In today’s era, the final benchmark that spots the skills, expertise, and real-world knowledge of a cloud specialist is Salesforce Certification. So, are you an Administrator who makes Salesforce up and running smoothly, or a Developer who develops new applications to customize and enhance its capabilities? Well, whatever you are, a Marketing Specialist or an Implementation Expert or an Architect, you need the Salesforce Certification to achieve your goals.
Today, we are here with an informative guide, which will show you a clear pathway towards Salesforce Certification. Let’s start then.
What Is Salesforce?
As we know, the world’s number one, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform is Salesforce. It assists us in sales, marketing, service, and IT teamwork, and commerce, from anywhere, to keep our customers happy.
Salesforce unites sales, marketing, service, commerce, and IT teams from anywhere with Customer 360, which is an integrated CRM platform that empowers our whole suite of connected applications. Customer 360 assists you in targeting your employees on what is important right at the moment – restarting, stabilizing your business, and getting back to offering unique customer experiences
In the technology industry, Salesforce is the most talked about for its career opportunities and advancements. The increasing number of Consultants, Administrators, Marketers, and Developers are in demand along with constant growth in new contracts and customers every day. It is now counted as a mature career that is quite demanding in almost all aspects. Most of the giants are looking for expert Salesforce professionals having extensive experience with deep knowledge.
The Benefits of Using Salesforce
- Understand the customer data and identify their interests and perception
- It provides Integration of different Services for organizational needs
- With Salesforce Customization and Scalability are easier
- Businesses can Regain the inactive or old customers base
- It is easier to handle the data and enhance the customer service and experience
- Salesforce tool is one of the best Data Reporting and Analysis to provide highly complex business solutions easily in a short time
Benefits Of Salesforce Certification
Well, it’s accepted that Salesforce certifications provide big value adds. Besides, they enhance your marketability in a complicated IT job market by permitting you to become a subject matter expert. Such certifications provide flexibility with which you can get certified in just a few hours, days, or months, and can also handle your career path. Apart from that, you can get only one or a cluster of certifications. The more certifications you add, the hourly rate, or the higher salary you can get.
Also, you can check the 2019 report from a recognized job portal, in which it has listed Salesforce Developer as the best job of 2019, with an average salary of $112,031 and more. The jobs of Salesforce Developer has witnessed a 129% upliftment in the number of job postings as per a report.
The roles of Salesforce ranges from the technical experts (developers, architects, implementation professionals) to those who are related to sales and marketing. Every role differs in terms of the needed proficiency of understanding of this #1 platform, Salesforce.
Let’s now check out the benefits of Salesforce certification.
1. You will Get Extensive Knowledge of Field/Domain
With a Salesforce certification, you will get deep knowledge of Salesforce, which will assist you in improving your insights in customer relations and sales. Moreover, as you will go deeper to know Salesforce more, you will get introduced to its various tools that might be new to you even if you think of yourself as an expert in the same field.
2. You Will Gain Experience with Real-Life Situations
The training courses that are relevant to Salesforce Certification offer you hands-on experience. They also have a lot of material about industry-related live projects, real-life situations-based case studies, and scenarios that will assist you in learning practically a lot. You can expect about 12-hour devotion for live projects training, and 20 hours of in-class practice post getting enrolled for a Salesforce Certification.
3. You Will Obtain Current & Dynamically Updated Knowledge Base
The most in-demand benefit of cloud technology is that all releases of updates automatically get pushed to the app. In a year, Salesforce.com releases many updates, and if Salesforce is already in use at your organization, then, you are not required to wait long for updating the whole enterprise software. If you have a certification, you can take that job to stay updated.
4. You Will Have Know-How of Efficient Account Planning
After you have a Salesforce certification, you will witness how outstandingly you can conduct the planning phase. Post you understand the platform, you will find yourself perfect at navigating rapidly all through the app and managing customers and prospect requests with a swift efficiency than before. Moreover, it will show how to use the tool for enhancing the business and personal processes strategically, if you have the certification. Also, it will prove to be best at assisting you in enhancing the work-life balance.
5. Improve Your Analytical Skills
With a Salesforce certification, you will get an enhanced understanding of sales trends as you will get detailed and customized insights into the trends.
6. You Will Be Able To Optimize Salesforce Implementation Faster
Because of not having a functional and solid plan for optimizing the sales force, many companies have faced an issue while using it, even post they decide to implement it. This doesn’t lead to full usage of the platform as per its potential and also you miss a huge part of the functionality of this platform.
If you have a Salesforce Certification, then you will surely assist your company in customizing and optimizing the Salesforce, advising, and leading your managers. Therefore, the company will also get benefitted from your certification.
7. Employers Prefer the One with Certification
Salesforce job descriptions point out that Salesforce Certification is mandatory. In today’s era, the job market of Salesforce is at its rapid pace, which states that various applicants are trying hard to grab even a single position. So, here the certification assists in filtering the potential candidates.
8. You will Get Post-Certification Opportunities
Well now, we all are aware of the benefits of certification, let you know that it validates our skill corner also. Like the other certifications, Salesforce certification will validate your proficiency and exhibit your commitment towards this domain. In the end, when you go for an interview holding this certification, you will surely catch it up. With this certification, the certified professionals are known to hold efficient processing capabilities.
9. Certification Will Communicate Your Expertise
Salesforce certification showcases your potential, as well as, your current employers that you hold the caliber to handle the jobs and have the required stuff. There exist some competencies also that are needed to qualify for every certification, and the exam revealing that you understand and know such competencies.
