Today I’m going to be talking about how I’m going to prepare for the advanced admin certification offered by salesforce.
So this is a certification that I have tested for it once and failed the exam. I failed it by probably one question which is kind of annoying.
Although I thought it was a good opportunity to talk about my process studying and getting a salesforce certification.
Learn by teaching
One thing that really solidifies knowledge for me is writing it down or putting it in a video. If I can teach it, I know it well enough for the exam.
Often times you’ll see my content make a slight shift while I am making a course or studying for a certification.
This is because it’s already in my mind and I am looking to remember the best way for me.
Also, that is how my youtube channel got started!
Cycle of Questions and Answers
In preparing for certification it is very important to be an active learner. So, in any resource, I enter I use the system of questions and answers.
Beside the resource that I am using, there will usually be some note-taking system.
I will write down any and all questions that come to mind. Before moving on I will answer all of those questions. This way I have the best knowledge from the start and great notes to look back on.
Find a Good Study Guide
Typically on the salesforce blog-o-sphere you’ll see a study guide that points you to a bunch of different resources.
I like looking at sfdc99 and salesforc bens study guides to see which resources they recommend. I will go through the resources that they recommend and doing the process of learning and questions and answering questions.
If you cannot find a good study guide post on twitter or linkedin and people in the Salesforce ecosystem will be happy to help!
One more thing to note here is that recently discord groups have popped up they are also really great and can be more responsive to requests for resources.
Another type of study guide you’ll see is one that covers all the different aspects of the exam. Usually,A this will be through focus on force. I really love their study guides and find them to be really helpful in preparing for the exam.
Again go through each section then answer questions and not move on till you’ve answered all of them.
Complete one practice exam
At this point of studying for the exam, you’ll have a good idea of the topics covered on the Advanced Admin exam.
As well as understand them with some amount of depth to the topics. So this is a great time for you to understand where you are when you do a practice exam.
I really enjoy the focus on force practice exam as well. Take notes on the questions you have during the exam.
This helps you get a baseline of how you are doing on the topics.
Then take the exam scores to understand where you need to focus your study as well as answer questions you have written down.
Go through the different pages of documentation from Salesforce as well to answer those questions. I do a lot of googling during the exam prep.
Use a good note-taking app
Now before I move on, I really should mention the ways that you can take notes. You can have a pen and paper or use some type of digital way.
I find digital to be the best way because it is the same mode as the studying I am doing.
You can use all types of apps but most people I’ve talked to either use obsidian, Evernote, or notion. Personally, I like obsidian because of the security features and the backlinking feature.
This is great to help you answer questions keep good notes and do some review before going into your certification exam.
Trailhead
Next, I will look to trailhead. For most certifications they will have a trail or trailmix that helps you prepare both through study and through hands on projects.
Here’s the link for the Advanced Admin Exam.
I find this portion of the exam studying process to be extremely useful. The hands-on experience will help you remember topics much better because you have a specific use case to look back on.
For example, when I get a question on junction objects I always think about a project, project task, and employee junction object relationship that I created almost three years ago at this point.
So it will help you to have some hands-on experience with the covered topics on the advanced admin exam.
At this point, you can choose to take another exam if you feel like you’ve learned a lot of what was missing when you took the baseline exam.
Personally, I will take the exam if I am passing the practice exams with 85%-90% so I am super confident that I will pass.
Reddit Recommendations
After I’ve gone through trailhead I will look at the salesforce subreddit to see if there are any recommendations that they say really helped them.
For the advanced admin certification, they’ve recommended going through each item in the quick find and learn it. This really helped them pass.
Reddit is a great place to find some recommendations (as well as some salty people). Typically people are very candid in their experiences and saying exactly what was the catalyst to get them over the passing line.
Courses
Next, I will look at any courses that are on udemy.
At this point, I have had a good introduction to the topics covered as well as understood them fairly well. So I will take a course or two to help fill in any gaps in knowledge that I have.
Again, like throughout this whole process I take notes and write down questions I have had throughout this process and try to answer them before moving onto another section.
This question and answer is vital to my understanding and information retention.
Take another practice exam
After the course it’s time to take another practice exam. This time shooting for above an 80%.
Still writing down questions to be answered after the exam. After I get to 85%-90% I know I am ready to take and pass the exam.
However, if I score below that there may be some intricacies that I have missed and need to cover again to be able to pass.
After covering those topics in depth I go through and do the exams again until I am ready to pass.
Youtube Video
One thing I want to mention here is that I do have a youtube video on this topic if you’d like to watch that
Conclusion
Well that is the end of the post. I really hope you found it useful and informative.
This is how I plan to pass the Advanced Admin exam. I will catch you guys in the next one!
You can check out more from us on our youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCka5mwxtdkUE7AoScLcG2DA/featured
You can learn more about us here: https://salesforceemily.com/?page_id=314