Season 2, Ep. 17 with ☁️ Chris Emmett ☁️, Senior Solutions Engineer at Salesforce is out now!
I hadn’t realised that we worked at the same company, although I had left by the time he came on board.
We talked about a lot of things, such as his journey ‘stumbling upwards’ and how he managed to secure a job at his dream company.
In this clip – he talks about the project that he’s most proud of.
Enjoy this episode of #OnThePeiroll!
Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1b9wjlbrn9vXr1Mz2xcR4I?si=XWdl7asiSS-CZ1YOaQOY5g
Transcript
Pei Mun Lim 0:05
Hello, and welcome to another episode of OnThePeiroll, my podcast where I talk about leadership, project management, consulting, Salesforce, delivering great projects with great teams. And in particular, I enjoy learning about my guests in their journey to where they are today. In this particular episode, I talked to Chris Emmet, he is currently a solutions engineer with Salesforce, but his beginnings was as a project manager in an end user company. And he talks about how he moved from there to towards consulting, he worked at make positive, which is where was where I worked at them all at the same time, and how from there, he moved on to Salesforce. And he has a very interesting story about how love played a very crucial role in him landing that position. So I hope you will stick with me to listen to that story and also about the characters at the back in his background. It’s worth a listen. I hope you enjoy it.
Hello, Chris, thanks for making the time to come on my podcast OnThePeiroll. How are you feeling today?
Chris 1:33
I’m doing so good today. Thank you. How are you?
Pei Mun Lim 1:36
I’m fantastic. I really liked your background. As I said, you want to tell me the story about how you got that?
Chris 1:45
Yeah, Salesforce were. So for those that don’t know, I’m a solution engineer at Salesforce. Big Simone, employee I one of the perks is to have access to the digital assets. So I reached out to the creative team and just asked if I could completely fit out my my office. So I’ve got a few canvases that I actually rotate. This is actually one of my favorites because it it has all the characters it’s got. We’ve got appy, we’ve got Einstein, Brandy, Astro and cloudy. You know what? There’s no, there’s no Cody there. Yes. So so probably need to do another one.
Pei Mun Lim 2:28
And Ruth, right. Yeah, you’re
Chris 2:31
right. There’s reef missing as well. Who to make our faces missing. Blazers missing. You know what, there’s, there’s a lot, there’s a lot and you got to do a new one. Maybe one for t dx.
Pei Mun Lim 2:46
Okay, thanks for joining me, I am really interested to hear about your journey. So if you can just tell us a story of where you came from and how you got to where you are today. That’s great.
Chris 2:59
All right. I’ll try. I’ll try and make sure that I don’t bore you with this one. But she have any questions just depend. So my journey began. So I’m 39. And my journey probably began 39 years ago, from the day I was born. My dad is actually in the IT industry. He retired as an IT director. And so computers have always been a part of my DNA, they’ve always been a part of my life. And it was once I didn’t intend out when I was really young, and my dad got me a Commodore 64 Because he said, You know what you can do way more with a computer than you can with a gaming system. I’m still a little sore on that, but I help. But it taught me programming, it taught me the power of, of a computer, what you can do with a computer and computers were always a part of my life. So when it came to university, it felt like an easy, easy way to go, you know what, I’m gonna do a computing degree. So I went down that routes, got myself a computing degree where I learned things such as database, Oracle and SQL, project management, system design. E business sites are starting up a new business and, and a bunch of programs as well. And website design ins that seemed great, seemed fine. And I didn’t necessarily use any of those topics for a good while. They actually came up much later. A lot of them came up much later. So I finished university and what am I going to do? So I get a job as desktops got my first job, fixing computers, installing Windows fixing office, installing printers, good work, really good work. But you know, it was the start of my career. And I got a little bored of that after about a year. So I was still working at the same company. And I thought, You know what, I want to be a programmer, I want to be a developer. And I think I can do it. So they moved me from the desktop support departments to the development department. And it’s great, this is this is fantastic. I’m doing work in VB six, which dates it dates me doing work in.net. And then after eight months, they decided to close that department down. And at the time, I was working, I was working in a factory. So I was doing the it for a plastics factory. And they needed so they decided to disband this entire development team and go with off the shelf products. But they needed someone who was an experts in the software that was being developed to actually go, okay, these are the requirements. So I then naturally moved to being a project specialist as an SME of implementing the software that was off the shelf. And he did that for about eight months. And I thought, you know, what, I want a bit more responsibility. And that time, the project manager of that, in that implementation quit. And then I became a project manager. And this, this is kind of a weird theme across my entire career that you’ll probably find that I don’t make these don’t necessarily make massive changes and massive decisions in my career. I stumble upwards.
