Community link – https://success.salesforce.com/_ui/core/userprofile/UserProfilePage?u=00530000009cHAtAAM&tab=sfdc.ProfilePlatformFeed
Blog: Jenny’s Admin Tips
Aboutme: Jenny’s Desynit Profile
SaaSyForce.com 