Learning Deeply by Debugging Real Problems

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Bradley Condon, Technology and Systems Specialist at Waste Solution Services. Join us as we chat about his Dreamforce presentation and the custom apps Bradley built to help him land his next role.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Bradley Condon.

From customer service rep to the Dreamforce stage

This year was the first Dreamforce Bradley was able to attend, and also his first time giving a presentation—I’d say he’s off to a great start.

Bradley started his career as a Service Cloud user who got curious about the platform. He clicked on the Help Section, ended up on Trailhead, “and by the end of the day, I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life,” he says.

However, when he started looking for jobs, he ran into a common problem. How can you show that you have hands-on experience without landing that crucial first Salesforce role? 

Using personal projects to stand out

Bradley decided that the best approach was to build custom apps in Salesforce and reference them on his resume. But what to build? As he explains, “I realized that in order for me to make time for it, I needed to build something I was passionate about that I wanted to use.”

One thing he was definitely focused on was passing his Admin Certification exam. So he made an app to help him study by texting him a practice question every day. He also wanted to attend more Salesforce events, which led to another app that helped match Trailblazers with each other to save on accommodations.

Bradley listed all of his personal projects on his resume and also shared them on Experience Cloud so interviewers could see his solutions in action.

How to pick a side project

In the course of building (and debugging) these projects, Bradley was able to learn by experience. By the time he was finished, he was able to sit for the Platform App Builder Certification without needing to study and pass it with flying colors.

As for what to work on, Bradley encourages you to work with what you know. Can you think of an app that would help you in your day-to-day? Or, if you’re interviewing in a specific industry, something that would solve a common problem they might face?

We want to hear about your side projects, so tell us about them on our socials. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us in your feed every Thursday.

Podcast swag

• Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store

Learn more

• Automate This!: Boost Your Salesforce Certification Study Routine with Flows & Email-to-Text Gateways | Automate This!

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• Admin Trailblazers Community Group

Social

• Bradley on LinkedIn
• Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn
• Salesforce Admins on X
• Mike on Bluesky social
• Mike on Threads
• Mike on X

Full show transcript

Mike:
Welcome to Salesforce Admins Podcast. This week I’m chatting with Bradley Condon, a first-time Dreamforce presenter who has a powerful story about self-starting service cloud and personal projects that pack a punch. Now, Bradley shared this at Dreamforce about how building custom apps on the side helped him land a role and prep for certifications, and it was even something really cool he could do for a friend in a tough time.

Now, Bradley’s journey starts from a call center agent, all the way to creating experience cloud solutions that he could share with future employers when he was interviewing. So if you’re curious about why you should do Salesforce projects on the side and do personal projects, Bradley’s story is for you. So let’s get Bradley on the podcast.
So Bradley, welcome to the podcast.

Bradley Condon:
Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Mike:
Yeah, well, it’s exciting, you are a first-time presenter, as I learned before we pressed record, at Dreamforce, and you’re going to talk about building personal projects, which I’ve done quite a few on the side, and I think that’s really cool. I can’t wait to see your presentation, but let’s learn a little bit about you. Tell me how you got started in the Salesforce ecosystem and what you do.

Bradley Condon:
Yeah, of course. So I got started in the ecosystem as actually a call center agent using Service Cloud, working for a furniture company, just handling warranty issues and whatnot. And I got really interested in it and wanted to learn more about it, so I clicked on the Help section and ended up on Trailhead, and by the end of the day I was like, “You know what? I know what I want to do with the rest of my life,” and started to make the transition to learn all I could about Salesforce and eventually, got my certification, landed a role, and then after that role, I had some time in between that I was trying to find the next one, and that’s when I started building personal projects to really fill in that gap that I had to get my next role.

Mike:
Wow, okay. I think you might be the first person that started off in Service Cloud.

Bradley Condon:
Yeah, really?

Mike:
Yeah. A lot of admins I know, I’m not saying nobody, but admins I know always start off in sales, and you were in Service Cloud, so that was really cool. You had to have been just a dream. I’m just sitting here back thinking of what that admin must’ve been like when you were like, “Hey, I clicked on Help and I’m starting to do some Trailhead modules.” I would’ve looked over and been like, “Bradley, I’m going to buy you lunch right now,” because-

Bradley Condon:
Yeah, we didn’t have an admin.