Pei Mun Lim 7:08
I like that phrase.
Chris 7:09
Yeah. Never stumble. sidewards never stumbled down, always stumbling upwards, accidentally find myself in new directions. So I become a project manager. And, ah, God is full disclosure, I’m not a project manager anymore. Like, say, I’m a solution engineer. But it was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. Because I got to take all of my experience as a software as a desktop support as a software developer, as an SME. And I got to take all of that. And then become a, effectively a relationship manager. I understood the tech. And then I was able to bridge that gap with the customer. And be that middle ground, be that facilitator be the person who is resolving arguments, and making sure plans fit together.
Pei Mun Lim 8:10
So let me just pause and ask you a question. You say that project management was your best career ever? Why are you not there today?
Unknown Speaker 8:21
Few says I’m not.
Pei Mun Lim 8:23
Oh, the point I will let you get there. So carry on your story.
Chris 8:27
So as I mentioned, a project manager, a good project manager takes the customer side takes these. So a good IT project manager, let me be a little more specific takes the customer side the customer’s requirements, takes the technology side, and the technology requirements and bridges that gap. They are the person that says I know how we can get this and get this technology implemented, that meets your needs, to your budgets into your timescales. That’s all a project manager does. And I’ll take your slight skip to the end. Really, that’s what a solution engineer does. I listen to the customer. Listen to their requirements. I understand the Salesforce platform. And I’m the bridge. So I’m not managing projects. There’s no real timelines I’m looking at. They didn’t know in a fashion. That’s that’s what I’m still doing today. Okay, so. So yeah, I was a project manager for about 10 years, which was great. I must admit, the one thing that I really missed, was getting my hands dirty. Because it was Gantt charts and risk logs, and it was lots of emails. And that was a bit disheartening because all of a sudden, any technical expertise in any technical knowledge I used to have If it was getting less relevance every single day, because the other people actually implementing things, other people doing the work. And then came the next stumbling point. Again, I stumbled, I don’t make decisions. I don’t make decisions on my career. I’m working for a company, and they need a new project management system. And because I’m a project manager at this company, I’m the one of the perfect SMEs to actually go, Okay, we need a system that can do this, this. And we were using a CRM system at the time called synergy. Synergy. And we used it to track our customers and our sales opportunities, you know, it was a CRM. And when we went to the team, the IT team to go, Okay, we want to expand this system. We want to be able to implement a process in which we can track our projects. We don’t care about just customers and opportunities, we want the projects in there as well. And they came back and they said, Okay, we can happily extend this system. We’ll give you some fields that you can put on the records. Now. Do you know how many fields they would allow us to take a guess at the number
Pei Mun Lim 11:38
in 1524,
Chris 11:41
text fields, or plain text fields, that’s what we were allowed. We can add any automation, we can add anything fancy, we can add any new. I guess you’d call them tables in that system, we can add any new objects with additional energy synergy. Okay. Full disclaimer, just just just just in case, this was in 2015. I’m sure the system has moved on since. And then one of the things we know the CEO of the company that was working for, he just sent me an email saying, I’ve just seen this thing called financial force, professional service automation, what do you think about this? And I looked at it, and it was just like, yeah, no, that looks that looks interesting. We should try it. I’ve heard of Salesforce, maybe 10 years ago, I saw someone trying out, but never really thought much of it. Because I’m sure it’s the same as any other product out there. It’s probably not particularly interesting. So we, we get, we’ve got a pilot project going for, for this Salesforce system using financial force. And day one, day one, we were taken through some training. And my mind was just blown away by what the potential was with the system. Because I’d spent, gosh, what was this 2016. So I spent a good 10 years in the IT industry, where I was having to change business process around the capabilities of an IT tool. You know, we were literally in a position where we were going to have to change our project process to fit for textfields. And all of a sudden, was faced with the system that could do the opposite, you could change the system to your business process. And it just blew my mind it fell in love with Salesforce. On day one. It just It blew me away, and changed my entire life in one day. And at the end of that date, one day of training, I found myself in the in the evening, just opening up my laptop logging into this org, which I did in production, which I would never do today. I was creating workflow rules, just because I could see the potential of okay, if we input this data, then we can automatically calculate based on this, this this. And because the company I was working for we had specific overtime rules. You know, if you’re working out of these particular hours, then we need to charge at this rate. That financial force system didn’t have that at the time. So I just created a workflow rule and just within 30 minutes, I extended the system and I was just blown away by that power. So the more getting into the system, I’m thinking this is incredible. This is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. And I stand by that today. But it was a pilot project to trial this out. In the pilot failed, unfortunately, it was deemed that the system didn’t quite meet the requirements. And that pilots, that pilot started January 2016. And it’s finished August 2016. And October, sorry, September 2016, was when I started to interview for Salesforce jobs.
