Salesforce.com Certified Force.com Developer (DEV 401)
Posted by Manish on March 26, 2012
With my immense pleasure, I would like to share that I passed by Force.com Developer (DEV 401) certification today. It took me 64 minutes to go through all the questions and review them before I hit the submit button. After one more click of ‘Continue’ Button, ohoooo the screen says
“Result: Pass”.
After completion, I thought of sharing some of my experience regarding my preparation for the exam. So here we go >>
Basically someone who is sitting for the exam should have at least 6 months of experience working as Salesforce Developer. The experience gained from workplace while using the tool is irreplaceable.
Second thing is dowloading the Study Guide and making sure you know what you are trying to achieve and focus your further study towards the topics given in the study guide.
Third is actually studying the book and references, help and tutorial and going through the freely available Podcast. Following links are very beneficial for this.
Podcast:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/salesforce.com-training-certification/id325668840
Book:
1. Development with the Force.com Platform: Building Business Applications in the Cloud (2nd Edition)
2. Force.com Developer Certification Handbook (DEV401)
Links:
1. http://www.forceprepare.com/tutorial/intro.html
2. http://forcecertified.com/certifications/certified-developer/
Fourth step is to give some mock exams available in net. But, please make sure that you are giving the latest exams as there are so many outdated mock exams in net which in some cases are purely incorrect for the present scenario.
Following links are very beneficial for this.
1. http://www.allaboutsfdc.com/
2. http://salesforcedumps.blogspot.com/
3. http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/search.php?search=dev+401
3. Force.com Developer Certification Handbook (DEV401)
Finally arriving in the test center before time (unlike me.. :P), be confident and sit for the exam.
Wish you all the best if you followed this guide for your exam.
Please drop me comment whether or not this helped.
Technology Cares 
Gowri said
Hi Manish,
I just completed my SFDC training and am planning to take up 401 certification shortly. To clear the exam, is it absolutely necessary to have hands-on experience with SFDC projects? From your perspective, what would I be missing if I take up the certification without hands-on experience?
Thanks and Regards,
Gowri
Manish said
Hi Gowri,
The reason I was highlighting the necessity of Hands on experience is that it will be very helpful in the exam. For example, you’ll get questions(or some options) that might confuse you if you had only read them in book. However, if you had tackled them while working, you’ll just pass it by.. it will never confuse you.
Salesforce exam pattern is more like that. I wouldn’t say you absolutely need working experience. But it will be very very helpful if you have one. Just make sure you have at least used the developer edition for practice.
Thanks,
Manish
Guna said
Hi Gowri,
I am curious to talk to you regarding DEv 401 exam. need some advice. How could I reach you?
Thanks
maneesha said
hi, I have one questions like all the questions are based on scenario based?
Manish said
Not all questions are scenario based. But you’ll see lots of such questions.
Prabhu Issac said
Hi,
Can you please send me the latest dumps for 401 exam.
Mail id : prabhu.issac1990@gmail.com
Regards,
Prabhu Issac
Manish said
Prabhu,
Unfortunately I don’t have any dumps. However, you can go through the latest mockup exams that are available online.
Junaid Elias said
Hi,I just wanted to know how much of a change has the current version of salesforce undergone wrt say the ’09 edition.The podcasts available are kinda dated.Any information will be useful.Thanks
Manish said
There are new releases in every 3 months. So a lot of new things have been introduced in Salesforce. I agree, ’09 podcast can help you only in certain extend. It is highly recommended to go through the following:
Force.com Workbook (http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/workbook/index.htm)
Security Workbook (http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/workbook_security/index.htm)
Analytics Workbook (http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/workbook_analytics/index.htm)
And, big thing is to have actual working experience.