Mike:
Oh, okay. Oh, you just burst my bubble. That’s all right. Well, you probably became the admin then, defunct. I started off doing because when you get excited with Salesforce stuff, you’re probably like me, and I was doing a whole bunch of things. I was like, “Oh, I could probably track that in Salesforce. Oh, I could probably track that in Salesforce.” I think I had three or four dev orgs that all had different things in it. Personal projects, you know you’re doing Trailhead stuff, you’re working. First of all, how did you just find time to do extra projects on the side?

Bradley Condon:
Well, so it all started when I was looking for another role and I was having trouble really getting my foot in the door for interviews, and I think it’s because I was just looking like everyone else on paper. And I thought, “Okay, I need a different strategy. I need to do something that’s going to help me standout.” And that’s when I decided, “You know what? I’m going to just start building, and that way, I have something to showcase during your interviews.”

Mike:
I like that. Did, as you were interviewing, change and modify the org? I’m assuming you shared credentials with your Mike.

Bradley Condon:
Well, so I actually would make it so that it was available on Experience Cloud-

Mike:
Ooh.

Bradley Condon:
So that way, it also showed experience in cloud skills and made it available for them to use and made the flows available. So not only could they just see what I worked on, but they could actually play with it themselves.

Mike:
Wow, okay. That’s next level. I like that. How did you decide what to build?

Bradley Condon:
So the first thing that I built was, I was studying for Salesforce certification and I needed to figure out a way to be more consistent with my study schedule. So I started to build an app that would send me a text message every day with a practice question to help study.

Mike:
Wow, okay. That’s a really cool, that’s a neat idea. I’m over here thinking, how am I tracking, I was into binge-watching shows. You’re sending yourself text messages, we’re totally on different planets right now. That’s awesome. So as you were sitting, as you were working through different Trailhead modules, also try to build other stuff in some of that project org as you’d go through different Trailhead modules?

Bradley Condon:
Oh yeah, there was plenty of times where I’d be in a Trailhead module and I’m thinking, “Well, why don’t they add this feature that we learned in this other module?” Well, obviously because you’re not always going to be doing them in a certain order, and that’s the one thing with Trailhead is there’s so much to learn, you just kind of hop around and go with your interest.

Mike:
Yeah.

Bradley Condon:
But I’ve definitely seen times where I was like, “Okay, I’ve had to have this here,” like this would be so perfect.

Mike:
Now I can only imagine going from being an end user in Service Cloud to building something, had to feel very different. What was some of the ways that you promoted yourself when you were interviewing to show people, “Hey, I also have this org that you can try out.” You have to get past that initial screening process.

Bradley Condon:
Yeah, so the thing that I would also do is I would make sure that I included my portfolio site on my resume and also in the experience section, I would include those personal projects as part of my experience because that’s something that I was working on almost full time for a while, that I just really dedicated myself to creating that project.

Mike:
Yeah, wow. I know when I first took the admin certification 18 years ago or 17, something like that, it was a long time ago, I had had a lot of hands-on building things in an org, trying stuff out before I actually took the certification. How did working in your developer environment or just building out sample apps give you that confidence for trying your certification?

Bradley Condon:
Yeah, that’s a great question because most recent certification I took was the platform app builder certification, and I sat for that exam without studying at all. It all just had to do with what I learned doing on projects. So the one I’ve been working on recently is I’m building an app to match trailblazers who want to attend Salesforce events with one another to cut the cost of accommodations down. And so while I was building that, I learned a lot of concepts that were tested, so that really helped, especially with data modeling and stuff like that.

Mike:
Yeah, wow. I’ve seen quite a few of those. I think that’s really cool. Let’s talk about, so one of the things that I like about Trailhead is you’re in, you’ve got the module, you have an org to try and build something out, and basically as long as you copy-and-paste everything, it should work, right? There’s a few times you have to think through things, but when you’re actually in a developer environment and you’re building something that’s your own idea, there’s been multiple times that I’ve had flows not work or something just didn’t fire off like I thought it would, how did that, kind of having your own space to try something out and fail help you understand more?

Bradley Condon:
Oh yeah, definitely ’cause that’s the thing when you fail and you have that error message that you’re trying to figure out what it is, that’s probably when most of the learning happens, is when you don’t do it correctly the first time and you really have to research and get down to the nitty-gritty and act like a detective pretty much.

Mike:
Yeah. There’s multiple times when you sit there and you hit that error message and you’re like, “Ah, I just need, please just work this time,” and you’re five times into it and it’s like midnight and you’re like, “I’m going to get this flow to work before I go to bed,” the number of times I’ve said that. When you were working through, how did you think of stuff that you wanted to build? I think it’s pretty easy to sit down and be like, “Oh, I’m going to create a custom object in these five fields,” but it’s another thing to think of, “I’m going to create this big app that’s maybe going to take me a week or two weeks to build.” How did you work that out and plan that time in your head?

Bradley Condon:
Yeah, so pretty much in order for me to make time for it and to really put the effort in and not to just stop building it was that I wanted to build something that I was passionate about and that I myself would use because that’s going to show in the final product. If you’re passionate about it, it’ll show. It’ll show in the user experience. It’ll show in how you thought about it to be scalable ’cause you’re going to want to continue to use it. So that’s definitely how I did it.

Mike:
So this makes a kind of meta question. Did you build an app to manage your orgs or your apps that you were building and your interviews when you were doing this?

Bradley Condon:
No, I did not because I’ve seen so many of those and to me, that’s not something I would use personally.

Mike:
Okay. Okay. Can I needle you on what was something you built that you did use, besides the text message thing?

Bradley Condon:
It was mainly the text message thing, but I also used it just to, so I had someone who had their mother pass away and they were really close to the mother and so as a gift for them, what I did is I had it so that it would send them different memories that they had with their mom every week, and then they could add little things about thinking-of-you messages to her. So that’s something that I created that they used.

Mike:
Wow. I never would’ve thought enterprise software to be used as that way. That’s kind of interesting. What gave you that idea?

Bradley Condon:
They were just going through a tough time, so I really wanted to do something that at the time, I didn’t have that much money. So I had to do something that I could kind of make, and I’m like, you know what, I’m great at making apps.

Mike:
Right. Yeah, no, I mean that’s super creative, that’s super creative. I love that.
As somebody that’s gone through, built a lot of things, did you often have an idea to build something and then go and use Trailhead to learn the skill or did you try to do it in parallel or did you try to build it first and then go back to Trailhead? What was your thought process there?

Bradley Condon:
Yeah. So it would usually come up that I’d want to add a feature, like if I wanted to do something where I wanted to add commerce and I wanted to figure out, “Okay, well, how would I take payments if I did actually take payments?” And I had never done anything like that in my other position, so I had to go to Trailhead in order to find out how to do that. But there’s also been times where I’ve been in Trailhead of thinking, “Oh, well, now I kind of want to add this to my app. I hadn’t thought about this before.”

Mike:
Yeah. Yep, absolutely. Take payments, I never would’ve thought of that. So as somebody that, I mean obviously people are going to listen to this and think, “Wow, I want to do the same.” If people are looking for ideas to get started on, “I want to build out an org, maybe I’m going to look for another job, maybe I’m not, but I kind of want to test my skill,” what is an idea or something they should think about in terms of building their first project?

Bradley Condon:
So I think a good thing to do is look at the roles you’re trying to apply for and if there’s a specific industry, create a project that’s specific to the industry. If you’re into the hospitality industry, maybe you create an app that helps with hotel room bookings, or if say maybe you find out there’s a job you’re applying for and they have room service, but they don’t have a way to order it online, create an experience cloud site that allows people to start ordering their room service online. So you can present that in the interview. It’s something that they’re missing and something you could deliver.

Mike:
Yeah. And I’ve heard that in previous podcasts too, definitely start in the industry that you’re in. Tell me about how the Trailblazer community helped you in building different projects or different ideas that you had.

Bradley Condon:
Oh, yeah. So I’m part of the Serviceblazer community, and that group has been so helpful to me. Obviously coming from Service Cloud, I gravitated to that community, but they’ve been really helpful. Anytime that you post anything on there, like Ask a Serviceblazer, you’ll get a response usually within the next 10, 15 minutes, and everyone there is extremely knowledgeable. The amount of knowledge that comes through that channel is crazy.

Mike:
Yeah. Do you find, because you were in the service industry, that a lot of your apps start in Service Cloud?

Bradley Condon:
Yeah. And even if they don’t start in Service Cloud, somehow I’ll manage a way to add it into it.

Mike:
Yeah, I can see that.

Bradley Condon:
For the text message service, I used Email-to-Case to send text messages, I’d used e-mail-to-text gateways so that you send an e-mail to, e-mail that’s dedicated to your phone number to get the text message to them. So even though it was not using the texting service, I used the Email-to-Case to make it [inaudible 00:15:14].

Mike:
In some aspects, the limitations on those orgs actually force you to be more creative.

Bradley Condon:
Exactly.

Mike:
I didn’t even think about that. It’s always easy, like, “Oh, please turn this on.” That’s what we have at Salesforce. Just go to another PM, turn this on for me really quick and you don’t think of if you actually had those limitations in place, how would you get more creative. I’m curious, so as you’ve done this and done different projects, have you helped anybody build projects or ideas that they’ve had of their own?

Bradley Condon:
I haven’t really helped anyone build their own personal project. On the Serviceblazer community, I answer a lot of questions when it comes to people that are facing problems they’re coming up with in their company that they need help with. But the funny thing is I usually end up going to a developer org and making sure that I try it out myself before I give them the answer. So I always make sure that I’m trying it and make sure that it’s going to be accurate information I’m giving them.

Mike:
Yeah. Nope, I’m the same way. You cannot, in theory this should work, but let me log in and double-check that something hasn’t changed or something is different. Is this your first Dreamforce?

Bradley Condon:
It is my first Dreamforce and it’s also my first Salesforce event ever. I’ve never been to a community conference and never been to a Salesforce event, so I’m really excited.

Mike:
Wow. So you’re just jumping in the deep end right away? Holy cow.

Bradley Condon:
Pretty much, yeah, pretty much. I’m a little nervous, but we’ll see.

Mike:
It’ll be fine. By the time you listen to this podcast, you’ll be like, “Phew, what was I nervous for? I was awesome up there on stage. They loved me.” So off the cuff question, when you present at Dreamforce, people always have questions. What’s the one question you’re afraid somebody’s going to ask you?

Bradley Condon:
Oh, wow. Can you make it an agent?

Mike:
Well, by the end of Dreamforce, you’ll know how to build plenty of agents.

Bradley Condon:
Yes. I’m really excited for that. My company wants to do a lot of stuff with Agentforce, so I’m really looking forward to that aspect.

Mike:
Yeah, and then you’ll be able to come back and be like, “Well, here, let me just have you log into this,” and you can build a Bradley agent of your own.

Bradley Condon:
Exactly.

Mike:
That’s the plan.
Thanks for coming on the podcast and telling us about this. I think it’s a really cool idea. I hope people do it on their own. I know it feels like you’re pressed for time. And when I was a Salesforce administrator, weekends and nights were the time that I would build stuff. I didn’t have Trailhead. Back in my day, it was just the little Help box. But I think getting out of just that business world of accounts and contacts and contracts and building something fun, I remember going to user groups and having friends tell me about diaper changing apps, and I think one person talked about how they managed their wedding in Salesforce. That to me is just like, it gets you in and it gets you doing things that make you feel super empowered. So I think everybody should build on their own free time.

Bradley Condon:
Yes, it’s a great skillset to have.

Mike:
Well, I look forward to seeing your presentation at Dreamforce, and I appreciate you coming on the podcast, Bradley.

Bradley Condon:
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Mike:
Big thanks to Bradley for joining us and sharing such a thoughtful hands-on approach to growing as a Salesforce admin. If you’ve ever been stuck in-between jobs or just unsure of your next step, I think Bradley’s story is a great reminder that building what you love can open surprising doors.

And hey, I would love to know if you are building something fun on the side. Share with that on social and be sure to comment. I’d love to know what fun things you’re building. So with that, until next time, we’ll see you in the cloud.

The post Building Salesforce Projects To Land Your Next Role appeared first on Salesforce Admins.