Pei Mun Lim 15:48
Can I just pause you there? So when you say, are looking back with your you know, in hindsight and what you experienced when you say the pilot didn’t work? Is it possible for you to just highlight a few for
Chris 16:01
sure, yeah. You don’t need to edit this out. But I do want people to know that there’s a lot of thought process going into that, say, the, the cost of sales force and financial force was not necessarily within the expectation of the company I was working for. That was probably 70% of the reason. And 30% was VP buy in. Now, with a bit of hindsight, actually, with a lot of hindsight, I realize that, that 70% was probably false. And a lot of it comes down to the fact that the company I was working for, we’re not sold on the business value. Because the cost of that system is insignificant compared to the benefits of efficiency. When you actually go all in, if you if you can pivot your business around something like financial force, you are saving so much money. It’s ridiculous.
Pei Mun Lim 17:17
So let me try and reframe that. And you tell me if you think that’s correct. Do you think that if someone had spent the time investing in putting together a strong business case, with the pros and the cons and the financial justification, it would have been a lot more successful?
Chris 17:38
Absolutely. The whole thing? I’m not I don’t blame anyone on this. Absolutely do not blame anyone. I think a lot of it is just to do with hindsight. The thing that that pilot needed was heavy investment from just from customer success. heavy investments of this is these are the benefits that you’re going to reap actually working with the VPs of the company. I was working for working with them to get the buy. Sorry about that. That’s my home park. Sorry, I’m learning Japanese and my home has had Japanese Yeah, it was it was buying the buying in the business value, those those are, those are really important. Those are probably the most important parts of actually welcoming Salesforce into a community. A lot of people, even, especially on the solution engineer side, and I say that as myself, may think that the actual solution is the most important part. But the business value and understanding how it’s going to improve your business is so paramount, so important. And in that instance, I think it was missing, really missing because that that that could have standby that this financial force could have taken that company forward in in ways that I don’t think they have because they went with a different tool.
Pei Mun Lim 19:36
Thank you. Thank you. So after that you started interviewing for set proper Salesforce roles.
