Do you aspire to learn a new skill in this fantastic new year? Salesforce certification exams will be the perfect choice to grow your career. But then, the first question that arises will be the best-suited Salesforce certifications for beginners in 2024.
Even though the goal is to land a reputed job with Salesforce, it is not just about passing a Salesforce exam. There are several departments within Salesforce, and for a beginner, the first step is to choose the right career path based on one’s temperament and talent. This ensures that you love what you do, and your job career should be your passion so that you have the drive to indulge wholeheartedly.
Let us understand how one can choose a clear Salesforce career pathway before moving on to the top Salesforce certifications for beginners in 2024.
Choosing a Salesforce Certification in 2024
Currently, in 2024, Salesforce has 37 different certification exams. They have been divided based on the job roles into admin, developer, consultant, architect, marketer, and designer. You must choose the right learning path to handle the situation and feel free in the long run. A wrong choice will make you lose interest and thus discourage you from pursuing the job. Despite knowing your interest, you should also be able to evaluate the job demand and earning potential associated with the career.
What Should be the First Salesforce Certification for Beginners?
When you are new to Salesforce, the first step is understanding the fundamentals. These form the base of your Salesforce skills and will benefit any career path you choose.
Also, enrolling in a Salesforce training program from a reliable platform will be an added advantage for you to get a precise start to your Salesforce journey.
Salesforce Certified Associate Certification
It is a newly added entry-level Salesforce certification launched in 2022. Those new to Salesforce found the Administrator certification rather hard to conquer. Salesforce set a goal to create 9.3 million new jobs by 2026. To accomplish this goal, attracting aspiring candidates without a technical background became necessary.
Ideally, this cert will help you assess if you are ready to build your career in Salesforce, but it is not a mandatory exam. It provides basic information about the Salesforce ecosystem and how the platform caters to business needs.
Salesforce Administrator Certification
The Admin cert is the popular Salesforce exam for beginners. According to a survey, more than 70% of Salesforce professionals hold an admin credential regardless of their specific job role.
Salesforce is a technology, and the admin certification introduces the candidate to the technology and its nuances. It gets you acquainted with all the terms and working of the platform so that further detailing and leveling up becomes a cinch.
Those new to Salesforce will need help understanding the terms and working of the CRM platform. You can start your Salesforce Admin certification learning for free with Trailhead and Trail mixes. Parallelly, take mentored online guidance as you are new to the technology. Certification exam courses are available online at affordable prices with dedicated tutoring. Anyone can become a successful Salesforce professional in less than a year with dedicated learning and proper guidance.
You can also take that first step towards learning Salesforce with the help of Salesforce Learning App for Android or iOS.
Moving On After Fundamental Salesforce Certification
After gaining your first SF cert, you now know your skills and which pathway will suit your talent. Most get the hang of the admin pathway and move on in the same line with the Advanced Administrator certification exam. The top Salesforce career pathways for beginners are administrator, developer, architect, and consultant.
Salesforce Administrator
The admin role in any organization is valued and well-paid. If you want to avoid dunking into coding and programming, then this is the role to pick up for a newbie. They act as a bridge between the technical department and the business operations.
With a bit of business knowledge and technical understanding, you will be able to excel in this role. Good communication skills and creativity will be additional definers that will deem you suitable for this role.
Salesforce Certified Administrator is the first step towards this role, and you can excel with the Advanced Administrator exam.
The advantage of the admin role is that you can switch to any other Salesforce job role. Every Salesforce org should have an admin to maintain the platform, thus making it one of the most demanded in the job market. The average salary ranges from $80,000 to 150,000 based on expertise and experience.
Salesforce Developer
As is evident from the name, they are the people who program and code the Salesforce projects of the organization. They provide custom solutions for the smooth functioning of the business. Moving on to advanced levels, the developer works on data modeling on the Lightning Platform.
Problem-solving and coding skills are essential to venture into this department of Salesforce. When faced with a specific requirement, businesses will turn to the App developer to code solutions to ensure the smooth and effective operation of the org.
It is mandatory to hold a Salesforce Administrator certificate to attempt the developer exam. There are currently three levels to the developer certification, and the first is Salesforce Certified Commerce Cloud Digital Developer, followed by Platform Developer I and II.
The advanced technical position comes with a bigger salary scale, starting at $110,000 and going up to $300,000 for skilled coders. Becoming a Salesforce trainer is also a competitive job role. The salary of a Salesforce developer is high in the US due to the intense demand.
Salesforce Consultant
A consultant studies the business and devices solutions to improve the process and performance of the business using Salesforce. They improve the processes for better organization and customer service.
A person who has a business-minded approach will be able to excel in this position. His skill, combined with his knowledge of the CRM platform, guides businesses to streamline their client relationship management process.
The consultant holds his expertise in sales, service, Pardot, or marketing sectors with the corresponding Salesforce certificate. There are specializations for each department that the candidate can pursue later.
With your cloud consultant credentials, you can either get yourself hired by a company or work as a consultant providing your advice to several businesses, helping them get the most out of their CRM platform. The more successful clients under your wings, the more your payout will be. On average, it ranges from $140,00 to $200,00.
Salesforce Architect
They are the Salesforce ninjas who design systems based on client requirements. They configure arrangements and workflows that amplify the Salesforce org and develop technical solutions on the Salesforce Lightning platform.
Coding knowledge would benefit someone stepping into the Salesforce Architect pathway. Even though you do not have to be a coding guru, knowledge about codes will be helpful to guide the developers and to understand their code, thus helping to suggest the best solutions.
Two pathways lead to two different roles: technical architect and solution architect. Salesforce has laid out an extensive set of specialization exams and domain architect exams that lead toward the pinnacle of becoming a certified Solution or Technical Architect.
The route map towards the job is much more complicated and thus comes with good pay. The Salesforce Architects are mostly paid an average of about $70 per hour. Companies in the US pay around $ 130,000 to 180,000 to their Salesforce Architects.
Taking the Step
Salesforce is growing, and the cloud CRM platform will take a boom in the coming years with the increasing popularity of Cloud-based services. One of the prominent features of Salesforce is that anyone can find an exciting job with Salesforce. You should be able to evaluate your passion, technical know-how, experience, and interest to make the right choice.
It is also required to analyze which job roles are in high demand. Salesforce jobs come with progressive growth potential and a lucrative salary scale. With the remote and hybrid work culture, you can gain a job in a US company and work from your hometown. The impending dread of a recession will not be impacting the Salesforce job sector.
In Conclusion
We hope the article can help you decide on your Salesforce career pathway and kick-start your learning process. You can successfully switch from your current job to Salesforce.