Every Salesforce professional loves gaining Salesforce certifications. In the true “trailblazer” spirit, we love to expand the horizons of our knowledge, discovering the power at our fingertips.
But it doesn’t have to stop at Salesforce certifications and accreditations, or even at the credentials that Salesforce’s app partners provide. Non-Salesforce certifications can provide a helpful edge to your resume, and increase your learning in different areas too. Let’s have a look at some.
Non-Salesforce Certifications
There are two driving factors that make this guide timely:
- Salesforce orgs are increasingly integrated with more third-party tools to bolster CRM functionality.
- The ‘traditional’ Salesforce roles, such as Salesforce Administrator, are becoming more diverse in terms of responsibilities and desirable skill sets. The growth in Business Analysts (+33%), Consultants (+17%), and Solution Architects (+13%) in 2022 alone demonstrates the movement towards specialization (source).
We asked the Salesforce community about which credentials they’ve found most rewarding and combined them with our own observations, and here’s what we found out.
Having set the scene, let’s take a look at some credentials, outside of Salesforce’s official certification program, that could benefit your Salesforce career.
1. Six Sigma
This is a certification that cropped up time and time again when we asked the Salesforce community.
“Some say it is a statistical symbol and metric. Others describe it as a management philosophy. And many claim it is an improvement methodology. They are all correct.”
Ken Feldman, source: isixsigma.com.
Six Sigma is a set of tools and techniques that aim to remove waste (“reinventing the wheel” with processes) and reduce defects or mistakes. As a result, business processes will be improved – in a CRM context, this includes guidance for users to carry out processes correctly and consistently, process automation, customer-centric data management, and data warehousing.
“Any Lean or Six Sigma certification for those who perform implementations in the manufacturing/logistics industries, merging business operations with technology.”
Mariah Hardy-Spence, Senior CRM Data Analyst.
2. Prince2
A staple for Project Managers, Prince2 continues to shine in popularity as the “the de facto project management standard”. Over 1 million professionals are Prince2 certified, benefitting from:
- Skills to make you confident: a common language, systems and procedures to successfully manage projects.
- Control resources and risks: controls lead to fewer mistakes, but the lessons log teaches you and your team how to learn from them.
Source: Prince2.com.
3. Scrum and PSM Certifications
Scrum helps people and teams deliver value incrementally in a collaborative manner. If you are just getting started, think of it as a way to get work done as a team in small pieces at a time, with experimentation and feedback loops along the way.”
Source: scrum.org.
If you are using an Agile methodology to manage your projects, grasping Scrum best practices is a must.
Scrum.org offers 12 certifications for you to progress through, starting with the PSM I (Professional Scrum Master) through to Scaled Professional Scrum, and credentials that target specific practices.
“Specifically, the entry level PSM-1 that is aimed at understanding Scrum best practice when working on Agile projects. I’ve found what I have learned very useful on Salesforce projects (and it makes a nice change from Salesforce study!)”
Oli Monty, Senior Consultant at Capgemini, specialized in Pardot, Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud, Scrum.
4. Project Management Professional
Project Management Professional (PMP) equips project managers with up-to-date trends and practices with project management tools, processes, and methods in the following areas:
- Controlling and leading a project.
- Time and skills management for the completion of the project.
- Planning the project to maximize efficiency.
- How to manage teams from across the globe (how to be an effective team player, not just in your locality).
- How to manage resources better to achieve the end goal, with the least cost and least wasted resources.
5. Jira
The Atlassian University offers certifications that prove your hands-on experience with tools, such as Jira. As I’m sure you’re aware, Jira is commonplace among software projects. Check out the Managing Jira Projects certification and Jira Project Administrator learning path (which involves the Managing Jira Projects certification).
6. Certified Change Management Certification (CCMP)
CCMP (Certified Change Management Professional) is aimed at change management professionals, which includes Salesforce Consultants, Business Analysts, Project Managers, Salesforce Admins, and other similar roles.
