5 Salesforce Developer Resume Examples & Guide for 2024

You’re looking for a job in Salesforce development?

The first checkpoint is writing a compelling Salesforce Developer resume.

Does it say you always search for new ways to solve problems and meet challenges?

Hiring managers look for devs who know Salesforce limitations, but also the opportunities it creates for business growth.

Does your resume include specific projects you worked on, with success metrics?

This is just a small aspect of what makes a great Salesforce Developer Resume.

In reality, HR managers will not spend more than 6 seconds to make a decision whether you are right for the job.

How do you land a subsequent phone call? What should go in a resume?

Those and many other questions answered below in our Salesforce Developer resume samples guide.

Here’s what you’ll learn today

• How real Salesforce developer resumes from people who got hired look like
• How to craft resume sections with proven methodology betting on your value proposition
• 9+ Right and wrong resume samples from the industry
• How to use your Salesforce community activity to your advantage
• How to customise your resume to fit the job you’re applying for

Check out other resumes from Salesforce industry

• Salesforce Business Analyst resumes
• Salesforce Administrator resumes
• Salesforce resumes

Overview: How to write a great Salesforce Developer resume

A recent study on Stack Overflow with 100 000 participating developers has put Salesforce in top 3 of the most dreaded platforms.

But make no mistake - the demand for SF developers is GIANT. The industry is expected to grow to 45B+ dollars revenue in 5 years alone.

Dreading or not, there are close to 3 mil. Salesforce developers on the planet.

With hundreds of thousands of aspiring applicants at the recruiters’ doors.

It will take more than just a good impression to get a phone call.

Start by tailoring your resume to the company you are applying for. Show your specialisation from the get-go.

Does the job description read you’ll be involved in mobile development or you’ll be integrating solutions with REST and SOAP?

Make sure you put that relevant experience on your resume.

Second, companies are dazzled when they see you’ll be able to create complex reports and sophisticated dashboards.

Many end-users and admins struggle with these and seeing you’ve got the experience can tip the scales in your favor.

Third, associate at least part of your resume with numbers and results.

Applicants just copy-paste job descriptions thinking that’s enough, but they make no real impact.

See the difference when adding a number:

• Coordinated with clients to make sure on-time bill payment
• Coordinated with 450 clients to make sure on-time bill payment

How do you make an entry level SF resume excel?

First off, complete projects on Trailhead and add them to your resume.

Next up, earn Trailhead badges. They expose you to features and functionalities you may not otherwise get a chance to explore and learn.

However, don’t count solely on your Trailhead activity at first. Badges do look good on your resume, but unless you accumulate over 50, then you won’t make a substantial impact.

Have you won a SF hackathon? Your award will sit nicely in a separate Awards and Personal Achievements section on your resume and provide yet another opportunity to highlight your skills.

HR managers would want to know what you built and what problems you solved. Even if you did a demo org with your Trailhead knowledge, it’s valued because it will act as a proof of concept you had.

You can always include school-related projects/courseworks or a demo org you’ve put up with Trailhead knowledge.

These will act as proof of concept. HR managers mostly want to know what you built and what problems you solved with it.

Finally, how active are you in the Trailhead community? A recruiter will be more easily swayed if they see your profile activity and if you managed to establish a reputation as an expert in the field.

Nail those, and you’ll be feeling the Ohana spirit sooner than later.

Choose the right format for SF dev resume

What are your options?

• Reverse-chronological format
• Functional layout
• Creative resume

All of them can do some of the job (to a certain extent).

However, none of the above compare to hybrid resumes when you’re looking to combine skills, experience and personality in a 1-page resume.

Read more about hybrid resumes here.

How to write a resume header for Salesforce developer

The goal of the header section is to present the recruiter with the right information about you at a glance.

The last thing you want is to lose a job opportunity to a badly structured “About You” section.

Keep it neat and include all the contact data listed in the job offer.

Apart from being organised, this section serves to give a huge opportunity to impress the recruiter or the CTO.

Let’s take a look at two different Salesforce Developer resume sample headers.

The second one gains bonus points for the mention of position and the Trailblazers community profile link.

Imagine a recruiter seeing all the projects and badges you’ve earned hard through the years and all it takes them is a single click.

Also, you don’t really have to put your full address. It just takes up precious space.

