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SHAREEight members of the Traction team have just become certified Salesforce.com professionals!
This further proves why Traction is your expert provider of Salesforce, the leading enterprise customer relationship platform. Here are some findings in preparing and successfully passing the exam.
Why Become Certified? 
Over the past few years, Salesforce.com has gone from being simply a participant in the overall sales automation market to becoming a leading solution. Opportunities for administrators, consultants and developers are everywhere. No matter what track you decide to follow, earning a credential from Salesforce.com shows that you have the ability and understanding to implement your Salesforce knowledge.
How to Become a Salesforce.com Certified Professional:
The good news, all you have to do is pass an exam. The bad news, you will need to study and become an expert in the subject matter. The exam had 60 multiple choice questions with a 60% passing grade and 90 minutes were allotted to complete the exam. As I understand it, there was a pool of questions and 60 were picked at random. Things such as, security, object customization and reporting and analytics are common themes on the exam. As you progress up the Salesforce.com certification ladder, the material gets more difficult and the passing score increases. To read more about how to become a Salesforce.com certified professional, visit the Salesforce certification website.
Certification Preparation:
Don’t wait until the last minute (unless you’re one of those people who can breeze through multiple choice formats with no problem)! Give yourself a month and prepare a study plan.
One way to prepare is to register for an official Salesforce.com preparation course. This is a good choice for individuals who do not have extensive exposure to the overall platform. Another way is to leverage the wide array of preparation material available online. I have listed several websites that I used to prepare below.
- Salesforce.com Certified Administrator Notes –This is a great mindmap that displays all of the categories on the exam. It provides granular details to help you understand everything and anything that you possibly need to know. For those that learn better through written material, this is a great place to start.
- Salesforce.com practice exams This will provide you with some sample questions before writing the exam. It has a several practice tests that cover a significant portion of the exam material.
- Blogs and Social Media – There are countless blogs of Salesforce.com professionals that have passed certification exams. I found this site particularly helpful even though it is more catered to developers. YouTube is also a good resource for videos on general Salesforce.com functionality.
Final Thoughts:
Take your time studying and schedule a date that suits your schedule. A big congratulation’s to the Traction team members who passed their respective certification exams:
- Chris Peacock, Certified Salesforce.com Administrator
- Grant Adamson, Certified Salesforce.com Developer
- Emily Beach, Certified Advanced Salesforce.com Administrator
- Arnold Bernardo, Certified Salesforce.com Administrator
- Mike LaVinge, Certified Salesforce.com Developer
- Vince Liu, Certified Salesforce.com Administrator
- Viet Nguyen, Certification Salesforce.com Administrator
- Imran Chatur, Certified Salesforce.com Administrator (yes, I had to congratulate myself!)
Good Luck!