Chris 19:42
Yes. So I started interviewing it took about six started interviewing or just October, August, October, September, August of 2016. And I got a role in I made the following year. So it took a while. Maybe not maybe not as long as some people but one of the things I find so disheartening is you see all these eager faces online, in in the community that have got their Trailhead badges, they’ve got their admin certs, and they’re ready to dive into that first job. And it takes blood, sweat and tears to actually get that first job. And it takes a lot of effort. And I know it is so disheartening to see rejection after rejection after rejection. But you just got to keep going, you got to keep trying, you got to believe in yourself, which is something that I still struggle to do today. But it’s a mantra that I try and live by. So yeah, it took a lot of rejection. I was a project manager at the time. So I was naturally applying for Salesforce really a project manager related roles. But then someone suggested to me that actually, I I applied for a job as a project manager at Arcus. Global that based in Cambridge. And they said that I wasn’t right for the project manager role. But given my enthusiasm and my background, maybe I would be interested in working as consultant. And I thought could be interesting. Do I have any experience with databases? Development? System Design? Yeah, yeah, I do. I’ve got a degree on that. And that’s the stuff I did at University took 10 years to really come to fruition. But then I got my first job at Arcus global. Got my first job. I was very humble with the pay. So I wasn’t trained to go sky sky high. So I had no certs. I had 15 Trailhead badges. I did it purely for that experience. And I would recommend anyone do that exact same tactic don’t have the experience, because the pay will come later. You see all these articles, all these adverts about huge sells for salaries that takes time to get there. And just getting your foot in the door is way harder, only way more important. So I get my job Arcus. And in that in I was definitely nine months, which is incredibly short. But I was there for nine months. In that time, I’d accumulated 200 Trailhead badges and five certs. So in the nine months, I’d got my admin, I’d got app builder, I’d got Community Cloud, which is now experienced cloud. They’ve got sales and service consultant. So I was studying hard. And a lot of that actually came from impostor syndrome. Because I was in this I was in I was working amongst 100, Salesforce experts. And I just walked in because they thought this platform looked cool. So I wanted to feel like I can do this. And I belong to be here. And worked on some amazing projects, some complex projects and some really simple projects. And weirdly enough, the smallest simple the smallest project that I worked on is the one that I’m most proud of. So that’s about it. So I was working on the so I was working for local governments. That’s what arcs global do. And it was building out a customer portal for St. Albans Borough Council. So if you’re a resident in St. Albans for a council, you log into their resident website, you’re actually logging into Salesforce community. And at the time, if you had a Mr. Bean collection, or if you’re been just literally went missing, you had to log into, you have to log into a website, you had to go to their website and you had to fill out this form that may have I think, add 10 pieces of information that you had to fill out every single time
because it was in Salesforce because someone had to log in. And because they were logged in, we knew who they were when you were there lived. And we knew the most recent thing when you if it’s a black bin or blue bin or environment. So, because of that, if they were reporting to Mr. Bean collection, I already knew their last bin knew who they were and knew where they lived. And reduced that to two clicks of a button. They have to fill out didn’t have to fill anything in, they had to say, then they could either say, missed collection, or been gone missing. And it created a case that are to fill anything in, it was just all done. That’s actually one of my most proud moments. Because it’s so simple. It’s so small, but it affects 10s of 1000s of people. Absolutely. And it’s a quality of life improvement.
Pei Mun Lim 25:52
I’m sorry, I need to I need to interject here because because one of my so I came from a Microsoft background. And I went up the consulting path there. So I did the functional consultant, I did all roles except development, and became a project manager and program manager. And so I stayed in the partner ecosystem for a while and then moved over, nominated got a contract with Croydon council to do the program, so So when you say Miss bin collection, we had all those projects as well. So it was a whole program, mine was revamping the contact center for at Microsoft CRM at a time 2016 Around the same time as you doing stuff. And so I wasn’t in charge of the portal side, I was just in a contact center. You know, what, when, when the request came in for me span bulky waste collection, library house, getting on the housing ladder and stuff like that. So just that point. So we were building it in SharePoint, I think, and it was just insane, insane. But anyway, my pod project, kind of finish and then. So now when I look at my Borough Council, and I need to do a misprint collection, oh my word I’m swearing all the way through. And when I’m listening to you saying to clicks, that I just had to miss bin collection just not two weeks ago. They have to reconfirm everything, and then display with all my information yet again and say, Are you sure you live in this address, and I’m doing multiple clicks, and I’m sending screenshots to my all my neighbors saying they just rolled out a system, and I’m super angry. Now taking so much longer, so for you to reduce it to two clicks. That’s the That’s what new systems are meant to be. They’re meant to be so seamless and so invisible. That you don’t know that you just Oh, Miss blink, two clicks get on my life. That’s what, that’s what we should all be aiming for. And so now, thank you for that story. I can, you know, I totally agree that that’s probably one of the more successful ones.
