Salesforce Admin Certification: why and how to get certified?


Being THE Salesforce Administrator in your company is the best thing you can do for your career! You will be the champion when it comes to maintaining the best level of productivity for the company and making them run at its peak efficiency.

Your job will be to ensure every business process is working fine and is automated while creating essential reports and dashboards to make the users and your team understand completely how everything operates.

But you must be asking yourself, does this job require a certification? that’s what I will try to explain to you and most importantly, I will show you how to get this certification and the requirements for it.

Why should I get a Salesforce Admin certification?

I should start this by saying that getting any certification, and especially a Salesforce one, will not only be proof to yourself of your hard work but also to your company, so you can get all the acknowledgment you deserve, and also gain the knowledge and skills you need to succeed as a Salesforce Admin.

This certification will also give you a more in-depth understanding of the platform, with all its hidden gems.

This will give you a head on your coworkers, as you will become the provider of new values to the company, which will also benefit from your knowledge to increase their insight into sales and customer relations in general.

It should be noted also that the platform is constantly developing, and whatever the years of experience you have, you will always need to be updated on any new features and learn about every new tool, that might even change your career path.

Exam content and details

This exam is designed for anyone who already has some experience as a Salesforce administrator, but wants to gain that expert title.

It will consist of 60 multiple-choice questions, to complete in 90 minutes. That shouldn’t make you believe that the exam is easy, because it has a 65% pass mark, without access to any resources throughout the test. It’s bringing school memories, right?

For the content, Salesforce official website has determined the following:

  • Organization setup – 2%
  • User setup – 7%
  • Security and access – 14%
  • Standard and custom objects – 15%Sales and marketing applications – 15%
  • Service and support applications – 12%
  • Activity management and collaboration – 3%
  • Data management – 8%
  • Analytics – 10%
  • Workflow/process automation – 12%
  • Desktop and mobile administration – 1%
  • AppExchange – 1%

How to prepare for the exam

Since this exam is designed to assess your knowledge and work experience in the above areas, it is recommended that you take on the role of a Salesforce administrator and study all recommended resources.

So, the following will guide you in your preparation process, and of course provide you with all the necessary resources and pieces of advice.

Which course to study? 

Udemy | Salesforce Certified Administrator Training by Francis Pindar 

This course is the best seller on the Udemy platform. If you’re a beginner and never even logged into the Salesforce platform, just rest assured, this course is for you. 

This course will first guide you into creating your free Salesforce account and exploring it to get familiar with all its services and options. 

The course will then explain in detail the process automation, security & reporting functionality within Salesforce, which will help you to understand its two clouds (Sales & Marketing and Support Cloud), and then its Data Management.

The lectures are normally between 10 to 15 minutes long, that were made by a professional that has many awards in the field and more than 10 years of experience.

Course Link - Salesforce Certified Administrator 201: Certification Course | Udemy  

Which practice exams?

Udemy | Salesforce Certified Administrator Practice Tests - 3 Pack! by Mike Wheeler

With this course, you will have 3 practice exams, each timed at 90 minutes and will test your knowledge, so you can practice and also know your lower points and learn from your mistakes, as these questions are thoroughly made and crafted.

Thanks to this course, you will certainly pass your exam on your first attempt, as it is based on the official Exam Guide from the Salesforce website, and combines all the 7 Knowledge Areas.

You should also be aware that after taking these practice exams, you will receive your total final score and Section Level Feedback, so you can directly locate your problems and know what to improve.

Course Link - Salesforce Administrator Certification Practice Exam Tests | Udemy 

Salesforce admin certification exam registration: How to register for the exam?

Well, now that you’ve prepared everything and practiced, and you feel ready to pass your exam, you’re probably asking yourself how to even register for the exam.

In this section, I will guide you into this new step, so you won’t miss out on any important procedures, and you won’t get any future problems:

  1. 1

    Before anything else, you have to create an account at webassessor. It’s like creating a user to identify yourself and enter all the needed details to be considered as a candidate for any Salesforce certification of your choice.

    Your unique user ID will log you into webassessor and give you access to your salesforce certification data.

  2. 2

    After making your account and filling in all the necessary information, you will see a link that will help you register for a new exam.

    By doing this, you will be illegible for many salesforce certifications that you have to choose from. It’s important in this step to check all the requirements, from exam codes to the language of the instructions, to not get anything confused.

  3. 3

    The salesforce certification exams are very high availability compared to other exams, as it gives you the option to pass it either online or on-site, whatever you feel more comfortable with.

    This step is mainly to fix all the exam information, such as to fix the date and time, and also whether you want to pass the exam online or on-site.

  4. 4

    And finally, comes, of course, the payment step, as you know after choosing everything you want you just have to pay the certification fee. Whether you have a debit or a credit card, it doesn’t matter.

    And after it, you are considered officially registered for the Salesforce Admin Certification.

