How do we know our people know their Salesforce stuff? It’s all in their certifications.
Salesforce offers a wide variety of certifications so Salesforce admin and partners can demonstrate how well they know the platform.
Different certifications are available for Administrator and Advanced Admin related skills or Sales, Service, Community, and Marketing Cloud skills as well as Platform Developer skills.
Each certification consists of a multiple-choice proctored exam that can be taken online or in a testing center.
And if you were one of those students who could wing it on tests in school, don’t plan to with these tests.
They are no joke. You’ll need to know the topic inside and out. Plan to spend a good deal of time in advance preparing and studying.
Why do certifications matter for the Penrod team?
At Penrod, certifications are important when we hire new employees for a few reasons. First, it’s a really easy way for candidates to communicate what they already know about the platform. It’s also a simple way for our HR team to screen candidates for the skills we need for a particular role. Then, once a candidate joins us here, their certifications demonstrate to Penrod’s clients that our teams are experts in building Salesforce solutions that fit their needs.
Administrator Certification
The first certification we look for is the Administrator certification. It’s the base certification for the Salesforce ecosystem and this is where most people start to give themselves a good foundation for other certifications.
The Administrator certification covers the fundamentals of the system, making it a good indicator that people who have it have the basic skills needed to be an effective Salesforce Admin.
To get this certification, you’re going to need to know about the basic data model, Sales Cloud and Service Cloud basics, the security model, reporting, and process automation.
This certification is a requirement at Penrod for our employees who work with Salesforce consulting. If they don’t have it when they start, we want them to get it as soon as possible.
Sales Cloud Consultant Certification
From the Administrator certification, most Salesforce consultants move on to the Sales Cloud Consultant certification.
This certification focuses on how best to approach a situation when there are multiple possible solutions, instead of how to achieve specific things like the App Builder or Advanced Administrator certifications do.
Topics in this certification include deeper Sales Cloud features like Forecasting, Multi-Currency, Enterprise Territory Management, and Contracts.
Consultants with this certification have the knowledge and skills to work with Penrod’s clients to evaluate their business needs, especially their sales process and systems, as well as provide advice on the best approach to solve their problems. These consultants can also design and build an effective solution that helps Sales organizations thrive.
Service Cloud Consultant Certification
For many Salesforce consultants, the Service Cloud Consultant certification is the third step after their Sales Cloud Consultant certification. People who have more exposure to Service Cloud implementations may do this certification right after their Admin certification.
This exam, like the Sales Cloud Consultant certification, tests not just how to do certain things on the Salesforce platform, but also how best to do them.
It also covers broader industry knowledge like the KPIs most service organizations typically track.
Topics include deeper Service Cloud functionality like call deflection, Knowledge base management, Open CTI, Live Agent web chat, and Entitlement Management.
This certification is a must-have for Penrod’s employees who work on Service Cloud projects because they need a good grasp of service organization pain points and a knowledge of how to build a fantastic solution that remedies those problems on the Salesforce platform.
Platform Developer II
Penrod’s Salesforce developers really need this certification. There is a Platform Developer I certification, and it is a necessary step for Salesforce developers, but the Dev II certification goes much deeper and is a better indicator of developer skill and experience.
To receive this certification, developers must complete both a multiple-choice proctored exam (just like most other Salesforce certifications) and four Superbadges on Trailhead. These Superbadges involve the developers writing code and building functionality to demonstrate that she or he has the chops to be among the best Salesforce developers.
Topics covered in the test and in the superbadges include asynchronous programming, REST and SOAP webservices, testing frameworks, Lightning Components, data integration patterns, error handling, and testing frameworks.
At Penrod, we use this certification to determine which developers have reached the pinnacle of Salesforce development prowess.
Wait, doesn’t Salesforce have way more certifications than just those?
Yep, you are absolutely right! These are some of the certifications that matter most for Penrod employees, but each month we’ll cover new certifications our team achieves and go into more detail about further certifications.
Want to learn more about what Penrod looks for in new team members?