💃 Current State of the Salesforce Professional Job Market 🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerds! As we approach the 2nd quarter of 2023, now is a good time to assess the Salesforce Professional's Market. With tech layoffs being the running headline so far this year, there is fresh news of professional service layoffs. This aligns - as tech revenue/sales reduce, then the services required to implement and support them also go down.

So what happens from here? Let's discuss some likely scenarios, including our prediction on Salaries.

Agenda for today includes

• Current State of the Salesforce Professional Job Market

• Daily Principle

• All the Memes

Current State of the Salesforce Professional Job Market | March 27, 2023

First, let's give an ultra-brief review of the last few years -

• 2020 to mid-2022 | Fed's $1.5T Quantitative Easing creates a frothy market, including for the Salesforce ecosystem. The mothership and the support ecosystem, alike, undergo massive hiring to support the increase in demand and the plan for upward trends.

• End-2022 | Hit the breaks. Quantitative Easing seemingly pivots to Quantitative Tightening overnight. Fed ramps up interest rate increases to temper historically high inflation. Mega-tech layoffs begin in November, kicked off by Meta and quickly followed by the rest of FAANG.

• 2023Q1 | By Jan 2023, Salesforce follows suit and announces 10% of workforce will be laid off. Tech layoffs continue, with multiple FAANGs announcing additional rounds of layoffs. Then, Accenture, announces 19,000 layoffs, a 2.5% reduction in their workforce.

So here we are, a few days from the start of 2023Q2. Big-tech, over a year past it's peak valuation, including Salesforce which is 16mo removed from its peak $310 share price to it's current value of $190 per share. So how does this impact the Salesforce Professional Job Market? Where do we go from here? Let's break this down into 3 considerations

1. Salesforce Professional Job Market

2. Salesforce Professional Salaries

3. What Happens Next?

Salesforce Professional Job Market

There's no sugar coating it - the job market is not the frothy goodness it was a year ago, when an Admin cert basically got your foot into the door for a near $100,000 salary. Now, we see the following-

• More Competition (see layoffs)

• Hiring Freezes

• Less Job Openings

Takeaway: Put that all in a mixing bowl and you have a tightened job market. If you have a role you are content with, it should take a more significant event, than a year ago, to get you to change roles. If you are unemployed and looking for a role, or attempting to pivot into a Salesforce role, this is the most difficult market in years.

Salesforce Professional Salaries

You can get a copy of our salary guide with a single referral -

Good news and bad news here. The good news is a new floor has been set. Gone are the days that a pretty decent admin is making $40-50k; that number is now nearly double and will not decrease much, if at all.

The bad news is the hockey stick trajectory that Salesforce salaries were on the last 2 years is over. Already, new offers are stabilizing below what they were this time last year. As well, with the increased competition due to layoffs, lower salaries are going to more experienced candidates.

Takeaway: We expect 2023 salaries to land somewhere between 2021-2022 levels. If you were hired in late-2021/early-2022, you probably locked in an above-market salary.

What Happens Next?

Hmmmmm. Things are gonna get worse before they get better. First, big-tech has layoffs (with more to come). Next, professional services has layoffs. With tech selling less and reducing their workforce, professional services (consulting and implementation) has followed the writing on the wall.

The most likely scenario is the market continues to trend downwards. Both job openings and salaries will take hits. Those who are employed will be expected to do more with less, and those who are unemployed face tough competition and less opportunities.

Worst case scenario is a recession, which we have all lived through in 2008, and also the early 2000's dotcom bust. Be advised, a key component of a recession is high unemployment.

Best case scenario is....probably the "Soft Landing" that we have heard mentioned so often the last 6 months. This is impossible for the Fed, alone, to control. And the political environment is too polarized to engineer policy that would nurture a soft landing.

Takeaway: Let's be real, the short term is not looking good. And although the future is hard to predict, the medium-term ain't looking great either. There will not be many winners this year. An exception is the small businesses who have had to compete with the big players for talent will now have an opportunity to hire some amazing people.

Daily Principle

and now....Your Daily Memes