How To Pass Your Salesforce Certified Admin Exam
Prepping for your Salesforce Certified Administrator exam? I’ve been there; and I remember the wary feelings of wondering if I was doing enough to study or if I was focused on the right things.
I reasoned that as an accidental admin, I wanted a certification to vouch for the years of implementation and behind-the-scenes work I was doing on our org. As a solo accidental admin, not many of my colleagues understood what went in to keeping an org up and running. I wanted the credential to prove I knew my way around the backend of Salesforce.
The certification exam is a 60-question, multiple choice test taken in 90 minutes. It is reminiscent of your high school or college final exams. The good news then, is you can study for not only the content on the exam, but how to take an exam like this.
These are the steps I took when I tackled this certification. After creating a study plan following these tips, I was able to pass within my first try. I hope you’ll see the same success!
First: Determine How You Learn
You’ll notice that when you tell others you’re preparing for this exam, they’ll tell you all their tips and tricks for passing. Everyone will also have an opinion of “how hard” or “how easy” the exam was. These opinions are all great, but might not be the best mix of tips or a gauge of how “hard” or “easy” the exam will be for you.
The first step is to consider how you learn. Do you have a history of being a good test taker? Do you tend to need hands on experience to learn or prefer reading? How much time do you need to master material? Do you like a classroom environment or prefer self-paced learning?
The second thing to consider is your Salesforce experience and access. If you’ve worked in the ecosystem for years, it’s safe to say the test will be a bit easier for you. If you’re brand new, maybe not so much. Most recommend working hands-on in an org for at least six months before taking your exam (I worked in it for two years).
You should also consider your level of access. The admin exam covers the basic clouds and their administration. Review the exam guide and determine what areas your org doesn’t cover and make note to spend more study time in those areas.
Knowing where you stand with your current knowledge and what tools you have access to will help you build a study plan that is tailored to where you are today.
Second: Select the Tools
There are a lot of tools out there for those looking to study for the exam. The question is, which ones are best? This run-down should help you discover the tools that you should focus on and those you might consider leaving behind.
Trailhead Trailmix: Prepare for Your Salesforce Administrator Credential
Trailhead should be 100%, absolutely, your guiding light for studying. It allows you to get hands-on experience in a sample org to work through key functionality that you’ll need to know on the exam. You will also learn how to troubleshoot issues, become more familiar with how Salesforce is built, and what the best practices are. Plus, you’ll be able to dive in to aspects of Salesforce you might not use in your production org. This trailmix will help you guide your studying and focus on the areas you need the most work on.
Salesforce’s Certification Days
Certain times of the year, Salesforce offers free certification day seminars. These are full-day online webinars with an instructor who will walk through each part of the exam and highlight key information. Looking back, I found the notes I took on this day to be the most similar to the content on the exam. There were direct questions from this content.
If the scheduling works out, I think it’s best to sign up for one of these days 2–3 months prior to your exam date. You should know roughly 50% of the material — although the more you know the more you’ll get out of it.
Find current free certification days using “salesforce certification days” in Google or follow the community.
Focus On Force Practice Exams
I recommend spending the $20 for this set of six practice exams. These practice tests give you experience with the type of questions you’ll face and a general idea of how to determine the right answer. They’ll also help you measure your progress by section, so if you’re scoring high in User Setup, but low in Security, you know you can focus more on Security with your remaining study time.
I suggest purchasing these 1–2 months prior to your exam. You should have studied about 80% of the material and feel ready to take your first practice test to get a benchmark of where you’re at. Then, you can use those results to finish your studying. In the last few weeks leading up to your exam, take the remaining five tests and review the answers you get wrong.
Mike Wheeler’s Courses On Udemy
I think these classes are optional. I purchased them based on an overwhelming number of people recommending them for studying, but they didn’t help my performance like Trailhead and Focus On Force did.
However, if you are the kind of learner that needs to be demo-ed the material or likes to follow along while listening, this is a great option for you. Mike does a good job of walking through the content of the exam and troubleshooting real-time issues or pointing out additional tips.
***A quick note on what NOT to use*** Beware of flashcard sets or old, free practice exams. Many flashcard sets you find on sites like Quizlet may seem helpful, but they contain way too many cards to ever go through effectively. You also want to be careful you’re not studying any old material — which can be a risk with anything that’s free online or dated. You know by now that Salesforce updates its org three times a year. Even if the information is only a year old, that might be a few iterations too far back to be relevant to the exam you’ll take.
Third: Best practices during exam
Know The Solutions Salesforce Promotes
When you go through your study plan, regardless of the tools you choose to use, pay attention to the best practices that Salesforce promotes. These can change over time (another reason to be cognizant of using up-to-date study materials). For example, there’s a lot of push for permission sets to replace profile permissions in the future — so on the exam, it was more likely that the best answers related to permission sets than other options.
Read The Exam Twice
I like to rush and consider myself a good test taker. I hate checking my work. However, this is an exam you’ll need to read through twice. On your second pass, you’ll catch wording that you may have missed or have a fresh take on a question that stumped you earlier. The test does have a feature where you can mark questions to come back to, this is nice, but it’s important to read every question twice.
“When In Doubt, Flatter Salesforce.”
A good piece of advice from Salesforce Ben, tells you to flatter Salesforce whenever possible. There will never be a question where you go outside the org to purchase or build a new product; always select an out the box solution or one from the App Exchange platform. Another set of questions could be numerical, like How many days does the Recycle Bin hold data? Chances are, it’s the higher of the set of numbers, not the lowest. Salesforce wouldn’t write an exam that makes their software seem inferior to other solutions.
So, Will I Pass?
It can be an easy exam…and it can be a hard exam. What will determine that is the level of effort you put in for preparing for it based on what you need to be successful. Take time to determine what you need to master the material, then build a study plan using tools that advance your understanding.
When you show up for the test, take deep breaths and feel confident in knowing that if you put in the effort, it’s very likely you will succeed! Nothing feels better than walking back from the exam room knowing you are now a Certified Salesforce Professional!!!
