From Zero to Certified!

My journey of becoming a Salesforce Certified Administrator.

My journey of pursuing a career in Salesforce began with an online summary session hosted by Summer of Tech. That is when I was first introduced to my instructor, Amber. She explained that as the software gains popularity, more talents are needed through dedicated training. Her company was providing the chance for those who were interested in becoming a part of the future of CRM. I immediately applied knowing how valuable and rare an opportunity this is. To say I was ecstatic to receive the email saying I was one of the few people who got accepted into the program is an understatement.

Before the summary session and the subsequent acceptance into the program, I did not know what Salesforce was. Forget about knowing its functionalities, I had never even heard of it before. Lucky for me, I wasn’t flying blind. I was learning the software with the guidance of a knowledgeable instructor and a wonderful support system from Salesforce Training. Through the weekly lessons planned out by Salesforce Training, I slowly began to understand its usage in the corporate world. I started to see how versatile of a tool Salesforce is and the different ways a business can incorporate it into their practice.

MAKE NO MISTAKE!

Despite the excellent lesson plans and having my questions, concerns and doubts promptly answered, it was still not easy for me to learn how to become a competent Salesforce Admin. You go from knowing nothing about the software to learning (and having to remember) something new every single day for weeks on end. With how powerful Salesforce is, learning about it and understanding the appropriate functions for specific situations is not a linear journey. It can get tough.

By week 7, I had learned most of the important basics and technical skills for a Salesforce Admin. It is then when we were given the challenge to fly solo and build an org from scratch for our projects in the second phase of the course. That’s when my understanding on how to utilize Salesforce grew exponentially. Through hands-on practice and applying what we’ve learned in a real-world scenario really helped cementing the foundational knowledge. Through experimenting with flows, page layouts, reports, and many more functions really allowed me to see for myself what Salesforce was capable of. 

The following weeks were spent prepping for the certification exam. Once we had learned and familiarized ourselves with the basics, exam prep was mainly about drilling the fine details of a Salesforce org into our brains. This was the hardest part for me. I thought phase one of the course was hard having to learn and remember so many foreign terms and information. Phase three just showed me how much more I didn’t know. After doing hundreds of practice questions on Focus on Force and memorizing vital information we hadn’t encountered in the first part of the course, I booked my exam. 19 weeks of learning all came down to 105 minutes on a sunny Thursday morning. (Sorry, folks. Would have loved the challenge to do it on a rainy Tuesday night at Stoke, but I live in New Zealand.)

I PASSED!

After quickly scanning past the percentages of different sections on the results page after clicking the submit button, I realized something. I passed. I PASSED! Genuine excitement rushed through my body for the first time since watching Top Gun Maverick in the cinema. 20 weeks of gruelling studying, frustration and uncertainty was all worth it in that moment. Looking back, it is truly amazing how I managed to go from being a complete novice to a certified Salesforce Admin in 5 short months.