Change management, simply put, is how ready the organization is for change. Organizations who want to replicate their existing processes and legacy data – to ‘lift and shift’ into the new system – is a textbook trait of poor change management.
Change management, however, is core to getting projects ‘over the line’. Otherwise, stakeholders involved in the project aren’t open to doing things differently, and regardless of how many iterations it takes to get to the end result, the technology won’t achieve their goal.
Prosci is one provider that train professionals to:
“Build capabilities to bring about change in new, smarter ways. So your employees embrace and adopt change, your investments in change pay off, and you’re equipped to face the changes of the future.”
Source: Prosci Change Management Certification.
7. Codeacademy + Miro
A partnership that launched in 2022, Codeacademy (a pro-code training course provider) and Miro (a virtual collaboration platform/whiteboarding) joined forces to equip UX developers with the tools and skills (creativity!) they need to design for people.
Both courses featured below are free, and beginner friendly.
User Research: Generative
“Understanding people is an important first step in creating useful designs. Explore generative user research and learn how it helps product development and design.”
Source: Codeacademy.
Design Thinking: Ideation
“A key part of becoming a designer is finding your creative voice. Learn the methods designers use for defining a problem to solve and brainstorming potential solutions.”
Source: Codeacademy.
8. xD
xD (Adobe Experience Cloud) is a credential for professionals who don’t have knowledge and experience in user experience.
9. Lucid Builder Badges
Launched at the start of August 2022, these three badges promise to “develop and share your expertise of the Lucid Visual Collaboration Suite”. Currently, you can earn the following badges, with more coming in the future:
- Whiteboarding Foundation: Learn the basics of effective virtual whiteboarding in Lucidspark.
- Diagramming Foundation: Learn the basics of intelligent diagramming in Lucidchart.
- Verified Lucid Admin: Learn how to manage and secure your entire Lucid account.
Salesforce Admins are honing in their business analysis skills, and process diagramming has always been core to Salesforce Consultants and Architects. Lucidchart, the highly popular online diagramming tool, comes free for the first three diagrams, meaning that anyone can get started.
10. ISTQB and Tosca
These two credentials will benefit QA (quality assurance) professionals, such as testers, DevOps professionals, and similar roles.
- ISTQB® (International Software Testing Qualifications Board) is a leading global certification scheme in the field of software testing. There are multiple certifications to progress through.
- Tricentis Tosca offers role-based learning paths. While these are somewhat tied to their technology, it seems that you will gain a solid understanding of the practices behind them.
11. TOGAF Certified Technical Architect
TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework) advocate the:
- TOGAF Standard: A proven Enterprise Architecture methodology and framework used by the world’s leading organizations).
- TOGAF Library: Containing guidelines, templates, patterns, and other forms of reference material to accelerate the creation of new architectures for the enterprise.
TOGAF credentials are beneficial for Enterprise Architects to pursue to become aligned with these global standards.
12. HubSpot RevOps Course
This one gets a big ‘thumbs up’ from me. This free course demystifies what RevOps is, who it involves, how to generate stakeholder buy-in, process mapping, and how good practices compound over time (the ‘flywheel’). This is relevant for (obviously) any RevOps professional, and also marketing teams, and the ops-curious Salesforce Admins out there.
13. MBA Essentials
MBA – which stands for Master of Business Administration – is often considered a high-ticket credential. With multiple ‘challenger’ options cropping up, you don’t have to spend a small fortune, nor study endlessly, to grasp some valuable concepts.
Sarah Kelleher shared what she gained from the LSE MBA Essentials Course:
“I found it really beneficial to gain a broader understanding of how businesses are run, economics and leadership. It’s enabled me to use the right language with my clients and to grow our own consulting practice. I suppose it’s not as hands on for everyday consulting, project management, or Scrum courses, but has been useful for me, personally.”
Sarah Kelleher, Customer Success Director @ Nebula Consulting.