Before doing any of the steps above, I would like to give you a few pieces of advice, to not face any problems while filling in the important forms:

  • Make sure to have a valid credit or debit card, that allows international transactions.

    This can be done by contacting your bank and requesting to enable this option. And it would be better to have the full amount in your account to avoid any failed registration.

  • When registering, it’s better to use a proper email address, to avoid additional and unnecessarily tricky steps, such as creating a new email ID, which will take a lot of your time.

  • If you chose the online option, you have to make sure you have a strong internet connection, that won’t suddenly interrupt you while you are working. Also, having a proper device like a laptop is very important, so you can have a seamless and stress-free examination.

  • But if you choose the on-site option, you must be physically present in the registered examination center. You have, in this case, to carry at least two identity proofs, after asking the center which identity proof is accepted in the examination hall. 

How to find Salesforce Admin jobs?

As I already said, the job market has been really in the need of database administrators, especially Salesforce administrators, as a study was done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that stated an expected grow up to 11% of the demands through 2026.

This increase is to be expected, as Salesforce administrators play an undeniable role in executing successful missions and businesses, that have increased the opportunities of the position. Forbes has stated also that Salesforce administrators can take any firm to the next level.

So, now that you got the certification, how can you apply for a Salesforce Admin job?

The problem with job hunting nowadays is when you lack experience. The job market has been pretty harsh on candidates with little to no experience, even if we all start from somewhere and need opportunities to build those experiences.

But thankfully, a certification in this field can be of big help to get more offers than those with no certification.

I will now give you some tips to get started with your job hunt:

  • You can learn from other people’s experiences, so you can know what to do and what to avoid to not get into some problems that other people can mostly get into.

    There is the term “Trailblazer” that Salesforce made up a few years ago, and by searching it on YouTube or other social media accounts, you can view and explore some stories of past experiences of Salesforce specialists.
  • You can try and join a Salesforce Network as they are mostly organizations focused on community needs. You can visit Trailblazer Community Groups, and see if there are some groups you can join that are near you, and why not join them at their next meeting? 
  • You can also apply for internships, that’s one of the best career paths you can choose from to directly enter a job field. This will give you the experience you need to land a great job, and are sometimes much easier to find than an actual job.
  • After the pandemic, we’ve seen a lot of emergence of freelancing offers. That would be a very good start to gain experience and also be your boss, which is a more comfortable approach and can lead to a good business.

    There are various websites where you can find multiple offers for remote Salesforce jobs. There are even organizations and firms that are looking to work with freelancers instead of having a full-time employees.

After following the following pieces of advice, you will certainly obtain much-needed hands-on experience and networking opportunities that will help you start your career on a good step.

FAQ

How do I become a certified Salesforce administrator?

To make it short for you, i will divide it into 3 simple steps:

  1. Gain some experience. It can be by applying for courses (see the one I added above), applying for internships, or joining your local Salesforce communities to get more information about the process and what to do and avoid.

  2. Pass your Salesforce Administrator Exam. This will make a very eligible candidate for the job in the eye of the employer, and also open up big gates to your dream job.

  3. Apply for Salesforce Jobs. Search up job offers or ask your connections, it doesn’t matter the way you do it, but keep a close eye on every offer to not miss out on anything.

Is Salesforce admin certification hard?

Everything is difficult if you don’t prepare for it. If you practice and follow all your lessons in your courses, you won’t find it difficult to pass the exam and have your certification on your first try.

All you have to do in any certification exam is to be well-trained and practice till you are SURE of your abilities.

Is Salesforce Admin certification worth it?

Of course, even with no certification, you can land a job, but it won’t be the same with it. This will guarantee you get your ideal job, as organizations are demanding more and more Salesforce-certified professionals.

So, to be short, the certification will help you get into your dream job and position in no time, compared to not having it.

Is Salesforce admin certification free?

Certifications of this importance are of course not free, especially the Salesforce ones. If you check the official Salesforce website, you will see that their certification normally starts at $200 + your local taxes. And in case you want to retake your certification after a failed attempt, you will be charged $100 + VAT.

Of course, if you follow the pieces of advice and applied to the courses I gave you, I’m sure you will succeed on your first try.

Does Salesforce admin require coding?

A Salesforce admin doesn’t need to have a piece of prior coding knowledge or experience to do his job, because they will be working within a team, that already has developers and consultants that will take the coding part of the job.

The Salesforce admin’s job is more into the business and the decision-making process while guiding his team and making sure everything is fine.

Can I get a job as a Salesforce admin without experience?

As I said before, it’s not impossible to get a job as a Salesforce admin with no experience, but it will be so difficult and not what you look for. This field is so on-demand and the competition is pretty hard.

So, to be chosen among all the other excellent candidates, having a certification and good experience will get you right above them.

About the author

Youssef

Youssef is a Senior Cloud Consultant & Founder of ITCertificate.org

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