Such attestation is proof of having extensive knowledge of the field, confirming the individual’s professional expertise and competence reached as a result of long hours of studying and training. A: No, I don’t, especially now. Alongside that, I also worked as a Marketing Cloud Developer for about one year and as a Product Owner for around seven months. I think they’re worth it. It’s not hard. Trailhead, not that much, I find it to be a long way to get info when you already know something. So, really not that difficult, it’s more of a personal problem for me to sometimes forget about it. I have only been in the Salesforce environment for a little while and I don’t think my chances to get hired for general development opportunities have been either helped or hindered by my having Salesforce certifications. I’ve never seen the value of growing complacent and choosing not to learn something when the resources are so readily available to allow you to do so. For covid19 there’s a new update, the maintenance for Spring 2020 was removed, it doesn’t expire. I call it “the worst kept secret in Salesforce”. Now, they reduced it to once a year for most certifications. Yes, of course. There’s a lot of material online to help study for the exams. So I started to study for them immediately after I started working for the Salesforce partner. I wouldn’t necessarily say “difficult” because all the information is readily available and just so easy to get a hold of. A: I decided to get certification solely for a career perspective as it helps you to stand out. II. At present, I am also learning about Vlocity. Was it time-consuming to prepare for the certification? But yes, before it was harder because every year we’d need to pay about 100 USD for maintenance. I would argue Salesforce is the best CRM option for most companies. But at times finding the time to do that can be a little cumbersome. Additional benefits and all benefits are knowledge. That way I could be the most effective as possible. A: The only thing I’m concerned about at the moment in terms of difficulty in preparing for exams is that this year I had wanted to really dig in and start working towards the Certified Technical Architect exam and was hoping to get some practical mock-interview experience, but now that preparation has had to shift to remote as well. Because you have this Salesforce B2B Commerce, you have this CPQ piece, and people want to see a process to unify the two processes. And with the recent announcement from Salesforce, it will be even easier to go forward, as most of the certifications will now be maintained only once a year instead of three. In developed countries, it must be. That was the last one I needed for Application Architect, so I automatically got that one at the same time. Mentioning materials, I read Salesforce documentation and passed mock exams. And that extra knowledge, I think, is the biggest benefit of getting certified. Materials were and are still a big pain point. But it’s great for starting out with something new. Every time I study for an exam I learn about features that are new or I didn’t know existed in the context of a question. One thing I’ve noticed was that whenever I’m interviewing someone or am just trying to do research, it’s really hard to say things like: “Based on my portfolio, we did X, Y, Z on that project”. Not a module for each cert though, some like Admin and Advanced Admin are grouped together. Just by being there, they allow a candidate to more easily get to. I mean exams are generally things that require time and preparation in any case, so maybe I simply did not feel it. My career path started out as a high school teacher of Chemistry and Physics. A: I’m learning and finding some information that’s needed for work, plus I’m improving my daily knowledge. A: I got my first certificate straight away, right after I’ve just started learning Salesforce, so, about 2 years ago. I was doing a lot of development at the time, so I then went for Platform Developer 1 and set my sights on the Application Architect certificate. If applying for any other job, then I don’t think it would be as useful. Salesforce Certifications are industry recognised capabilities that demonstrate to managers or customers that you excel in a specific field inside Salesforce. Is Slack worth $25 billion as part of Salesforce's platform? Also, having learned Java at university helped me out a lot, since Apex is very similar. However, now that things have shifted more to a remote-focused environment of late I am finding it a little more difficult to carve out some time to pursue new ones and still maintain a healthy work-life balance, just because there are generally more meetings which take up what used to be free moments. I’ve studied the platform, I have the credentials to prove it, here’s my opinion regarding the next steps and where we should be going. Q: Was having Salesforce certification useful when searching for a job? Certifications are an approach to guarantee the capability of experts by estimating their aptitudes and learning. My only initial hesitance in obtaining more certifications when I first started studying for them was the cost involved, as Salesforce had yet to waive the maintenance fees for the majority of them when I started looking at expanding, and that would have posed a costly ongoing investment in addition to the initial exam fees themselves. Was it time-consuming to prepare for the certification? I found the Administrator and App Builder certifications quite easy, while the Platform Developer II was more demanding, in my opinion. Q: Are you planning to get more certificates and why? I was able to utilize that to get some interviews. Remaining up to date on your certifications demonstrate your pledge to progress and guarantees a sense of longevity in your career as a professional. They are really good and enough for getting certifications. Once you enter the Salesforce domain you enter the sea of endless opportunities. Salesforce has taken the cloud software space by storm, earning it the title of 'Cloud King' by TheStreet founder Jim Cramer. Other than job prospect benefits, Salesforce is a huge and complex product and it’s impossible to know it all. The main reason, as I mentioned earlier, is that these certificates are a good source of knowledge on the Salesforce platform. People love goodies, and it doesn't hurt that it's instrumental in building and keeping up the Salesforce mark. Because today’s CRM systems are mature. I’m looking forward to that journey and I like that there’s a clear pathway for how to get there. Considering materials, I’m a fervent user of both the Trailhead platform as well as the Salesforce developer guide, blogs, and the Focus on Force website. For me, it was very time-consuming, so for the first one, I spent a week of annual leave just to study for it. It incorporates a considerable measure of material about the business related ventures that you can study depending upon the actual industrial or real-life cases. I used all the official help links and materials provided by Salesforce to prepare and, of course, Trailhead. I call it “the worst kept secret in Salesforce”. Moreover, they’re also something I can add to my resume along with my work experience which will both be helpful in the future if/when I decide to look for another job. Now it’s absolutely free but 3 times a year sometimes feels hectic. Q: Is Salesforce certification worth it? I ultimately also want to have a strong presence in the Salesforce Commerce space. However, experience