“Life is busy.” “I don’t have enough education.” “There’s too much competition in tech.” “I should just stick with what I know.”
These are all excuses that Zac Otero could have used a few years ago, as a high-school dropout working ten-hour days in a factory to support a family.
But he didn’t. And because of that, he works today as a Salesforce admin at BKD, LLP, one of the United States’ CPA and advisory firms. Salesforce is a company that trains admins, developers, business analysts, and so on, democratizing education through resources like their free online learning platform Trailhead. Those resources are what Otero used to transform his own life and career.
Today, I’m talking with Otero about his remarkable story and how his resourcefulness and tenacity got him here against all odds.
Bradford: Could you just introduce yourself and share more about your background real quick?
Otero: Yeah, absolutely. I’m Zac Otero, I’m a self taught Salesforce admin, I made the decision a few years back to pursue Salesforce as a career change. I’ve been a full-time admin for about two years now. It’s been kind of a crazy ride.
Bradford: For sure–you dropped out of high school when you were 16 years old?
Otero: I never finished high school. I was homeschooled the entire way–I never went to public school a day in my life. I dropped out when I was 16, started on my first job the day after my 16th birthday, and have worked ever since.
Bradford: So job-wise, what were you doing before you discovered Salesforce, tech, and whatnot?
Otero: I was working as a machine operator. I worked in a meat processing plant that was actually underground. They housed it in a manmade cave because it was a controlled environment, it stayed 55 degrees year round. So I worked 200 feet underground operating a machine that cut deli meat. I did that for about four years, then worked as a machine operator elsewhere for another three years–so seven total.
Bradford: How did you discover Salesforce during that time?
Otero: My wife’s cousin was moving to San Antonio for a job. I knew he was in a similar situation to mine, where he had no college education and had been homeschooled the entire way through school the same way I had. I was curious enough to ask him what he was doing. Turned out he was a Salesforce developer, and he was nice enough to fill me in on all the information around Salesforce, about getting certified, how to get started online.
Bradford: Did you get started online with Trailhead, then?
Otero: When I first started, it was actually before Trailhead. I was studying and learning during that transition when Trailhead came online. Before Trailhead, there were some ebooks, some workbooks–the content was out there but a lot less structured and engaging. So that’s where Trailhead flipped the coin on that.
Bradford: But you decided to go for it.
Otero: I decided to pursue it. I was working ten-hour days six days a week, and I was listening to podcasts, listening to a lot of training materials while I was at work. I would sneak my headphones into one of my ears and turn all those brain-off hours in the day into brain-on hours, studying, memorizing, and doing all these things learning Salesforce. I wasn’t on a computer, I wasn’t online, I was just a little resourceful. Sometimes it was a challenge when I was listening to all this information in my ear, but I couldn’t really see it.
Bradford: Did you end up incorporating that computer aspect later on in your learning?
Otero: I would study at night when I could, I had a very old desktop computer that could literally barely handle the browser. I would suffer through the laggy connection and the terrible processing power of this ancient computer, and get on Salesforce. You can get into Salesforce and look around, look at the features, get oriented a little bit.
Bradford: It sounds like you were very, very motivated to learn Salesforce and switch into tech. What was powering that motivation?
Otero: It was a series of things in the right order. My wife and I were married in 2008 in the middle of the recession. Going back to school was not really on the table; we were lucky to have jobs back then. But I really wanted to do something more than just factory work. I had kind of fallen into factory work as a safety through that turbulent time, because it was steady, but I really wanted to have a little bit more control over my career trajectory and have something I could grow into. I also had my son in 2013 and these things tend to be a little sobering when you start to have kids and think about your life insurance, your health insurance, and all these things.
Bradford: Let’s talk about how you made the actual jump into your first tech job.
Otero: In 2015, the factory I worked at was actually closing down, and we had a sixty day notice. It was a wake up call when the factory closed right out from underneath us and it drove it home that if I stayed in that industry, that could happen again at any given time. So that was a big motivation. In that sixty days is when I actually passed my admin certification, and four months later I started as an admin full time.
Bradford: How did you land the position–did you cold-apply or have a connection?
Otero: I got it through the Salesforce community. I actually burned up all my sick days at my factory position going to the Salesforce User Group–I would leave for the day, then go home, put my suit on, and go to Salesforce User Group and meet people and network. I met a woman at User Group and we started talking. Then her admin put in his notice, and she called me first thing because she knew I was in town and working on getting certified at that point. I had my resume on her desk before the job was even posted.
Bradford: That’s great. I always tell people the same thing, the importance of networking and building connections in the different tech communities. Had you done any sort of tech work prior to getting that job?
Otero: Actually, what I would call my first tech job was a volunteer position at a nonprofit that used Salesforce. Their admin was actually the leader of my local Salesforce user group. It was just a research position–I didn’t really have hands on their Salesforce order or anything–but it was something I could put on my resume as somewhere between machine operator and admin.
Bradford: To get the timeline clarified, how long was it from when you first started learning all this stuff about Salesforce until you got your first job as a Salesforce admin?
Otero: I started in February 2014, and I started my first job–my present position–in July 2015. So it was 17 months. Around 12 months in was when I got my first certification.
Bradford: That’s really impressive. It’s a really awesome story, because I talk to so many people who feel really discouraged and like they can’t possibly transition into tech. Do you have any advice for others that are coming from a similar career background, unrelated to tech, on how they can get started?
Otero: Brace yourself and dig in. You have to be motivated, you really have to want it, and you have to want it pretty bad. It’s not impossible–I’m living proof that it’s possible. I like to quote Henry Rollins: “I don’t have talent, I have tenacity.” Those are words I live by. I may not have a natural ability, but I can learn. I’m resourceful, I can find out where to go to find the answers. It’s kind of like starting a fitness regimen or saving for retirement: you can’t make tomorrow better by not doing anything today. You have to start somewhere and you have to keep going.
Source: How Zac Otero Went From A High-School Dropout To Salesforce Administrator