Certifications what works for passing the exams

Salesforce.com Certifications:
What Works for Passing the Exams
2/11/14

© Global Tech & Resources, Inc.

Extending Your Salesforce.com Talent™

www.gtr.net

Agenda
1. Introduction
2. What is your experience with Salesforce exams?
○ Which have you taken, how many times, pass?
■ What did you learn from that experience?
○ Why are you taking them?
3. What have Velu and Charlie learned about exams?
4. Q&A



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1. Introduction



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•Speaker Introductions
▪ Velu Palani
●
●

Certified Salesforce.com Administrator & Certified Sales Cloud
Consultant
13 years of Salesforce.com experience

▪ Charlie Havens
●
●

Certified Salesforce.com Administrator & Certified Salesforce.com
Developer and Certified Salesforce.com Advanced Administrator
5 Years of Salesforce.com experience

•Participant Introductions
•How do you prepare for and pass the cert exams?
▪ What has been your experience?
▪ What have we learned?
•Take-aways and what is your next step?


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2. What has been your experience?
● Which exams have you taken and how did it go?
● What preparation did you do and how did that work?
● Why are you wanting to get certified?



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3. What have Charlie and Velu learned
about passing exams?



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Know Why You Are Pursuing the Certification?

•Getting a certification takes time and commitment.
o $200 to take it once. $200 to retake it!
■ After self study, 55% of people with 6 months
experience pass the admin exam.
o Once gotten, after first year, it needs to be renewed 3
times per year. $100 per year.
•Know why you are making that investment!



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•Getting a certification doesn’t guarantee you a Job!
•Getting a certification doesn’t guarantee a better job.
•Getting a certification brings more potential interviews.
•The certification may let you apply for a better position.
■ But then they want to know your experience!



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•If you don’t have Saleforce experience is it worthwhile?
•Bring your past experience to Salesforce.
o Human Resources + Salesforce
o Programming with Java, .Net and etc + Salesforce
o Pharm experience + Salesforce
o Project Management + Salesforce
o Business Analysis + Salesforce
•



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•Employers are looking for subject matter experts, who
understand how to apply Salesforce to their setting.
•Employers are looking real life experience other than
Salesforce
o Marketing
o Programming
o Sales
o Etc.


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Additional Types of Jobs Available
o Mobile/Cloud Application Developers/Integrators
▪ Traditional IT software development jobs will be eliminated
o Consulting (above field)
o More inside sales than field jobs
o Marketers not Sales People
o Leaders and Game Changers Vs C-level or VP titles
o Allstate, Caterpillar, BioLabs, GE, Toyota– and many others,
use outside of sales and marketing and need industry experts.


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Are Jobs available...
● Within Cloud jobs, PaaS positions are the fastest growing
sector with an increase of 41%/year- predicted.
● Bureau of Labor Statistics review of IT ups and downs over
last couple of years; but since 2010 headed up with Cloud
computing being a particularly bright spot.
● Cloud jobs growing 6x faster than all other IT jobs
combined!


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Impressive Statistics
● Salesforce maintains its leadership within the PaaS CRM world
● Salesforce continues rapid growth, 37% revenue growth last
quarter.
● Anecdotally, the Salesforce workforce diversity is impressive.
● At Dreamforce, 7 out of 8 keynote speakers were women



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Impressive Statistics

● At Dreamforce, 7 out of 8 keynote speakers were women
● In the Spring ‘14 Release 8 hour live presentation, the majority of
the presenters were people whose first language was not American
English.



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•There is a case for certification with Salesforce…
•But, do you have a case for training yourself?



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How to Study.

● Use the study guides
● Force.com Developer Edition
● Form a study group in or outside of a formal training class
● Find a mentor
● Study Salesforce materials



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How to Study.

● Create your own study questions
● Take a class from Salesforce or a professional organization
● Set a date for taking the exam
● Set that day aside and prepare for that day



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Use the Salesforce Certification Study Guides
● Salesforce.com Certified Adminstrator Study Guide
● Salesforce.com Certified Force.com Developer Study Guide



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● Salesforce.com Certified Adminstrator Study Guide
● Create your own study guide from their study guide.
● You will need Salesforce Help: https://help.salesforce.com/
● Begin with the Getting Started Series



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● You will need a practice org: Get a Free Developer Edition
● Practice what you learn
● Create your own test questions.



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Get Help From Others
● Form a study group and hold each other accountable
● Divide up the study guide and take turns presenting sections
● Find a mentor to quiz you about your study habits and to check
that you cover the full realm of the certification.
● GTR’s LinkedIn Group, So You Think You Know Salesforce!™,
provides daily questions.



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Get Help From Others
.
● GTR’s Play-the-Game provides exam prep questions; and when
a game is completed, gives you a summary of how you did by
study guide category for a given certification.
● Take a class where you network with others, create networking
relationships, form brief mentoring relationships with instructors,
create study groups, hold each other accountable; And, learn
the material in orderly focused manner.



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Set an Exam Day and Set-it-aside!
● Set the exam day and work toward it.
● Don’t wait too long, after having taken a class, else you will
forget what you just learned and need to relearn it.
● If you fail, set another date within two weeks, again, before you
have forget what you learned by taking the exam.
● If you fail, you learned! Use what you learned.

Persist! Know that many of us took exam more than once.


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Set an Exam Day and Set-it-aside!
● Get rest the night before, stretch, and eat a meal. Set the time
of day, so that you won’t be rushed. Walk in to the testing center
15 - 20 early.
● I like to do it after lunch
● Eat lunch nearby, so that I can walk over, if my car
collapsed.
● Spend the morning reviewing, not studying.

Persist! Know that many of us took exam more than once.


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Questions and Answers

For anyone viewing this slide set and preparing for the
beginning admin or developer certifications, Velu or
Charlie will provide you an half hour of phone time to talk
about studying for the exam. Our objective is to help you
to get certified.
Charlie - chavens@gtr.net
Velu - velup@gtr.net
Best Wishes!


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