We will cover the Salesforce exam topic more deeply in Chapter 12. Here, I will only highlight the most important topics related to the Salesforce exams in general:
- There are more than 20 Salesforce-related certificate types on the market now
Yes, some people have them all. No, more does not mean better.
- The exams are multiselect tests
The exception is the Salesforce Associate Certification, which is currently not multiselect.
- The passing score may differ but is generally around 65%
You should know that some topics require a higher score than others as their wages are higher.
- You may do the test online at home or offline in one of the exam centers
As the exam centers may not be available in your area, you may always take the online exam. The online exams are proctored, so this means that you will be assisted and monitored by a proctor through a webcam.
- There are official test questions provided by Salesforce
Currently, test questions are available only for Admin and Email Specialists. You can buy these official test questions to prepare yourself for those exams.
- If your native language is not English, you may ask Salesforce to increase the time you will need to deal with the exam
You will get additional time if you are taking an exam in English and your native language is not English. To get additional time, you need to contact Salesforce support before the exam.
- To get some certificates, you may need to achieve other certs as some are prerequisites for other exams
For example, you need to be a Certified Administrator to be able to get an Advance Administrator certificate.
- There is a clear path that you can follow to become a Salesforce Certified Technical Architect, the top of the top roles in the Salesforce ecosystem
Some Salesforce certs are bound together and passing them all will ultimately give you the title of Application Architect and/or System Architect, which opens the door to becoming a Salesforce CTA – a Certified Technical Architect. The paths are known. Just follow the steps.
As I mentioned already, the Salesforce Certified Administrator exam will be covered in detail in another part of this book, so I would like to mention only that the Admin exam was, up until some time ago, the first exam that opened the doors to the Salesforce cert world. But as the exam scope is quite big and it’s better to be at least a Salesforce user on a daily basis to pass this exam, Salesforce some time ago introduced an easier exam called the Salesforce Certified Associate. Salesforce just recognized that it’s hard for Salesforce newbies to prepare for the Admin exam and start their careers without having at least a few months experience on the platform using Salesforce in the current work. The Salesforce Certified Associate is dedicated to Salesforce beginners with around three months’ experience on the platform, while the Admin cert is recommended to people with around six months’ Salesforce experience. The first three exams we recommend doing to jumpstart your Salesforce career are as follows:
- Salesforce Certified Associate
- Salesforce Certified Administrator
- Salesforce Platform App Builder