Should I Go For Salesforce Certification?

Having been a Salesforce Administrator for over 6 years in the same company I hadn't really considered this until I decided to go it alone. I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about most areas of Salesforce having used most of the items under the 'Setup' menu. Having applied for a few roles unsuccessfully I then began to think about Certification from the perspective of a credential which would improve my chances of securing a role.

'Certified Administrator' is the first level of qualification and the topics covered in the exam can change with each release of Salesforce (there are three each year - Spring, Summer and Winter followed by the year, e.g. Spring '15). The topics covered by the current exam can be found on the Certification page here.

At the time of writing, the exam costs $200 USD to sit and consists of 60 multiple choice questions to be answered in 90 mins. The passmark is 65%. The exam can be taken at a testing centre or at your desk, in which case you need a webcam and will be monitored during the exam. No books or online help is allowed.

Though the questions are multiple choice, the possible answers are cleverly constructed so you really do have to know your stuff to ensure that you get it right. Answers can be 'marked' for review so that you can revisit them at the end before submitting your answers. When you submit your answers you get an immediate pass/fail notification with no indication of your actual score.

In all honesty it was harder than I expected it to be and I realised that I didn't know as much beforehand as I thought I did. Experience with the subject areas is the key to passing this exam. The areas that I found hardest were ones where I didn't have real experience, such as console functionality. Though it is possble to pass by sitting down and reading the help documents cover to cover, if I were to go for one of the Service Cloud Certifications, I would spend time in my free developer org, playing with the areas that I am less familiar with in order to develop a real understanding, rather than simply learning a bunch of facts.

Once you have passed the exam, you then need to pass 'maintenance' exams for each of the releases mentioned above throughout the year in order to keep the certification. There is no additional cost for taking these and they are open book, i.e. you take them at your desk, unsupervised and can use whatever resources you need. So far I haven't found them to be particularly onerous. Though the 'Release Notes' pdf for a release may be several hundred pages long, the exam notes point you to 2-3 hours of videos that cover the subjects to be tested and the exam only takes 30 minutes.

So are there real benefits to putting yourself through all this? Absolutely yes. I learnt a lot in doing the initial Certified Administrator exam and the 'maintenance' exams ensure that I am up to speed with new features included in the latest release. I wish I had gone for Certification sooner as I'm sure I would have been able to bring more improvements to the system that I looked after in my first Salesforce role. If I was going to hire someone to look after my Salesforce system I would want them to be Certified as this proves that they have a good understanding of the fundamentals and are up to date with the latest functionality.

I was hired for the first role that I applied for after becoming Certified by the way!