Chris 28:24
It’s although I have. I’ve worked on some big projects. I’ve worked on some really expensive projects. But weirdly enough, that is still one of my favorites. Even though it was small, cheap, but it has a huge impact. Huge impact. Yeah, so that’s it. No, thank you for sharing, by the way. So I was there. I was at Arcus global for about nine months. And then one of the London based consultancies reached out to me and asked me if I’d like to join. And it was based in London and working in London had always been a fantasy of mine. It was a bit more money. It’s a lot more money. But the idea of working in London was really difficult to resist. Because I’m from Sheffield, and London just seemed like an alien place like a special place in London was the kind of place where I made an effort to visit as a little break is a little holiday. So the idea of working there. The idea of getting off at Blackfriars station, looking down the Thames and just seeing Tower Bridge in one direction and the And then I in the other direction just blew my mind to be able to do that day to day. So I accepted that job without hesitation. Unfortunately, the the culture at that company, and I’m not going to mention who they are. But anyone who can see my LinkedIn will know who I’m talking about company that I joined after ox global, the culture didn’t quite gel. So I come from a previous 10 years, I’ve worked in an environment where the the culture was, we’re all a family, we’re all in this together. And getting the work done, is the most important part. And when I moved to this other company, I felt that that was kind of slightly skewed, that I’m gonna say this, and I’m gonna preface with, I’m pretty sure this is all changed. Now. The culture at that point was, we need you sat at your desk, we need you to be satisfied a specific desk, and I’d been hot desking for about 10 years at that point. So that was an alien having to have a specific start and end time to work. That was incredibly alien concept to me. And it just felt very regimented have we value you sat at your desk more than we value the work that you’ve put in. And I felt very restricted. In previous companies where I’ve been given a 40 hour working week, with no end and no start to start with no starting anytime, I would probably put in somewhere between 50 and 60 hours, when needed. If I’m specifically told to start and end at a particular time of the day, I’m going to put in 40 hours a week, I’m not going to feel empowered to actually do the work that’s needed to be done. So that that was very difficult. And I’m, I’m sure they’ve changed because obviously, the COVID COVID changed everything really in terms of just work life balance. But it took me four days to realize that that that was a, an arrangement that I just couldn’t really deal with. So after four days, I started to look for other work. And which is actually more difficult than I expected. But it took me about a month. And I went to I went to an open evening to make positive and spoke with Mark Richards, the CEO. And I don’t know if it was a stupid idea or a genius idea. I was incredibly open with him. And I said, this is why I’m not happy. These are the things that I I’m looking for. This is why I want to change my life.
Unknown Speaker 33:27
And I had an email for an interview the following day.
Chris 33:35
I don’t think I even gave him a copy of my CV. The level of trust that happened there was was monumental. And yeah. And I, for me, I look for I look for family vibe. I look for the kind of environment where there is not a single person in the building here is out to get someone else that every single person is willing if they’ve got time and knowledge to help everyone else and not take single better credit. So I joined to make positive as soon as I could. And it just I felt like I was returning home. It was it’s such a bizarre feeling. Everything felt so familiar. Everyone was so friendly. And I got to work on some cool projects. I got to work oh gosh, how long was so for about? I think for about 18 months, I was a implementation consultant. Got to work on some cool stuff got to really increase my knowledge on flows. And just yet just do some good work. However, there’s always a however, As I mentioned earlier, I stumbled through my career, I don’t make calculated decisions, although you could argue that actually moving away from that previous company to make positive was a calculated decision. And one of the things, and God, I need to say this, I love the sales team that make positive. But one of the things that that frustrated me a little bit was the the projects being sold or the way they will be installed. The the, I didn’t necessarily agree with. So there was one project that I was working on, that was entirely covered. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to say who the customer is on this one. But the project where it was a car warranty service, so it would, someone would punch in some details about a car, it would go out to a warranty service and apply that warranty. And it was sold as pure developer. And remember this, the kickoff of that meeting was the day, I got back from Dreamforce 2018. So there’s already been an internal kickoff. And it was all developments. And I walked in just coming back from San Francisco. And I go, we could do this with flow. We could do this with flow, and a little bit of apex to do the integration. But we can do this with flow. And that’ll actually give the customer more control when we leave. Because if we build all this code, they’ve got to get a developer in to make any changes to it with flow, they can make all the changes they need. Now, it’s a little bowls, trying to change a project after it already started by a proposition. And then this is where my project management background came in. They said I could do it if the cost of the project was neutral. So I then pulled up the project plan and the resource plan and the cost of all the resources and worked with the actual project manager to rejigger it. So it was cost neutral, came in on the same time, different resources, but at the same scope. And we did it. And that taught me a lesson that I didn’t always agree that the way that the projects had been solved, and I thought that I could do a better job. Well, that sounds bad. That sounds really big head of the eight kids improve it. No, that’s that’s the same.
