How to pass your Salesforce Certified Administrator exam in 64 days!
Between starting my Salesforce journey and completing my first Trailhead module in earnest, to passing my Salesforce Certified Admin exam was a relatively small 64 days in total. Some 100 hours of study, 114 Trailhead badges, 73,000 Trailhead points, and more cups of coffee than I can count later I joined the ranks of officially certified Salesforce Admins.This is how you can do it.
Step #1 - Start learning the content and set a goal (with a reward).
For most people starting their Salesforce Admin journey they’ll have little experience with managing the platform. Some will have end user experience (this will help!) but others like myself come to the platform with no prior knowledge. Time to start learning. Salesforce makes this step easy - providing guided study materials specifically tailored to the topics of the exam. Start with this Trailmix. I find it important to set myself a goal to work towards. This gives you something to be accountable with. Personally I set a 3 month time frame, and a target of at least one hour of study every day. I created a spreadsheet to monitor my progress and had it shared with my partner so that they could hold me accountable.
Heres that spreadsheet!
If you're someone who feels like you are a good test taker - aim for 80-100 hours, if you are someone who feels like you aren't consider aiming for 100-120 hours of study in total.With any big goal (like this one) I think its important to give yourself a reward upon completion also. I chose a watch I’d had my eye on for a long time as an idea that cost about as much as the certificate.
While you’re studying for the exam you’ll most likely come across ‘Salesforce Admin Courses’ in the wild. These are typically paid courses and for some people will be a great fit. However, there are some things to consider.These paid courses are typically between $2000-3000AUD ($1500-2250USD), which in comparison to your certificate is a much higher initial investment. Typically they last for 12+ week and include a voucher for the Salesforce Certified Admin exam. Course depending they also provide industry experience, a group project, and further support.I think for people new to tech, or how find self paced learning a challenge this is a fantastic option.
I chose to set aside that same amount of money and will use to fund multiple certificates. Salesforce exams are $200, with retakes being $100. For the same cost as one course you could become 5x certified after having failed every exam at least once - and for me that feels like the better option.There are two schools of thought for passing exams - memorisation, and learning. We’ll use both - but for now we start with learning so that we have a framework to add to down the track. Upon first look this is overwhelming - but don’t panic. Take your time. Slow it down. Don’t rush through the modules! This is where the bulk of your knowledge comes from. If you need to take a break - go for it. I’m a big fan of using the Pomodoro technique here, taking small breaks frequently to keep me on track.
Step #2 - Understanding the exam structure.
By now you’re starting to understand the Salesforce system and getting to learn about different parts about what you can do as an Admin. Next step? Starting to understand the exam structure so you can tailor your studying to be as effective as possible. Salesforce exams for the most part follow the same structure - a 65 question multiple choice exam, with a 65% passing rate in 105 minutes. Salesforce also releases exam guides that give the subjects and weighting for each topic covered in the exam. The Admin exam guide is found here. Spend your time prioritising the sections with the heavier weightings - but make sure you’re familiar with all of the topics regardless of their weighting (looking at you Productivity and Collaboration at 7%).
Step #3 - Prepping for the exam.
I touched on the memorisation vs learning topic before, and this is when we start to expand upon it. I follow David Liu SFDC99s Certification Method as described here. Embrace failure and take the exams online to use it to your advantage! For exam prep I used almost every source available to me. The Trailhead free and paid practice exams are good, and give you some similar questions to the actual exam. The multiple Udemy courses out there for practice exams I found are comparatively a lot easier to the actual exam and as such won’t be purchasing them for my next certificate. Salesforce Ben is good (and free!) also. Above all else I found that Focus on Force was the best option for the way I revised. Their study guides are dense (and honestly I found it hard to pay attention because of this), but their exams accurately mirror the difficulty of the questions on the actual test. I spent a LOT of my prepping time with the Focus on Force practice exams. I found them beneficial as they allow you to focus on the areas you are weakest on, and provide in depth answers for each questions and further links to look at. With anything that you use to prep make sure you don’t fall into the habit of remembering the answers to the questions. I found it helpful to slow myself down and answer internally why each options was right or wrong to cement my own knowledge. The other resource I highly recommend is the Salesforce ‘Who Sees What’ series on YouTube - watch this, and watch it again. This will tell you all you need to know about how security is handled within Salesforce.
Once you are feeling confident with your progress take the exam - good luck! Embrace failure if it happens and try again next time. Enjoy that reward when you get there.
Tag me in your LinkedIn post when you get certified and I promise I'll be there to support your wins!
Looking forward to seeing your certificate.
See you on the Trail.