As a rule of thumb, the following items should always be present in a Salesforce Developer resume header:

• Name
• Contact data
• Address (City is enough)
• Link to a well-developed Trailblazers profile
• Link to your GitHub profile

Insights into successful Salesforce Developer resume summaries (samples included)

It can be difficult to write a resume summary.

Especially if you own a ton of achievements, experience and qualifications. Where do you begin?

You can keep it short and simple.

Or add a couple of enhancements and go for a home run.

Let’s use the CAR (Context-Action-Result) method to compile this resume section.

This method suggests that, in the case of your summary, you should focus on:

• The context - in which a
• particular action happens that
• leads to a certain result.

So, let’s see two Salesforce developer resume summary examples - the second one elevated with the CAR method.

The second summary wins 9/10 times against the competition.

At a glance, a recruiter can see:

• The frameworks you worked with;
• The scale of org you administered;
• How many years of experience you have in Salesforce.

Whereas the first one bets on a couple of buzzwords that make no real impact.

Writing an impactful career objective sample for entry-level SF devs

Career objectives serve to show the recruiter what you want to achieve after joining a company.

Choose a career objective in one of the two cases below:

• You are a fresh graduate and are looking for entry-level position OR
• You are changing the field or industry (mid-level developer, motivated to take a new challenge).

Here are two examples where we’ll apply the C-A-R method again. Notice the differences.

This summary fails to deliver the message as it doesn’t mention Salesforce specific platform technologies.

Apart from screaming Salesforce, you can also infer how many years of experience this applicant has, and what is his area of expertise.

With summaries and objectives under your belt, let’s go on and deal with experience on resumes.

What makes a great resume experience section for Salesforce Developer

We’ve looked at hundreds of Salesforce Developer resumes, and one thing kept showing up - job responsibilities, instead of actual achievements.

It’s more than obvious what you were asked to do in the previous workplace.

It’s nearly impossible to know what you achieved unless you say it explicitly.

So why would you send a document that contains every duty you had since university?

Instead, we will apply the CAR method once again to highlight your experience.

Look at the following examples from Salesforce developer resumes.

This is a classic example of experience reading like a job description.

Companies want results, and very few resumes have them.

Let’s make the same bullets better.

Yes, it takes longer to dig deeper and related experience with numbers. But, as you can see, once added, they can easily sway recruiter’s attention towards you.

Show relevant results to a hiring manager and you’re guaranteed a phone call.

How to add your certifications and education

Let’s carry on with a cornerstone resume section in Salesforce industry - your certification and education background.

By now you are familiar with similarities and differences between Java and Apex, Visualfore and HTML, and SOQL and SQL.

You could have years of experience as a full-stack Developer, but in some areas in Salesforce development, you’ll be starting from scratch.

This is because Salesforce tools, frameworks and languages differ in logic and the environment is less tolerant to errors.

Trailhead’s courses and trainings are recommended to get the ball rolling.

Should you list your education on a resume is another question we get often.

The general rule is, if it’s a requirement in the job offer, then it will be appropriate to list it.

However, companies tend to give equal weight to both Computer Science or Information Technologies degrees and a corresponding mix of self-guided education and experience.

In addition to Salesforce University (Trailhead self-led and instructor-led courses), the platform recommends signing up for a third-party platform course.

Pluralsight’s signature certification on Force.com platform is a great starting point.

Moving on to the last important resume section.

How to decide which skills are important for Salesforce Developer resume

Salesforce.com’s study found that an equal balance between technical and non-technical skills are most requested by employers. So your resume skills section, should contain a list of both.

You’ll be listening to clients daily so you better understand their wants. And, if they have a solution in mind that is not going to work, you’ll have to be open and confident about it.

It won’t be strange if you’ll have to collaborate with marketing and sales teams to design custom solutions.

All this demanding communication will test your soft skills.

On the technical side, you’ll have to deal with classes, attributes and interface. As mentioned already, having external experience in programming languages like C# or Java, is a plus.

Recruiters will also want to know if you are familiar with the limits of the platform. Outside tools don’t have those limits, and that’s the trickiest part - getting accustomed to the environment. A set of technical skills will surely help you out.

Here’s which skills to keep in mind.

Takeaways from writing a great salesforce developer resume sample

• Choose a hybrid layout for a perfect balance between soft and hard skills.
• Use the CAR method to build up your experience and professional summary sections
• Add certifications you completed on Trailhead. Badges and developed Trailhead profile is always a plus but don’t count solely on them.
• Include real cases from your work experience to show you provided viable solutions for the business using both your soft and tech skills.