My Job Hunting Experience in the UK in 2023

Hello, fellow readers and job seekers out there. My name is Maurice Kollewe. A Salesforce Certified Administrator, Sales Cloud Consultant, and Business Analyst with skills in software development. After about 5 years living in and toiling the streets of London, I thought I should share my experience with you.

Finding a job in the UK in 2023 has never been difficult. Why are lots of people not getting jobs despite the many vacancies advertised? There are even announcements on the radio and other communication media about how the UK is in need of skilled workers, yet a lot of working age people are not working and depending on support from the government. What could be the big reason? Let’s look at some of them below from my experience.

My Level of Struggle

I moved to the UK about 5 years ago. I started off working as Admin Assistant in a charity organisation in London. One of the reasons for this choice was to understand the work culture and ethics in the UK. From one volunteer organisation to another, this time a charity shop, I found myself behind a till scanning items and processing receipts. My curiosity about receipt processing led me to develop interest in technology. Talking of technology, we think of software development which is the backbone of technology. I got trained in a renowned training institution as a Full Stack Software Engineer. After the training, job hunting wasn’t easy as usual but in the course of this I came across Salesforce and developed great interest in it. I got in contact with a Salesforce training institution, completed the programme and got certified as a Salesforce Administrator.

While training and preparing for the certification, I attended Salesforce meetings and events such as London Admin User Group monthly meetings, Pathfinder event at Salesforce Tower London (Nov 2022), and Salesforce Live UK & Ireland event (Nov 2022). I chatted with some of the recruiters I met in these meetings and they told me one of the conditions to get into the ecosystem is to be certified.

Image from canva.com Sep 2023

In December 2022, I passed my Salesforce Administrator certification exam and thought I stood a much greater chance of landing that first job. But it wasn’t that easy. After sending out multiple applications and receiving unsuccessful responses, I was registered on the Salesforce Talent Alliance programme through my training provider. Few weeks later, I accepted an offer from a consulting company as Associate Consultant. Unfortunately, this role didn’t last long and I found myself back to the job market hunting for a new position. 

What I don’t understand is the fact that the Salesforce Talent Alliance is aimed at connecting “Net-New” certified Admin with recruiters who are partners with the programme. As such, there should be an obvious assumption that the newly certified would have little or no working experience and not much should be expected from them. Instead, companies should be ready to train them to meet their expectations as long as the said employees are willing to learn. This wasn’t my case.

It’s been over four months since I lost my job. I have been sending out applications but no offer yet, not even an interview from those applications. The only one I had, the Talent Acquisitor contacted me and we scheduled an interview with the recruiter. I’ve been sending out applications through the Salesforce Talent Alliance interview page as usual. Few of the recruiters who came back to me said they were either not recruiting or didn’t have junior positions. Some needed applicants with some Salesforce experience as is usually the case. The truth is that employers (especially in London) want people with experience but you can’t have experience without working somewhere. I now find myself in this “chicken and egg” conundrum which is, you get experience from work, no work no experience and vice versa. 

Even after three Salesforce certifications (Administrator, Sales Cloud Consultant, and Business Analyst), I’ve still not been able to land that job. In the meantime, the unemployment gap on my CV is widening. The question now is, what’s the way forward? Should I continue studying on Trailhead, preparing and getting certified or should I pause and focus only on job search? Currently, I’m trying to do both as I can’t stop learning.

The job market itself doesn’t seem to be that easy. There seem not to be a lot of entry level Salesforce roles. The few junior roles you find still require about 2 years of working experience with Salesforce. But you have to start somewhere to get industry experience.

Another level of difficulty out there is education level. The majority of employers want applicants with a certain level of education, mostly bachelor’s degrees. Some even require these degrees from certain universities, UK universities for example. While university studies give a good foundational knowledge on certain aspects and how to interact with peers, it does not necessarily provide the professional skills and practical experiences needed for the job. Hence, it should not be one of the prerequisites for getting a Salesforce job.

What Help I’m Getting

Last week, I was placed in contact with a Mentor (Kam @ksm1313live) in a mentorship initiative organised by London Admin User Group. It’s thanks to this programme that I’m now writing this piece of information.