I recently found myself scrolling through LinkedIn, and saw that the Salesforce ecosystem is once again lighting up with the familiar argument: do certifications really matter? I quickly check whether there’s anything different with this person’s particular argument or standpoint, but I’m inevitably disappointed.
Generally speaking, on one side, you have those who argue that certifications are little more than “paper badges.” They don’t prove you can design an end-to-end architecture, lead a delivery team, or navigate the messiness of a global CRM rollout with difficult customers. Real-world experience, they say, always trumps exam performance, especially when those who are double-digit certified are suspected of having cheated or taken shortcuts. I’ve personally been suspected/slightly accused of this, and it’s not a nice feeling to have.
On the other side are those who see certifications as essential. These certifications are stepping stones, proof points, and ways to demonstrate capability in an ecosystem that is growing more crowded and more competitive every single year.
But, if you look very carefully, if you read between the lines, the heart of the debate isn’t really about certifications. It’s about access: who gets through the door without them, and who needs them stamped on their record just to be allowed entry. Let’s take a closer look at certs and what they really bring to the table for Salesforce professionals.
What Certifications Actually Measure (and What They Don’t)
Certifications are far from perfect. They don’t measure judgment, political navigation, or the scars earned from late-night deployments gone wrong. They can’t capture your ability to mediate between a product owner and a delivery team or to translate executive vision into technical blueprints.
But they do measure some important things:
- Currency and breadth of knowledge: A certification proves you’ve studied the latest version of the platform and can speak the language of Salesforce features.
- Commitment and effort: You’ve put in structured hours, invested money, and demonstrated persistence.
- Baseline alignment: Certifications give teams a shared vocabulary. “This person is a Certified Admin” means something across continents.
What they miss, however, is:
- Trade-off decisions: Choosing Flow vs. Apex is a judgment call that no exam can replicate.
- Delivery scars: Surviving production outages, tricky integrations, or difficult stakeholders.
- Soft skills: Coaching juniors, building trust, and earning business sponsorship.
In my own work, I’ve found it useful to think about professional credibility in Salesforce as four distinct signals of mastery. No single signal is enough on its own, but together they give a fairer picture of capability. Below are the four signals of mastery I like to use:
- Certifications
- Portfolio of work
- References or reputation
- Delivery narratives
Each matters. But downplaying one of those signals, especially certifications, usually says more about the person doing the downplaying than about the value of the credential itself.
When “Certs Don’t Matter” Rings Hollow
I mentioned this earlier – you have to occasionally look/read carefully between the lines. Here’s the uncomfortable truth: the people most vocal about certifications not mattering are almost always those who never needed them.
They walk into interview rooms where competence is assumed. Their names carry trust before they’ve spoken. Their CVs are read with generosity, not skepticism. Professional settings, boardrooms, partner meetings, and client calls greet them with default credibility.
For others, the reality is very different. There’s a saying common among underrepresented professionals: “You have to work twice as hard to get half as much.” In Salesforce, certifications often represent that doubled effort. They are the receipts, the evidence, the passport stamps that force recognition where none is given automatically.
Critiquing certifications, then, is rarely neutral. It’s often an argument borne out of privilege, sometimes conscious, often unconscious. And it conveniently benefits those making it. By downplaying the value of certifications, they elevate the relative value of what they already hold: experience, networks, the invisible ease of default trust.
Cost, Access, and Advantage
I’d like to be quite clear here: certifications are expensive, and exams cost money. Preparation takes time. Employers don’t always sponsor vouchers or offer paid study leave. Not everyone has the same ability to dedicate nights and weekends to Trailhead Superbadges.
For someone already assumed competent, the cost feels unnecessary. Why spend £200 on a piece of paper when you’ve historically always been able to get an interview?
But for others, the cost isn’t optional; it’s the price of entry. Certifications become passports. They don’t guarantee comfort once you arrive, but they at least get you through the border.
Those who critique certifications rarely acknowledge that they’ve been moving through the professional world without needing papers. They’ve benefitted from the unspoken biases of hiring managers, from the presumption of competence in a corporate lobby, from the comfort of not being second-guessed before they speak.
The ability to travel freely, without proof, without stamps, without receipts, is itself a privilege.
Why Both Matter
Believe me, I’m not trying to glorify certifications here as they are not golden tickets. A stack of Trailhead badges and certifications does not equal architectural mastery. We’ve all met candidates with walls full of credentials and little grasp of real-world trade-offs.
But dismissing certifications outright is just as flawed.
- For those with privilege: Criticizing certifications helps maintain your advantage. It devalues the only lever others may have to counterbalance systemic barriers.
- For those without privilege: Valuing certifications is not about showing off. It’s about survival. It’s about leveling the equation, even slightly, in a world where credibility isn’t a default setting.
I believe the most appropriate view is balance: keep the bar high on delivery mastery, but keep the door open with certifications as legitimate signals – especially when it comes to those who are hiring managers or who are part of the interview screening process.
