Introducing Davanti’s Salesforce Developer Cross-Skill Programme

Davanti’s Salesforce Developer Cross-Skill Programme is bringing curious, clever and technically talented individuals into our company and the Salesforce ecosystem, helping to develop our team’s depth and breadth of expertise.

As with our graduate programme, we’re proud to welcome people from a variety of backgrounds and see them flourish in the Salesforce and Davanti worlds. Salesforce has been a great partner to us on this front, building a community of partners keen to help solve this problem and individuals wanting to join Salesforce’s ecosystem of partners and customers through the Talent Alliance which shares our focus on diversity and inclusion.

Enhancing the diversity of our team is incredibly important to us at Davanti and to me personally and I’ve loved growing our Cross-Skill Programme this year because of how it helps us grow in the ways that matter most.

About the creation of the programme

There’s no bones about it, the job market in New Zealand is stretched thin. With the borders closed for more than a year and a half, and skilled individuals already hard to come by, it’s been a challenge to bring on the people we need.

At Davanti we’ve always had a smart approach to hiring, but we wanted to be more creative in how we built out our team. We started to broaden our scope. This meant looking at people with different backgrounds, and potentially those who didn’t have experience in Salesforce but were proficient in complementary technologies or CRMs.

At first, it was a bit of an experiment, but it’s definitely paid off and we’ve become confident in the fact that this approach works. We’ve seen people quickly become passionate about Salesforce and rapidly mature into project work. We’ve also come to find that someone may have even previously worked in-house developing a custom platform that’s nothing like a CRM, and yet they can still have an abundance of complementary skills to bring to the types of industries and businesses we work with.

In creating the programme, we’ve had strong support from Salesforce at every step of the way.

Hamish Miles, Managing Director, Salesforce New Zealand said: “We’re proud to work with Davanti to provide more Kiwis the opportunity to gain in-demand digital skills and start a career in the Salesforce ecosystem. We know that there will be 26,000 new jobs created by Salesforce, its customers and partners by 2026, providing huge opportunities for workers to embark on engaging and fulfilling careers.

“New pathways, like Davanti’s Salesforce Developer Cross-Skill Programme for people mid-career to reskill are absolutely critical and provide the opportunity for workers to use what they know and gain new, in-demand skills.”   

The type of people we’re looking for

While our team is made up of a range of eclectic individuals from different personal and professional backgrounds, there are some similar qualities. Ultimately, we’re looking for consultants. This means we’re looking for developers that are capable technologists and great communicators. The people who really succeed in our business are curious, they’re learners for life and always up for collaboration.

At Davanti we thrive in an environment that accommodates a broad set of backgrounds. When people have experience outside of the Salesforce ecosystem, they bring diverse and interesting perspectives to the business that benefits our clients as well.

How the cross-skill programme works

When people arrive at Davanti we first make sure they have a working knowledge of the basics, for instance agile methodologies, and we get them onboarded to our ways of working. Our Technical Coach David Norman and Chief Technical Officer Brad Riley will sit down with each person for a one-on-one assessment. They’ll discuss transferable or Salesforce specific knowledge areas and what that person has done and is interested in doing at Davanti. The conversation generates a tailored learning plan and goals for individuals based on their strengths, experience and the gap to close to get them ready to roll with our teams and customers.

From here they’ll get involved in learning more of the specifics. Salesforce is a huge global platform, and there are many resources available to learn everything you need. Trailhead is a great resource that also involves a broader community that our new team members can draw on. Once a week, David runs a group session where people can ask questions, share their experiences or express where they’re at.

The next phase is to move onto a project. Ideally, we’ll identify a target project that our new team member is aligned to in terms of their background. What we have absolutely seen is that the sooner you get into project life, the sooner you will build confidence. In most cases, people get on to the first project within four to six weeks – with ongoing support from our senior team members, of course!

Asking questions of and learning from the Davantians around you is so important. I like to talk about ‘the library of Davanti’, where everybody in our business is a book, and you can access knowledge and information from the many lived experiences and skills with the people around you. Getting into a project and being surrounded by those people is the best way for people to accelerate their learning.

How to get involved

If you’ve got a couple of years of development under your belt and you’re curious, there’s absolutely room for you in this market, and there are many ways you can be involved in the ecosystem.

If you’re a developer out there, looking for opportunities to get into consulting or to get into Salesforce specifically, cross-skilling may be right up your alley. Finding the way in that’s right for you, be that as a developer, solution architect or anything in between, it isn’t hard – you just need to be willing to explore and ask questions.

To understand what Davanti’s Salesforce Developer Cross-Skill Programme is really like first-hand, we sat down to chat with three very clever individuals who’ve joined us as part of the programme. Stay tuned here over the next couple of days as they share their experiences of the programme so far.

If you’d like to know more about Davanti’s Cross-Skill Programme, please get in touch!

Alice Hopkinson is Davanti’s Practice Manager – Salesforce Growth & Capability, Auckland.