Other options include the altMBA (brainchild of Seth Godin), and the PowerMBA.
14. Microsoft Excel Associate
There’s no denying that oftentimes, manipulating data in Excel is necessary. There’s a reason our Excel tips for Salesforce Admins continues to be highly popular:
The Microsoft Excel Associate will give you more skills to get the most out of Excel.
15. Tableau and PowerBI
Understanding analytics can give you a boost – and increase your visibility in your team as the ‘go-to’ person with the answers lying hidden in the data. The use of analytics tools has become democratized over time (i.e. you don’t need to be a data scientist!) and a deeper awareness of how your organization’s data is structured, will help you in unexpected ways.
- Tableau Desktop Specialist (3+ months experience), Certified Data Analyst (6+ months experience).
- Power BI Data Analyst Associate.
16. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is indispensable for marketers to track website behavior, and capture conversions (goals) when a visitor takes the desired action.
Google Analytics integrates with the Salesforce platform in various ways, so you can marry up the website at scale, with related CRM data. You can find all Google Analytics courses here.
“Our friends at Google have some good ones that are helpful for Salesforce admins, especially around analytics. Other digital marketing credentials (not-so Salesforce-related) I have recommended in the past include some SEO and social media courses, such as Twitter Flight School, Facebook Blueprint, Hootsuite Academy, Semrush Academy.”
Martin Hennig Morrissette, Customer Success at Salesforce.
17. AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner is a baseline certification offering a “foundational understanding of AWS Cloud concepts, services, and terminology. This is a good starting point for individuals in non-technical roles with no prior IT or cloud experience or for those with on-premises IT experience looking for basic AWS Cloud fluency.” (source).
Getting Started with Amazon S3 is another option that could prove useful.
Now you might be thinking: why AWS? Well, you’d be surprised at how many Salesforce products are built on AWS – and with Hyperforce expanding into more regions, there will be a new appetite to learn about the largest cloud services provider.
18. Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals
Similar to AWS, Azure has a huge market share in the cloud platforms space.
Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) is the starting point for getting Azure certified. Prove your knowledge of “cloud concepts, Azure services, Azure workloads, security and privacy in Azure, as well as Azure pricing and support. Candidates should be familiar with the general technology concepts, including concepts of networking, storage, compute, application support, and application development.” (Source).
19. Google Certified Professional Data Engineer
Designing and managing solutions using Google Cloud? Then the Google Certified Professional Data Engineer certification could be for you.
The exam will test your ability to design data processing systems (mapping storage systems to business requirements, data modeling, and schema), designing data pipelines, migrating data warehousing, and data processing.
With the Genie announcement, organizations will begin to think ‘big picture’ with their data, specifically data warehousing and processing, in order to aggregate, and deploy into the Salesforce Genie platform.
20. DevOps Certifications
Copado, DevOps Launchpad (by Gearset), and Flosum have modules that are not Salesforce specific, and can be transferable (i.e. are platform agnostic).
Final Advice
There are hundreds of courses and credentials you can pursue as a Salesforce professional – this list has included the most popular that will directly benefit your work life.
The number of certifications and courses from Salesforce partners are growing. We compiled a list for you to explore:
“Anyone who works frequently with integrated tools would benefit from being certified in that related tool (if they offer one). LeanData, Marketo, HubSpot, Outreach.io, SalesLoft, etc.”
Stacy O’Leary, 5x Certified Salesforce Administrator, LeanData Certified, Trailhead Ranger, Consultant, Trainer.
The point of this guide is to look beyond the ecosystem, to upskill in parallel technologies. These could be companies that Salesforce has partnerships with – or, you could even check out the competition to gain valuable intel:
“I have had help from having certifications to Salesforce’s direct competitors. It doesn’t hurt to know their weaknesses and strengths – after all, you may end up building integrations with them or trying to position Salesforce against them.”
Timo Kovala, Lead Marketing Consultant at Biit.