means you know how to do something, but it doesn’t always mean you know the best way to do it. Working for the company, I got to interact with a lot of different clients and I got to see a lot of different experiences that I think a lot of people who are just in the consulting sphere might not have that opportunity. There are about 6 additional tests in total that I’ll need to take in order to achieve that. I study every weekend and my deadline is summer 2020. I am interested in the role of a Technical Architect, so I am planning to aim toward that qualification. So I guess you could say, I made the decision as soon as I decided to join. I also think it’s important for people to have certifications, though, especially for partners, because it goes towards the Partner Community on the AppExchange. But one thing that’s most important is that we must have hands-on experience. When I switched jobs, though, I was urged to get my Admin certificate since I had the expertise and it would have been an easy test for me, so I got it within my first week on the new job. Well, Dev01 was quite easy, because it’s more about programming and all “concrete” tools. A: No, maintenance is not a problem and it’s actually very useful. What is the Salesforce AppExchange? Since I’ve had my first certification, I’ve received more job offers in line with the skills related to the certifications. If you’re using Salesforce, you’ve generally got sales or service and you can’t really have any of the products without those two. I got it because I felt it would help me to be better at using the system. I align this to almost getting a college degree that says that you have the requirements that ultimately made these objectives at hand. This opens a career growth path. Final Words. Although it requires time and effort, Salesforce certifications are worth it! You have to sign off on this any time you take a certification test, the little “I agree to the terms and conditions” checkbox; that’s where you are agreeing to the certification program agreement and the policies within it. I’ll be honest, I usually put in one or two hours per day every day including weekends so that I can start gaining the knowledge and then applying it. A: Yes, it is worth it! A: They are worth it. That’s probably the easiest thing. You gain valuable knowledge that you use in your day to day work. A: I got my first certification about a year after I started and would have gotten it sooner had I realized it existed. I don’t necessarily think that it’s a requirement. A: So far I only have Platform Developer I, but I’m booked in for App Builder and Platform Developer II in the next 2-4 weeks, and I’m also aiming to take CPQ Specialist around June/July. Further, I’ve reached a point that I’m on the precipice of the Certified Technical Architect which is the most sought after certification in the Salesforce ecosystem so I’m going for it. We'll see what they're actually paying. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) service and also sells a complementary suite of enterprise applications focused on customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and application development. My next step is the Sharing and Visibility Designer certification. I think it’s a great way to not only prepare for the exams but also to learn the kind of terminology that’s used. I get recruiters hit me up via LinkedIn and email nearly every day. Once I got in, I saw an immediate value add when I started getting my certifications.  32.8k, Cloud Computing Interview Questions And Answers   Certificates have helped me get opportunities that I would’ve not been able to get before. I think that will be an amazing achievement. We just needed to cover the basic fundamentals along with your real-time work experience. However the Salesforce space is growing and there are opportunities at the moment, so having certifications would definitely open doors. No, maintenance is easy. It was mostly on-the-job training for me, i.e. For my 12 certs, I guess I have maybe four branches requiring a module. The Salesforce organization gives away quite a bit of this swag — stickers and books and beautiful badges and socks, at the yearly Dreamforce conference that they conduct, where Salesforce people from everywhere across the world appear to talk about CRM. With the learning in your certification training, you can get more information and furthermore utilize your past theoretical knowledge to get the important outcomes for your company. It also keeps you competitive so that you never lose track of what you are doing and working on. I personally agree that certifications aren’t the be-all and end-all. A: Yes, it is hard. If applying for any other job, then I don’t think it would be as useful. As of now, I’m 4x Salesforce certified (plus I have a Salesforce Certified Force.com Developer certificate which is now retired). And the only thing you need to do to maintain your certificates is to go through a Trailhead maintenance module. When you get a certified Salesforce Administrator, you are in an extraordinary position to enable your organization to advance and tweak its Salesforce instance. Back then, I fully intended to continue to get more certification, it just worked out that over the next year I didn’t have the time because we got so busy with work. Once you can reach a score of 85-90 on all the quizzes, you’re ready to pass the real exam. Also, Martin Gessner’s video course covers a lot of the material Focus on Force does but this is a person teaching you rather than you have to tutor yourself, they’re also really useful. Numerous organizations don't have a strong arrangement to advance their Salesforce instance after implementation. As you go on further to investigate this course, you will have the capacity to learn more and more about the field. There are two exemptions to this, the Advanced Developer exam requires an assignment and the Technical Architect requires a self-assessment, exam and an interview. As for difficulty, there is always the fact that, given the sheer amount of documentation Salesforce has, even when you do follow the exam guidelines and resources, it may not cover everything, but the community itself is good about filling in the gaps and guiding people to other areas which might need to be focused on. It’s a way to validate your skills and your portfolio. I like digital communication for high performance for smart workers like me. No, I don’t, especially now. I think it helps to drive thought leadership and allows you to be a strong presence in the ecosystem. Worth it and isn’t worth it, in my opinion. A: Yes, of course. You gain valuable knowledge that you use in your day to day work. Salesforce Certified experts are among the most indispensable professionals in the market today. A few times a year you have to complete a maintenance module on Trailhead. One thing I’ve noticed was that whenever I’m interviewing someone or am just trying to do research, it’s really hard to say things like: “Based on my portfolio, we did X, Y, Z on that project”. Professional Opinions on Salesforce Certification: Is it Worth it? I found the blogs of other Salesforce-proficient individuals like Keir Bowden and Jitendra Zaa much more beneficial for the practical examples provided. I prepared using Trailhead, the Salesforce developer guide, and the Salesforce community. Most people don’t realize that the true skill set in tech is not any tech in particular but rather continual learning. 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