The 3 Cs of Reading a Cert (for Hiring Managers)
Hiring managers often fall into one of two traps: treating certifications as gospel or ignoring them altogether. Both are mistakes.
When I interview candidates, I use what I call the 3 C framework for reading certifications: Currency, Context, and Corroboration. It helps me avoid treating certs as gospel or dismissing them outright, and instead evaluate them responsibly using the 3 Cs framework:
- Currency: Is the certification recent? Salesforce evolves quickly; a cert from 2016 tells you little today.
- Context: Is it relevant to the role? A Marketing Cloud cert is impressive, but not directly useful if you’re hiring for a Sales Cloud architect.
- Corroboration: Can the candidate back the cert with real delivery stories, examples, and trade-off discussions?
This balances respect for certifications with validation of deeper expertise. But it’s not only the hiring managers/those involved in the interview process who need to rethink how they view certifications. Individuals who intend to use certifications need to understand how to use them strategically.
For Candidates: Using Certifications Strategically
If you’re entering or advancing in the Salesforce ecosystem, certifications matter. But the way you use them matters more.
- Choose wisely: The admin cert is still the baseline passport. For developers, App Builder or Platform Developer I are natural steps. For architects, aim for the domain certs that map to your expertise.
- Pair with proof: Certifications open the door. Once inside, you need project portfolios, delivery narratives, and references.
- Stay ethical: Avoid brain dumps. They may get you a badge, but they rob you of credibility when asked to apply the knowledge. Use Trailhead, Focus on Force, and hands-on projects instead.
Remember: certifications are a passport, not a destination. They get you through the door. What you do once inside is what defines your career.
For Hiring Managers: Read Certifications Responsibly
If you lead a team or make hiring decisions, you shape the ecosystem. How you view certifications either reinforces privilege or helps level it.
- Don’t dismiss certifications: Recognize them as legitimate signals, especially for those without default trust.
- Don’t reduce to checkboxes: Pair certifications with scenario-based interviews. Ask: “Describe a trade-off you made between Flow and Apex, and how you validated the risk.”
- Fund access: Offer vouchers, paid study days, and clear reimbursement policies. For many candidates, cost is a significant barrier. Removing it creates equity.
And perhaps most importantly: recognize your own bias. If you’ve always traveled freely, moving between companies, interviews, and projects without needing certification stamps, don’t assume that’s everyone’s reality.
When Arguing Against Certifications Serves You More Than the Ecosystem
Not everyone making the “certs don’t matter” argument is a hiring manager. In fact, many of the loudest voices are fellow Salesforce professionals; people competing for the same roles as you. And here’s the thing: those arguments aren’t neutral either.
When you dismiss certifications on LinkedIn, in blog posts, or in panels, you’re not making a noble stand for “real experience.” More often than not, you’re protecting your own positioning.
- Less certifications and more presumed credibility: If you already benefit from bias and default trust, downplaying certifications raises the relative value of what you already hold (your experience, your network, your name).
- Convincing others that certifications don’t matter: If enough people believe it, your lack of certifications is no longer a weakness; it’s spun as authenticity.
- The invisible passport stamp: You may not even realize it, but you’re traveling on the credibility granted by others’ biases. When your CV gets a second look or your voice carries weight in a meeting without proof, that’s the hidden passport you’ve been handed.
Meanwhile, your peers who don’t enjoy those same unspoken advantages have to show their papers again and again. For them, certifications aren’t vanity; they’re passports. Costly, sometimes imperfect, but essential.
Here’s the uncomfortable reflection for those of you who are like this: If you’re critiquing certifications as meaningless, are you really helping the ecosystem, or are you just reinforcing the system that benefits you?
Because every time you argue that certifications don’t matter, what you’re really saying is: “They don’t matter for me.”
Counterarguments and Rebuttals
- “Certifications are money grabs.”: The costs are real. The solution is not to dismiss certifications but to push employers to sponsor them. Budgeting two exams per person per year, plus study time, is a trivial investment compared to the cost of attrition.
- “Cert mills flood the market.”: True, but the existence of bad actors doesn’t invalidate the systemic barriers certifications help overcome. A few misuse passports; we don’t abolish passports.
- “Certs don’t make you an architect.“: Correct. But without certifications, many talented professionals will never even reach the interview, where they could prove their architectural ability.
Final Thoughts: The Door and the Bar
Certifications don’t prove mastery. They never have. The real proof is in delivery, judgment, and the scars of experience.
But dismissing certifications usually proves something else: advantage. The invisible benefit of being presumed competent, of having a name that inspires trust, of moving through professional spaces without needing extra proof.
For those with that advantage, certifications feel unnecessary. For everyone else, they are not shortcuts; they are passports, stamped and paid for with doubled work, just to stand at the same starting line.
The Salesforce ecosystem prides itself on equality and opportunity. If we truly believe in that vision, we must keep the bar high, but we cannot keep the door closed.
Comments: