Evoke – After 18 years in recruitment, I needed a career change. I retrained with Supermums and love my new Salesforce career!

Evoke, from Dartford, Kent, UK, left her 18 year career in recruitment with the UK Government to embark on a career in Salesforce. Her brother, a Salesforce architect, gave her the confidence to make the career change, despite her worries about not being a 'techie'. Evoke is now Salesforce Customer Success Manager for Mercy Ships, a non-profit providing help to Africa's most needy.

Evoke's Story

  • Course: Salesforce Admin Course
  • Region: EMEA
  • Sector: Charitable Organisations
  • Job Title: Customer Success Manager
  • Works: Mercy Ships
  • Lives: Dartford, Kent, UK
Evoke, from Dartford, Kent, UK, left her 18 year career in recruitment with the UK Government to embark on a career in Salesforce. Her brother, a Salesforce architect, gave her the confidence to make the career change, despite her worries about not being a ‘techie’. After meeting Supermums at the Salesforce World Tour in 2020, she realised her existing skillset of being good with people and problem-solving was all she needed to create a Salesforce career for herself.

 

Evoke decided to upskill and launch her Salesforce career because… 

‘After 18 years in recruitment, I needed a change. It got to a point where I thought, is this all there is to it? I felt I still had a lot more to give that wasn’t in recruiting. My brother was a Salesforce architect, and really gave me the confidence to explore a career in Salesforce with the skillset that I had.’

 

Evoke decided to start training with Supermums because…

‘I attended the Salesforce World Tour with my brother in 2020, and came across the Supermums stand. That is when I met Heather and the Supermums team. I really got a full understanding of the Supermums course, and that it’s not all about tech. One thing I left there with was the slogan “Click, Not Code”. And I thought, OK, so it really is possible for be to have a career in Salesforce without actually learning how to code.

I signed up for the Supermums course straight away, and joined the March 2020 cohort just as lockdown had started. Which was perfect as my workplace had just grounded, however Supermums was still going ahead.

My brother sent me links to Trailhead before started the course, which of course didn’t make sense at the time. However as soon as I started the Supermums course, Trailhead started to click, and so I decided to try my hand at certifications. In April, shortly after starting the Supermums course, I did the admin exam and passed!’

 

Evoke was able to launch her Salesforce career successfully because…. 

‘I was lucky enough to get two work experiences through Supermums. I got one with an external company undertaking data loading, as well as working directly with Heather to undertake work experience with Economic Change CIC.

I was then able to include that experience in the CV, and along with my recruitment knowledge, build an attractive and valuable Salesforce CV to start applying. I applied or a job with Mercy Ships as Salesforce Admin, and was offered the role that week.’

 

Evoke combatted her imposter syndrome by…  

‘During my first week with Mercy Ships, I was given a long laundry list of tasks they wanted done. By the time the meeting was over I was hyperventilating. I felt; no, this is not for me. I can’t do this. I don’t have the skill set. I really don’t know how to do this!’ So I called my brother again. And with his encouraging words, and the support from the Supermums, I persevered.

I can’t speak highly enough about the Supermums community. I was really blessed to have people who really supported me, starting from my Supermums mentor, Katherine Buchanan. She is amazing. I still keep in touch with her. She’s amazing and she really helped me. She guided my week by week, not only through the course, but through job opportunities as well. When I was offered a promotion to Customer Sucess manager with Mercy Ships 6 months after starting with the company, imposter syndrome hit badly. I spoke to Katherine, and told her I was going to reject it, but thankfully she talked me down. She showed her faith in me, and encouraged me to take the role.

I think one of the fantastic things about Salesforce is that I’m not alone. There is a Trailblazer community, which I used a lot of. We had a Whatsapp group with Supermums, I made use of Ohana, and finally we had a Salesforce Saturday group through Linkedin, so every Saturday we would talk about all things Salesforce.

 

Are you looking to gain in-demand tech skills?

We’ve helped over 900+ trainees, across 10 different countries, find flexible, well paid roles in the Salesforce ecosystem, just like Paola.

Grab your place on our Salesforce Admin Course Training Course to relaunch you career with a full package of support to accelerate your success.

See our other case studies:

What our Alumni have to say:

Shopping Basket