10. You will Get Increased Pay-Offs
As per a study of 2013, the average salary of Salesforce experts with no certification was $69000, while with a Salesforce certification their average payout was $89,850. Moreover, according to a giant job portal, the average salary of a Salesforce Certified Developer is about $108,475/year, and for a Salesforce Certified Administrator, it’s $89,429 per year.
All such salary benefits can be achieved with just one certification, Salesforce certification. Annually, Salesforce Certified Professionals get $100,000 and more.
How To Get Salesforce Certification?
Steps to get a Salesforce Admin Certification.
1. Complete the Trailhead Course
A free online learning academy, Trailhead, will help you with this. You must visit its website and create an account by providing your login credentials or using an existing social media account.
You will find a course, “Prepare for Your Salesforce Administrator Credential,” to complete at your own pace.
2. Complete the Study Guide
After you complete your Trailhead course, you can use the study guide available on the website to review the key concepts and prepare for the examination. It takes two hours to complete and covers every topic, from platform configuration to automation techniques. Also, the guide offers key details about the exam.
3. Leverage Other Resources
You can use the additional resources available on the Trailhead website if you need to review for the exam.
Enroll in the courses that offer f-2-f instructions from Salesforce experts. Besides, you can maximize the use of practice tests, sessions, and Super Sets, the badges that showcase your proficiency in certain areas.
4. Conduct the Exam
Once you find yourself set for the exam, schedule it online or visit an in-person test center. Remember to practice test-taking tactics, such as allocating the right time to answer every question.
5. Maintain Your Certification
After you pass the exam, you will get a Salesforce admin certification valid for one year. By completing one more maintenance module via your Trailhead account, you can renew it.
By maintaining your certification, you can avoid retaking the whole exam and ensure you hold the apt credentials for your professional role.
There Are Five Roles In Salesforce
Well, there are various roles you can opt for when it comes to the Salesforce platform. Let’s just check them out.
Salesforce Administrator
Being a Salesforce Administrator, you will give life to innovation by bridging space between technology and business needs. For your company, this states offering training to the users on Salesforce, automating the complex business processes, and creating dashboards and reports. For your team, it means helping them be efficient and lead things while targeting customer relationships and their successes.
- Take a look at Certification Trailmix
- Read the study material for the Administrator Certification Exam
- Get skill-based credentials called Admin Superbadge Super Set
- Get registered for Trailhead Virtual Bootcamp for New Admins (TVB201)
- Join the Trailblazer Community
Add more skills your skill set
- Learn from Administration Essentials for New Admins (ADM201) or Administrative Essentials for New Admins in Lightning Experience (ADX201)
- Learn from Administrative Essentials for New Admins in Lightning Experience – Extended (ADX201E)
Get ready for your exam
- Take Certification Preparation for Administrator (CRT101)
- Get more info from Certification Exam Guide
- Give Salesforce Administrator Certification Practice Test
Other Related Certificates You Can Get
- Advanced Administrator
- CPQ Specialist
- Platform App Builder
A Complete List Of Salesforce Certificate Credentials One Can Acquire
Consultant Credentials | Marketing Credentials | Developer Credentials | Architect Credentials | Administrator Credentials |
---|---|---|---|---|
Community Cloud Consultant | Marketing Cloud Administrator | Platform App Builder | Technical Architect | Administrator |
Field Service Lightning Consultant | Marketing Cloud Consultant | Platform Developer I | Application Architect | Advanced Administrator |
Education Cloud Consultant | Marketing Cloud Developer | Platform Developer II | System Architect | CPQ Specialist |
Marketing Cloud Consultant | Marketing Cloud Email Specialist | B2C Commerce Developer | Heroku Architecture Designer | Marketing Cloud Administrator |
Einstein Analytics and Discovery Consultant | Pardot Consultant | Marketing Cloud Developer | Platform App Builder | |
Nonprofit Cloud Consultant | Pardot Specialist |
How Much Salesforce Certifications Cost?
The Salesforce certifications start from an amination costs of $200 plus local taxes. If you add 18% tax then the total cost would become $236. If you fail to clear the exam first time, then the cost to retake that exam is $100 plus tax.
Sometimes Salesforce also offers discount vouchers that you can get via participating in a Certification Days Webinar. Salesforce occasionally organizes events, challenges & quests on Trailhead via which you can get a discount voucher to apply on certification exam fee. Well, here is the cost of Salesforce certification exams per credential:
Cost to Register & Cost to Retake/ per credential | Certification |
---|---|
$200 & $100 |
|
$400 & $200 |
|
$6,000 & $3,000 | Salesforce Certified Technical Architect |
How To Verify Your Salesforce Certifications?
In case you want to view your earned Salesforce certifications or maybe an employer wants tocheck your credentials then there are two methods to do so:
- You can view your certifications on Trailblazer.me profile
- you can check your Salesforce credentials on verification page
Apart from getting certifications you should also learn about maintaining the validity of your Salesforce credentials. For that you can check out this resource page.
Wrapping Up
So, if you already have a Salesforce certification, and hold deep knowledge, then you will get various opportunities to progress. But, if you don’t have yet, you are stopping your career to fly high in the sky of success. And this post might have answered your question how to get salesforce certification. So, it’s time to evaluate your proficiency and pick the appropriate Salesforce certification that may assist you in boosting your career.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The average time to get a Salesforce certification is 6-8 weeks; however, preparation time relies on the individual’s experience level and passion for the chosen certificate.
Salesforce offers a range of certifications with varying costs. As of 2024, the costs are as follows:
• Most certifications are priced at either $200 or $400, plus local taxes.
• The Salesforce Certified Technical Architect (CTA) Certification is the most expensive, costing $6000.
• A retake exam is available at half the original price for those who do not pass on their first attempt.