How much time do I need to study for a Salesforce Certification Exam?

Martin: One of the important points out of this is that Salesforce recommends that you have a certain amount of on-the-job experience as well as studying through the topics. So putting those two things together, and then as Roy has suggested here — when you actually dig into what has she been doing. You know, then that will also factor into how much knowledge she has and how that can actually be combined with the theoretical sort of study of combining the knowledge and experience together. And that's going to put you in the best position to be able to actually answer the Salesforce certification questions — which are going to be testing your knowledge, giving you different options, and asking you to pick the best option when there are multiple correct options. So when you look at all of these different questions, and what type of experience you have — that really will determine how well are you going to be able to answer those types of questions.

Roy: If Susan has been a full-time Salesforce Admin for two years: she helped stand up an Enterprise level org; if she's worked hard to maintain and keep enhancing or using Salesforce best practices; if she's been exploring the yearly release notes three times a year if she's been regulating her local community group and being engaged in that and actively learning on Trailhead — then four weeks very well might be enough for her to get ready for her certification.

Martin: And I think what's interesting on this slide and what Roy has mentioned is that there are other things you could be doing to putting yourself in the position where you're ready to say ‘Yes. I should be Admin Certified or certified in any of the areas.’ Let's look at some of the points that are mentioned here. She helped stand up an enterprise-level org. So obviously, working in an org where you've got a handful of users versus having hundreds of users is totally different. And you're going to have different challenges, and you're going to be working on different types of solutions. Then the next point that Roy has mentioned here is working hard to maintain and keep enhancing the org using Salesforce best practices. You know, coming up with your own solutions versus maybe going out to the community, doing research, looking at what Salesforce suggests when you have to come up with a solution. That’s going to distinguish you as well. Then the next one is exploring the release notes. So the release notes — obviously, they're coming out three times a year. There's a lot of information in them but it's very important to stay on top of them. And to know — you know we mentioned Flow before. That was a focus on one of the recent updates to the Admin exam where they've put more emphasis on process automation and in particular, Flows. So keeping up with what's going on with workflow versus process builder versus flows. And what are the capabilities of those tools? And then the last one: attending your local community group, actively learning on Trailhead — that's all the community involvement. And actually working with other people and just having that interaction can help you reinforce your own learning versus just doing it all by yourself.

Roy: Absolutely. A lot of this is about soft sharpening. It's about intentionally carving out time to take what you know and keep it fresh so it doesn't get rusty. As it gets updated in releases and whatnot, you keep it up to date in your mind, and you get exposure to new things on Trailhead that maybe your org doesn't have a need for right now. But just getting that exposure could be helpful because I've had it happen a dozen times where my company wanted to do something and I had decided: ‘You know, I think there's a trail about that.’ I believe I did one a few months ago or a year ago and has allowed me to go find data about that feature. So absolutely, we have to be soft sharpeners as we approach our certifications and our professional careers.