Pei Mun Lim 37:43
So what you mean, yeah, all sales for consulting partners. Every single sales team really need somebody from delivery to help themselves the project in order to set it up for success. So that’s what you and I agree on,
Chris 38:02
you don’t have to say, I totally get what you’re trying to put across here.
Pei Mun Lim 38:07
So you moved on to a pre sales role. pre sales.
Unknown Speaker 38:11
Yeah. And, for me, pre sales was really best and best of everything, best of everything that I’d done up to that point. Because I got to, I got to keep my hands dirty, because I had to make demos and proof of concepts for customers. I got to do the project management aspects were taught where I mentioned, understanding the customer, learning about a new customer, knowing the tools and system that we want to implement in being that bridge. And yeah, I got to do all of the sitting in meetings, talking to people. And I do I do enjoy. I don’t like enlisting meetings, but I do like meeting new people. I like learning about their business. And I also like Salesforce, and I like keeping my hands dirty with Salesforce as a platform. So it’s a perfect combination. And I did that until May 2021. And then in June 2022, I got my dream job, which is joining Salesforce, which didn’t come easy, because actually the one thing that I’ve not mentioned, and it’s really important to those trying to get into the ecosystem is that I first applied for Salesforce in 2017. And I’d been applying maybe three times every year since so I always knew that I wanted to get into Salesforce to the point that I actually the several people that make positive that that I told am never leaving make positive apart from one company and that yeah, I meant it, it was a case of the only reason I would ever leave make positive is if I get a job at Salesforce. And when when I called my boss up to give him the news, he knew he knew exactly where I was going. So yeah, then then I joined Salesforce after make positive, and it’s, it’s pretty much doing the same job from a slightly different angle, I’m still working with customers, I’m still understanding their business, trying to come up with a technical solution for that problems. But this time I am dealing with licenses rather than rather than selling project implementations. owns the Yeah, it’s it’s got that same sense of family. It’s got that same passion, everyone’s there to help each other. It’s just on a much, much bigger scale. And, yeah, it’s the lot of people can look at Salesforce. Salesforce is an ecosystem in Salesforce as a company. And it’s like, you got your own cartoon characters, what the hell, but it’s, every single person in this company has the values of a trailblazer that has the values of the Ohana, we are all one big family. And yeah, the 7000 people in this company, but my specific team, there’s 12 people, I work with 12 people. And that’s that is that in itself is is a tight knit unit. So I still feel like we’re we’re a little family, we just happen to be part of the bigger family.
Pei Mun Lim 42:00
Nice. Thank you for that. Let me um, you mentioned that it’s it was difficult for you to know, sorry, this morning. But you mentioned that anyone who wants to an ecosystem who wants to get a job at Salesforce should know this, that it wasn’t easy. And you had started applying 2017, you applied three times a year. What got you in? Was it the experience? What finally got you in?
Chris 42:31
I think it is equal parts experience, persistence, and luck. So I saw through the years, it’s so I think from the first three years of me applying, I didn’t get any response. And then in the past two years, I’d maybe get to a first stage interview or second or final stage interview. So this prompt, probably I was getting a lot. My Applications were being a bit more laser focused, I was able to actually hone in. But look has so much to do with that. I hate to say that because really, it should be a meritocracy. But look has a lot to do with it. And you know what? Yeah, no, I will say this. One of the ways in which I feel that I got lucky, I am a terrible interviewer. By the way, I am so nervous in interviews, that it’s just, I stumble over the words, I don’t know necessarily what to say I feel a lot nervous. So it’s a big risk for me anyway, the last time I unsuccessfully applied for Salesforce, they said that I didn’t look interested. And it’s because I’d taken some herbal remedy, not drugs, just to herbal remedy just to ease my train of nerves. And it just went the opposite direction. This time, I applied for a role. Then through some clerical error. It got split into two, two applications for two different departments that had a similar name. So I was going through two different interview processes. And I got to final stage interview for both. And because there were two chances, all of a sudden I was a little less stressed. I was a little more relaxed because well if one doesn’t go through, I’ve always got the other one. So for me, that was my that was my bit of luck, that I was able to just relax. And like I say I got to final stage for both of them. I’ve got enough for one and yeah, I accepted the offer and then actually Richard withdrew from Netherlands
Pei Mun Lim 45:03
are the processes the same?
