How to pass your Salesforce Admin Certification?

After a couple of months of hard studying, I was able to pass my first Salesforce Certification and here are some tips on how I did it.

1. Understanding the Exam

The first thing you need to do is understand what the Admin Certification entails, which sections it contains, how is the exam graded, how much time you’re given, etc. So here are a few of the basics:

Content: 60 multiple-choice/multiple-select questions and 5 non-scored questions
Time allotted to complete the exam: 105 minutes
Passing score: 65%
Registration fee: USD 200
Retake fee: USD 100
Delivery options: Proctored exam delivered onsite at a testing center or in an online proctored environment. (I took mine online)
References: No hard-copy or online materials may be referenced during the exam. (Salesforce takes this one seriously, fun fact: I put my glasses on to begin the exam and the screen froze, a message displayed asking me to show my glasses on the camera, after doing that, I was able to continue with my exam)
Prerequisite: None required (I didn’t have any experience before taking the exam)

Each topic has a different weight, so I recommend paying more attention to the sections with the highest weight:

Configuration and Setup: 20%
Object Manager and Lightning App Builder: 20%
Sales and Marketing Applications: 12%
Service and Support Applications: 11%
Productivity and Collaboration: 7%
Data and Analytics Management: 14%
Workflow/Process Automation: 16%

2. Trailhead

If you’re familiar with Salesforce, you’re definitely familiar with Trailhead. Trailhead is Salesforce’s education platform. The good news is that it is completely free and it offers different courses (or trails) on every Salesforce topic. So this is a great way to start learning.

Trails can be grouped into a Trail Mix all related to a certain topic. Trail mixes can be created by Salesforce or by any user. Here is the trail mix that helped me the most: Prepare for your Salesforce Admin Credential.

Salesforce also offers some interactive study tools, this is the one that helps study for the Admin Exam: Study Tool.

3. Superbadges

Once you have unlocked some trails, you might be ready to tackle some super badges. Superbadges are skilled-based credentials where you get a real-world business problem and you’re asked to solve it with the knowledge you have gained.

The superbadges that helped me prepare for the exam were these:

4. Trailhead’s Practice Test

Salesforce offers a free practice test that you can try once you feel you’re ready to take the exam. Tip: You get different questions when you refresh the page.

Here’s the link to the practice test: Administrator Practice Test.

5. Cert Days

Salesforce Certification Days are instructor-led one day seminars where you can solve doubts and learn more about the topics that will be included in the exam. These are free but you do need to register in advance. Here’s the registration link: Preparing for your Administrator Certification.

6. Focus on Force

And we have reached the only paying tool that helped me with the exam. Focus on Force offers practice exams and study guides for every Salesforce Credential. It costs $20 but I think it’s a great investment since the questions you get on these practice exams are pretty similar to the ones you get on the real exam. Another great thing about this is that when you’re taking the practice exam and you get a question wrong, you get some screenshots on why that was not the correct answer, as well as a link to the documentation.

Here’s the link to the Focus on Force website: https://focusonforce.com/

And that was all the tools that helped me pass the exam!

Hope this helped! 🙂