Studying for a Salesforce Certification is a wonderful way to level up your salesforce knowledge and career. During my time on the salesforce ecosystem, I have encountered so many ways to study for and pass a salesforce certification.
Some people get years of experience then take 5 certs in one day. Others get one cert then an admin job and collect certs as fast as possible.
There are so many more scenarios on how people get certifications or their process. Regardless of how you get a certification or how often you get a certification.
Let’s talk about my process of studying for a certification and what I’ve learned from others who have many more certs than I do!
P.s. I also give the strategy portion to my udemy course students and it’s what has helped them pass too!
The Three Stages of Taking a Salesforce Certification Exam
Typically there are three distinct sections of taking a salesforce exam. This might include more if the exam you are taking requires prerequisites or the exam requires super badges.
However, they can usually be broken down into three main sections:
- Resource Gathering
- Deep Study
- Taking the exam and exam recap
I will go into these further on in this post but let’s do a brief overview of each of these.
First, is resource gathering. This usually consists of understanding if the cert is right for you, seeing what resources others recommend, and if reasonable purchasing the paid resources.
This last step may not be needed for you, but for me, I consider it a downpayment on my commitment to the certification exam. Even if it is a udemy course on sale. It just changes my mindset on it.
Second, is the deep study step of taking the exam. This is by far the longest stage of the exam process and is where the bulk of my strategy takes place.
Fun fact, a few years ago my husband who is also in the salesforce space went on a certification binge. I was horribly sick, pregnant with our first child, and sleeping a lot! He was working at home and had most nights, weekends, and down times at work to study for certifications. He got 8 or 9 certifications during that pregnancy. 😂
When he was studying for Developer 1 he tracked the hours and spent 72 hours studying. It earned him 90%+ on the exam!
So the moral of the story is, don’t slack on the deep study time, it really pays off.
Third, is the exam and exam recap. This encompasses exam strategies and what to do if you fail your attempt!
Resource Gathering
So this first step is really about answering a few questions:
- Is this cert right for me and my career?
- Does this cert make sense as the next one to get in my career?
- What has helped others to pass this cert?
- What free resources can I gather to help me pass?
- Are there any paid resources that will save me time or explain concepts better?
- Are there worthwhile practice exams to help me gauge my level of understanding?
This might seem like a lot of questions, but getting these out of the way will help you gain direction and get you going.
Is this cert right for me and my career?
Really what this is getting at is if you want to go in the direction the certification will take you. If you want to be a Salesforce Education Cloud Consultant it probably won’t make too much sense to get a Pardot Consultant Certification.
Does this cert make sense as the next in my career?
If you want to become an Application Architect it typically makes sense to get App Builder before any of the Designer certifications.
What has helped others pass this cert?
This is where things like youtube, trailblazer communities, blogs, Reddit posts, LinkedIn posts, and articles come in VERY handy.
People are very genuine with shouting out particular resources that were helpful in passing. On all those different platforms mentioned search for the certification and look at their study guides/helpful resources.
This gives you valuable feedback on what was worth it and what wasn’t. Saving you countless hours trying to find resources and possibly having it be a bad one that confuses you more than helps you.
What free resources can I gather to help me pass?
I really love free resources! It is really nice and honestly, I don’t mind scrolling past a few ads in the process of getting good information.
Common free resources for your salesforce certification may include a trail mix put together by trailhead, a study sheet/guide from a blog, a mini-course on youtube, etc. I like to put these together on a list.
Sometimes the free resources are sufficient to pass with prior project knowledge. However, most of the time I supplement with a udemy course and practice exams.
Are there any paid resources that will save me time or explain concepts better?
This might be a little hypocritical of me to say, but I am all for spending a little bit of money on courses to speed up my knowledge or explain things better.
That’s why I’ve created courses with as little ‘fluff’ as possible.
Plus, at least for me hearing concepts explained visually and auditorily is far easier than reading it.
Are there worthwhile practice exams to help me gauge my level of understanding?
So now that we’ve gotten most of the studying resources out of the way, let’s talk about practice exams.
Personally, I love focus on force.
But they don’t always have the certification I’m looking for.
So when looking for practice exams, look for ones that explain why an answer is correct or incorrect and give you documentation to prove it. This is the test of a good practice exam that also deepens your knowledge and you can verify the validity of their exams.
Put things together
Now it’s time to order these in an order of which ones to use. You can do this however you’d like and what works best for your learning style.
I like to shuffle the resources together something like this:
- Practice exam- get a baseline to go off of
- A full video course – getting my feet wet on all the topics
- The full trailmix under the listed certification – getting my hands dirty in orgs covering most of the topics
- Any reading study guide resources covering all the topics
- Practice exam – how much did I glean from those resources and which sections am I weakest
- Revisit the weakest sections from the video course, trailmix, and other study guides.