Chris 45:06
Almost. So with the, with the one that I accepted, I had an interview with about three, four different people. And when I say it was four, and then there was a panel. And we the other one, I think I interview with two people and then a panel. Interestingly enough, the one with the four interviews prior to the panel, the panel went terribly. It went awful, it was pretty much canceled after five minutes. Because how, because of how nervous I was that because we because the previous interviews, those previous four, one on one sessions went so well. The ones to give me another another opportunity to kind of clawback my performance. And you know what I’m so glad I did, I’m so grateful that they gave me that opportunity. But in the panel that didn’t go well. I was wearing a suit, I was wearing a tie. I was here on camera, I was wearing a suit. And it was just you know, I’ll wear suits, fine. But it’s not necessarily a comfort zone. So when I read that, that panel, best bit of advice was just relax and pretend that you’re just having a conversation with some friends in the pub. Best advice I was ever given actually. The second thing I did for that the time when for the second go around was a while this wasn’t wearing suits, I was being meat. Because this is meat. So I was allowed to just represent myself, I threw in lots of jokes. And I was just meat. I wasn’t trying to be a polite version of me. I was just me. So that obviously helped that the huge look in having two applications and be given a second chance to do that panel. That’s the look I needed to actually get in.
Pei Mun Lim 47:23
Wow. Listening to you, and I’m feeling like a roller coaster. You know what, what happened next? And that’s that’s really an amazing story. Thank you so much for sharing that. So is this dream job? Everything you had fantasize that to be?
Chris 47:45
It’s the boring answer is yes. It’s there’s I, whenever I see my whenever I see my email address, and I know this sounds so silly and so small, but whenever I see my email address, I just smile. I smile at the fact that I’ve gotten@salesforce.com email address. I smile at the fact that I’m working with some truly amazing people. And I’m part of this ecosystem. And sure, there’s certain things that I’m because I’m an employee, I’m now a second class citizen when it comes to free stuff, and swag. But I feel so honored to be representing. And I do feel like I’m representing an amazing platform and an amazing movement. It’s I’m sure there are people watching or listening to this rolling their eyes so much that the eyeballs are pointing the wrong way. But I just have drank the Kool Aid, and I believe in it. And that’s why I’m so happy to be here. And it’s the kind of company that I assuming nothing happens. I want to retire from this company. And I want to try different areas of the company or I want to make an impact. It’s the company that I never see myself leaving. So it’s my dream job. Not only my dream job but my dream company.
Pei Mun Lim 49:21
Wow. On that note, sorry, I’m just gonna eat Jake’s a friend of mine was also going through the whole recruitment process and I was on tenterhooks waiting to hear in the next message was my next email to you will have salesforce.com And I so you know I got it when you said how it makes you smile, because this is an amazing company, all the stuff that Marc Benioff is doing. This makes you proud to be part of absolutely, I mean like that. So, on that note, I want to be very respectful of your time. Thank you so much.
Unknown Speaker 49:56
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Pei Mun Lim 49:58
I appreciate that, too. Did you learn about your journey your learning throughout the way and also how you entered the job of your dreams? I think a lot of the audience will totally appreciate that little nugget about being yourself and and how luck does play a role in not to get disheartened to hear that you’ve been applying to 2017 I think would really, really help someone’s confidence. I think we’re gonna get knocked down and they don’t hear from the interview. So I appreciate this. Thank you so much for taking the time, Chris. I appreciate it. Thank you.