Do I need to do a CRM course to get into office work?

[Helen Back]

I'm trying to get back into office-based work after being in retail for a long time and I'm not having much luck with job applications. I see a lot of firms ask for experience on CRM systems. If I have no CRM experience is this what's holding me back? If so, what can I do about it?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

CRMs are used quite a lot these days but not by any means in every job - it would depend on the sector and role.

It’s hard to do much about experience. You could pick a common one and do some online training for it. I couldn’t tell you what the best one to pick would be as I don’t use one in _my_ office job but I’d guess the sector would influence which to choose.

 

[Pickman's model]

I've always found ability to use common Microsoft packages sufficient, word, excel, outlook...

 

[Idaho]

CRM systems are really just glorified address books with extra info related to sales and other activity. They are usually easy to use, so don't be daunted. I'd recommend going on to you tube and watching some beginner vids on a few of them. Then you can truthfully say that you are familiar with them on the application.

 

[RubyToogood]

Bit of voluntary work? That would do it.

 

[Badgers]

Often you can get a week or month free trial on Web based CRMs without any cards/commitment needed.

Most have 'how to' tutorials videos and such.

Try this one for 21 days and play around with it

Register | OnePageCRM

 

[Puddy_Tat]

never done CRM stuff myself, although not sure i've ever tried for a job asking for it.

As Pickman's model said, the standard 'office' programs are likely to be worth knowing your way round - and if you've got either one of the open source alternatives or an ancient version of MS office at home, you may have difficulties with the latest versions. i did one job assessment a few years back where i was asked to do a sparkline in excel. (i've no idea what one is, and still haven't bothered to find out)

If you've been away from office work for any length of time, may be worth trying to do a refresher course or something

 

[Helen Back]

Thank you everyone, I feel less stressed about it now. And thanks, Badgers, I'll have a look at that OnePage thing. Cheers.

 

[2hats]

i was asked to do a sparkline in excel. (i've no idea what one is, and still haven't bothered to find out)

Tufte’s simple, compact, in-line line charts that provide a feel for the trend in a given dataset eg

I have occasion to suffer Microsoft Dynamics (CRM). It is essentially a third rate, web based, barely interactive, addressbook come spreadsheet. Slow, ponderous, fugly, counter-intuitive to use; it is a steaming pile of horseshit. (I maximise my sanity by minimising interaction to exporting all the data, wrangling, processing, visualising it in Python, then shoving it back in when done.)

 

[moose]

Salesforce is one of the most popular, because it integrates with so many applications and the Office suite. If you're on LinkedIn, you can sign up for a month's free trial access to their training, including quite a lot on Salesforce. Learn Salesforce: Online Courses, Training, Tutorials, Videos - 2019