Key takeaways:
As a Fortune 500 company, Salesforce’s customer relationship management software is ubiquitous throughout nearly every industry. For professionals fluent in Salesforce’s tech stack, this means an abundance of job opportunities.
Moreso for those with a deep understanding of accessibility and what goes into designing accessible products and cultivating inclusive team cultures.
Trailhead provides professionals with a convenient way to skill up on accessibility and other competencies.
Salesforce's Trailhead is a free, online learning platform designed to teach people skills related to the cloud-based software company’s expansive suite of products and technologies. Trailhead helps individuals learn skills to advance their careers within the Salesforce ecosystem, whether that means employment with the San Francisco-headquartered tech titan or as a Salesforce specialist elsewhere.
The award-winning platform uses a gamified approach with "trails" (learning paths), "modules" (units of learning), and "projects" (hands-on exercises). Trailhead covers a wide range of topics, including Salesforce fundamentals, administration, development, marketing, and more advanced subjects. Users earn badges upon completing modules and trails, which they can display on their profiles or resumes.
The platform is open to everyone, from beginners to experienced professionals, and doesn't even require a Salesforce license to use. Trailhead fosters a community of learners, encouraging collaboration and networking—endearingly referred to as “Trailblazers.”
Many companies recognize Trailhead badges, which can help in job searches and career advancement in the Salesforce ecosystem.
“It’s an all in one package,” says Kathi Duffy, a Salesforce administrator with the nonprofit Benetech. “You can figure out what needs to be done by looking at ‘help.’ There are also user groups. I’m personally a visual learner since I’m hearing impaired, so I like the color-coded stuff. I think that just in general it’s a very easy tool to use.”
Trailhead facilitates self-learning, and users can always return to it as a resource when clients introduce new problems to solve, explains Duffy.
“You can teach yourself,” she says. “There are a lot of tools out there that are not quite as self-explanatory. A lot of those Trailblazer units are ‘click here’ or ‘do this.’ If you want to become an admin or a developer, there are recommended classes. You can see what path you like and don’t like before going forward.”
While Salesforce designs Trailhead with accessibility-first principles, not every trail foregrounds accessibility content and inclusion explicitly relevant to disability issues.
Let’s explore this collection of skill-building trails and accessibility modules.
Learn what accessibility is and how to make websites and apps accessible to people with disabilities.
Foster innovation with inclusive design principles.
Best practices and examples for authoring accessible content.
Learn why it’s important to make technology accessible to everyone.
Use the six principles of inclusive marketing to create a culture of Equality.
Learn about ethical design and how to incorporate it into technology development.
Identify Inclusive Leadership traits and principles, and put them into practice.
Reflect on personal identity and implicit bias and how both influence behavior.
Understand Equality as a Salesforce value, become an ally, and establish a common language
Gain skills to live the value of equality and support diversity and inclusion in the workplace and across your business.
Understand how Equality informs how we do business and support our customers and partners.
Navigate the key steps to hosting inclusive and accessible events.
Participating in these trails and modules better prepares you for a potential job as a Salesforce administrator or another role interfacing with the Salesforce tech stack. The badges earned and knowledge gained also help you stand out among other job candidates, no matter where you’d like to go.
If you’re already in a stable position somewhere else and want to integrate greater accessibility into your organization, Trailhead will help you do so, too.
A founding partner of InclusionHub, Salesforce is helping bring greater accessibility and digital inclusion to the professional world. Visit its a11y website to learn more.