Salesforce Administrator Interview Questions

Preparing for Salesforce administrator interview questions can improve job candidates’ chances of making a good first impression and passing the interview.

In this guide, we’ll explore a few types of questions that can be expected when interviewing for this job.

Before we do, though, let’s briefly describe the Salesforce administrator position.

What Does a Salesforce Administrator Do?

A Salesforce administrator is a Salesforce CRM expert who manages and leads the deployment of Salesforce in an organization.

Their duties include:

• Administrating the Salesforce system for an organization’s users, including user account maintenance, reporting, dashboards, and more
• Performing regular updates, system checks, and integrations
• Training employees on Salesforce workflows
• Supporting change management and administrative activities related to the Salesforce platform

Typical experience requirements include:

• Prior experience as a Salesforce administrator
• High-level Salesforce skills, as well as Salesforce certifications
• Experience and skills in project management
• Strong abilities with data analytics
• Interpersonal skills and strong communication skills

These types of baseline requirements are just the first step, however. Before applying and interviewing for the job, it can be useful to understand them in detail, since that information will shed light on the organization’s needs.

Salesforce Administrator Interview Questions

Preparation can make a big difference in the outcome of an interview, so it is important to follow a few key steps:

• Understand the job requirements and responsibilities as mentioned above
• Learn what questions will be asked during the interview and what interviewers are looking for in candidates
• Prepare for the interview by studying questions, formulating answers, and practicing those answers

Naturally, it is not always possible to predict every single question an interviewer will ask. But preparing for the interviewer’s questions can help candidates articulate their ideas more clearly, reduce hesitation, and ultimately improve the chances of success.

There are two types of questions that we will look at below: skills questions and general questions.

Skills Questions

Salesforce administrators are expected to be experts at Salesforce, so interviewers may test that knowledge by assessing the candidate’s digital skills.

Here are a few examples:

• How do you create a report in Salesforce Classic? Click on “Reports” at the top, then click “New Report.” Choose the data fields to add from the Fields Pane, then add filters from the Filters Pane. 
• What types of reports are available in Salesforce? Tabular reports present data arranged in columns and rows. Summary reports display selected summaries of data. Matrix reports presents summaries in a grid. Joined reports combine several reports into one.
• What is a Salesforce Lightning component? Lightning components are reusable application units. These are used together to build Lightning apps.
• What is a Salesforce Lightning component framework? This UI framework is used in dynamic Salesforce web apps. Like a template, it allows users to build applications more quickly.
• What is a Salesforce sandbox? A Salesforce sandbox replicates an organization’s current Salesforce implementation. It is used for testing, training, and development, since sandboxes do not impact the real-world instance.
• How do you create a Salesforce Lightning dashboard? First, create a source report, then click the New Dashboard button to start the Dashboard Builder. Enter the name for the dashboard, then add components and filters from the menu. After components have been added and customized, click Save, then Done.

Every Salesforce administrator should have enough knowledge to answer these questions easily. 

However, these questions will often be supplemented by more difficult scenarios or problems, all of which are designed to assess the candidate’s actual skill levels – or their ability to tackle new problems and scenarios.

General Job Questions

Skills-based job questions, or a skills test, will be complemented by a set of “normal” interview questions.

These are intended to:

• Assess cultural fit
• Determine enthusiasm, drive, and performance
• Find out whether the candidate will be able to do the job
• Understand how the candidate solves problems and makes decisions
• Learn about the candidate’s management and leadership styles

It is just as useful to practice for these questions as those mentioned above.

Here are a few example questions to expect:

• How will your experience and skills help you succeed at this position? When answering this question, it is useful to emphasize skills, experience, and abilities, as well as personal motivation and productivity. In many ways, after all, those personality traits help to define a person’s behavior in the workplace.
• What are your personal career goals? Personal career goals should align with the organization’s, so it is important to keep that in mind when framing the answer. For instance, if the organization offers no room for upward career growth, they will be unlikely to hire a candidate who wants to grow beyond a Salesforce administrator in the next year.
• Tell us about your most successful Salesforce project. When describing Salesforce projects, implementations, and successes, it is important to dimensionalize the events. Describe the obstacles, decision-making process, successes, and other relevant details.
• How would you resolve a conflict in the workplace? Conflict resolution is important for anyone who works with others, not just managers. As with the previous question, answers should describe the situation in detail, including the nature of the conflict, the parties involved, the challenges, decision-making strategies, and the outcomes.

These types of questions are common to all interviews, and countless examples can be found online.

As with the questions above, these questions and answers should be practiced, either verbally or in writing, well before the actual interview.