My Certification Journey

While I was studying for a few certifications, I read a lot of Salesforce blogs, and I found them super helpful. I thought I’d chip in and give some thoughts on certification and the studying that goes with it.

Great bloggers:

• Jenwlee’s Salesforce Blog
• SFDC99 
• Salesforce Ben
• Merivis Blog
• Shell Black 

Administrator

My boss said we had some extra money in our budget for training and asked if I wanted to take an exam. I said yes and studied for the Admin exam. I had been working with Salesforce for several months at the time. I did the premier training course called Administration Essentials for New Admins. I did all the exercises in a test org. I got to know Rob the admin real well. I think this was one was the hardest for me since I had the least experience at the time, but I passed and that was super cool. I felt really accomplished even though my family had no idea what certifications were.

Force.com Developer

I found the developer exam more logic-based than the Admin one, which seemed more about memorising concepts. For this one, I was lucky enough to take the instructor led course with the amazing Simon Connock in Staines, UK. Simon was a great instructor and we covered pretty much everything on the exam in the 5 day course. I took the exam a couple of weeks after the course, so I wouldn’t forget the material.

Advanced Administrator, Plaform App Builder, Service Cloud Consultant, Sales Cloud Consultant

I got really motivated to take a lot of exams so I studied and took these ones over the course of a couple of months. I followed the same steps to study for all of them:

• Print out the study guide and read it very closely.
• Do all of the online courses recommended in the study guide. I was a little OCD with this and took screenshots of all of the slides that I thought were worth reading again. Then I printed out all of my screenshots. You definitely do not have to print everything. I’m really anti-printing in general, but I found annotating with pen and highlighter helpful.
• Read all of the recommended resources in the study guide. The implementation guides go into a huge amount of detail so I skimmed a lot of these to get the big picture. If you ever implement things later, you can read the guides again in much more detail.
• If there’s concepts that you don’t feel you really understand, do a google search or find more resources in the help and training on Salesforce.
• For the Sales Cloud Consultant exam, I found Shell Black’s videos super helpful. He explains sales concepts in a very straightforward way. He does all of his visuals on a whiteboard, which is I found refreshing.
• Use flashcards on Quizlet to learn key concepts, but take all of these with a grain of salt since they’re not official Salesforce material and are often inaccurate.
• Study with a friend or colleague, it makes studying more engaging. My friend, Emma, and I studied together while eating ice cream. If you don’t have anyone to study with, find your local Salesforce user group and find a study buddy.
• Take the exams on a Monday morning (if you work Monday-Friday) so that you can have had the weekend to study and sleep.
• Imagine yourself passing.
• Write a nice comment in the feedback before you get before you get your results. I read this on someone’s blog and did it every time after.
• I passed all of my exams on the first try, which was a relief.
• David Liu recommended buying yourself a gift as a reward for passing, so I got myself a Danish wooden monkey.

Is it worth it to get certified? 

For me, it’s helped me find jobs, but it’s mostly been good for my confidence. I got my degree in creative writing and didn’t start working in tech until I was a few years out of university. Getting certifications made me feel more “qualified,” even though I probably already was.