- Find youtube videos, blogs, and documentation to explain those weakest sections
- Repeat 5-7 until I have scored high enough on the practice exam to be comfortable taking the actual exam.
Deep Study Techniques
Now that you’ve done the work of gathering resources, now it’s time to work through all those resources! yay!
I will start working through that ordered list. This works great because I always know the next step in the studying process. Never scrambling to figure out how to figure out what I don’t know.
Note-taking techniques
I am a big note-taker, I love it. It’s great for writing down tidbits of information or writing down different connections that will help me understand the material and remember it during the exam.
Personally, I take digital notes, I like being able to search back to my questions and insights.
Now, this takes me to my next point and what I give to my students when they take any of my courses.
Take your notes and have two sections one for insights/regular note taking and one for questions.
Don’t move on to another section, lecture, badge, etc. until you have sufficiently answered that question.
Example: you are learning about disabling classic salesforce.
Question: Why would anyone want to disable classic?
Search for the answer until you answered it sufficiently for the scenario and write it down next to the question.
Answer: To enable some functionalities in lighting such as permission set groups.
Just keep repeating this throughout your study of video courses, trailhead, and written resources.
With the exception of practice exams, I take the full practice exam writing down the question and searching for an answer later.
This helps keep your mind engaged and makes your learning more memorable and meaningful.
Behind the scenes
This is also how I am able to make so many videos and resources for the salesforce community!
I take these questions and notes and turn them into blog posts and youtube videos.
If I have a question about something in salesforce, I am certain someone else has had that question too.
It’s a great feeling to help a trailblazer solve a problem way faster than I did.
Set the Study Scene
I am not one for superstition however there are some science-backed ways to help you study and recall things. I did these from middle school through graduate school:
- Create a calm learning environment
- I close all my tabs and only open the necessary ones for studying
- Set do not disturb on devices when possible
- Listen to instrumental no lyric music. I like fall jazz youtube streams and lofi girl on youtube
- Create Accountability
- Tell a friend, coworker, family member, spouse, internet, etc that you are studying and hope to have something completed by a certain time. And update them!
- Replicate study to the exam
- Chew the same flavored gum during studying and during exam
- Have the same scents in the air during studying and exams (same candle or scent dispenser)
- Get everything you need before studying
- AirPods, water, snacks, chargers, etc.
- remove excuses to stop studying
- Change your environment
- Coffee Shops and Libraries are great places to study/get work done. For some reason I get hyper-focused.
- Fun fact in college I had the same couch I sat on at the library when I had to get stuff done. If I go there now I am so hyper-focused.
- Pomodoro method/Timers
- Set a timer for you to ‘sprint’ and get work done then take a small break.
- Rewards
- I love Redbull, if I score a certain percent on a practice exam or make it to a portion of a course I will reward myself with a Redbull spritzer for the next study session.
- Schedule your Study time
- Make it a commitment on your calendar and an item on your to-do list.
Taking the Exam and Exam Recap
So now that you’ve scored well enough on a practice exam to feel comfortable taking the exam it’s time to take it!
I like to schedule the exam a few days before (really whenever I can get a slot).
Then it’s great to do a general overview of notes and helpful resources, and try to remain calm.
I always tell myself that I’ve done a great job studying regardless of the outcome.
Prepare the room and yourself by having similar scents and gum if thats a technique you are using.
Exam Taking Techniques
I have two main techniques that I use during the exam that mainly help with anxiety.
The first, is to have something to fidget with. Most proctors won’t allow any fidget toys, unfortunately. So I usually have a few hair ties or rings to twist and stretch.
The second technique is to close your eyes and take a deep breath after every few questions. Don’t worry about time just take a deep breath and keep going!
You can mark questions for review, which I highly recommend. Often times I will see a question later in the exam that helps me recall information pertinent to a question earlier in the exam.
Finally, take as much time as you need on the exam. Prepare for both outcomes and submit when you are ready.
When you Fail
It is okay to fail the exam! It really is. No one is going to know that you failed except for those you tell.
You’ll get an email with the exam breakdown and use that to again study for your weakness.
In some cases, you may want to ‘brain dump’ certain topics that you really struggled to find the answer for. Study these topics better and try to master them!
When you Pass
When you pass enjoy it! Celebrate your success and how hard you worked to get that certification.
Share it on LinkedIn and share what really helped you pass the salesforce certification.
Essentially, celebrate and pass some wisdom on to the next trailblazer!
Conclusion
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this blog post!
I hope it helped you to study better for your next salesforce certification!
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