I completed a new certification – and you can too (if you want)

I completed and passed the Nonprofit Cloud Consultant certification exam today. After weeks of studying and preparing, I felt that wonderful, blissful feeling when the exam results page showed I passed! Woohoo!

I felt so excited, I decided this could be one of my first blog posts. I’m going to share a quick rant about the value placed on certifications, and a number of free or low-cost resources to help prepare you for your exam.

What I mean by “if you want” (a brief rant)

As I left the testing facility, I couldn’t help wondering: why do we place such value on these certifications? They’re not a replacement for real-world experience (though experience is a great way to prepare), and there’s quite a disparity in levels of understanding since any score from 65% to 100% is a passing score.

Not to mention the cost of certification exams, which can rule out the option of getting certified for those in financially difficult times. (Though I must say a quick thank you to Salesforce for eliminating the maintenance cost.)

All this to say: I wish we didn’t place such emphasis on certifications (and college degrees – but that’s a completely different topic). I think that real-world experience is much more valuable. It goes without saying that we should never stop learning.

If you do want to get certified, here are my tips and resources

First, if you work for a nonprofit organization, note that Salesforce offers a 50% discount to nonprofits on all training courses and certifications. I know, 50% off of an expensive course is still a semi-expensive course (and with Trailhead, I wouldn’t encourage taking one of their courses unless your learning style really requires it). The important thing to note: this discount also can apply to the cost of your certification. Instead of $200, you can take your exam for $100. (Though the information on the discount isn’t as readily available as it used to be, but it’s still out there.)

To prepare for the Nonprofit Cloud Consultant exam, I studied primarily by using the Trailmix that was available on Trailhead (which included modules and links to external documents/info). I also took a practice exam the day before to "warm up" (the practice exam was for the Sales Cloud Consultant cert, because that site didn't have info for the Nonprofit one yet). I've also been doing Nonprofit Cloud consulting professionally the past 5 years, which I think helped the most. 

Alright, now for those resources. Here are some of the tools available to help with studying:

• Certified On Demand is the tool I used to study for my Admin certification in 2014
  • $50 at the time of this post, with some content available free
  • limited to the Administrator certification
• Salesforce Exam Guides are available for each certification in the Certifications section (currently under “Credentials”) on Trailhead
  • free
  • all certifications
• Salesforce Ben offers guides with tips and mock exams – I took one of the mock exams to get back in the test-taking mindset
  • $20 lifetime membership gets you access to mock exams (guides/tips are free)
  • includes 9+ different certifications
• Focus on Force offers guides and practice exams – a little pricier, so I haven’t tried them, though I often use other resources from Focus on Force
  • $19 per practice exam or study guide
  • includes 9+ different certifications

And here are some other tips for finding the resources you need to prepare:

1. Find a study group – there are a number of them on the Trailblazer Community
2. While you’re in the Trailblazer Community – reach out to those in your local User Group to see if anyone has taken the exam you’re preparing for – maybe create your own study group with others
3. Search the internet for whatever exam your preparing for “Salesforce _____ Certification” and “study guide” or “practice exam” or “study group” or any other keywords you think may help – there are always more resources being added