Top 25+ Salesforce Interview Questions and Answers in 2023

Are you about to attend a Salesforce interview? You’ll encounter a few questions about how Salesforce works, demanding more specific insights than your average programmer interview questions.

Some Salesforce positions require minimal knowledge of the platform; others require experts. We’ve separated our Salesforce interview questions into basic, intermediate, and advanced — depending on the role that you want. By the end, you’ll be versed with common questions and learn why Salesforce interview questions are valuable in preparing for an interview.

Salesforce Interview Questions

Salesforce questions give you insights into what you should be studying — and what employers need to know about your Salesforce experience and background. But before we get started, let’s discuss what a “Salesforce” interview is.

Many companies use Salesforce. As a professional, you could encounter positions that require you to use Salesforce as a sales representative or positions requiring you to develop applications and utilities for Salesforce.

UsingSalesforce is simply a matter of being accustomed to the software. Training is usually available.Programming for Salesforce (being a Salesforce developer) is a more niche (but far more lucrative) market.

Look at precisely what the job listing is for and what level of experience the employer needs before applying. Experience “in Salesforce” won’t always mean the same thing.

Salesforce Basic Interview Questions

Basic interview questions assume that you’ve had some experience with Salesforce, but not necessarily a lot of experience. You should understand what the platform does, its essential features, and how to navigate your way through it.

1. What is Salesforce?

Salesforce is an entirely cloud-based SaaS system. When it initially launched, Salesforce was a CRM: Customer Relationship Management suite. But today, it's a complete cloud service and infrastructure. Under the Salesforce SaaS solution, teams can manage all their connections with potential leads.

2. Why Should You Use Salesforce?

Salesforce has become popular because it is a cloud-based, decentralized service that can be accessed from anywhere and integrated into many other solutions. It’s accessible, scalable, and affordable. It is now the backbone of the technology stack for many organizations.

3. What’s the Difference Between Sales Cloud and Service Cloud?

Salesforce provides two major offerings: Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. The Sales Cloud supports the sales team while the Service Cloud supports customer service personnel. Sales Cloud is a revenue-generating service, while Service Cloud is a customer service portal.

4. What is the Salesforce Force.com Platform?

The Salesforce Force.com platform lets organizations update and improve their applications in a low-code environment. By customizing their applications, organizations maintain better control over their processes. But this also means that organizations need low code developers on their team.

5. What is the Salesforce AppExchange?

The Salesforce AppExchange is Salesforce’s app store. Through AppExchange, organizations can download and install apps that modify or improve their Salesforce experience. The exchange makes it possible for organizations to improve and fine-tune their operations without having to code new integrations.

6. What Are the Major Features of Salesforce?

Salesforce provides contact management, opportunity management, lead management, and general sales data. Primarily, Salesforce makes it possible to acquire and score leads, manage customer relationships, analyze data, and make relevant forecasts.

7. How Can You Customize the Way Salesforce Looks?

It’s a good idea to customize Salesforce for your organization. Salesforce can be customized through brand colors, background images, and logos. Customization extends your brand identity and fosters your company culture.

Salesforce Intermediate Interview Questions

Intermediate Salesforce technical interview questions will assume that you have at least a year of experience with the platform. These questions will ask more about how you’ve used Salesforce and the experiences you’ve had.

8. How Are Salesforce Updates Released?

Salesforce updates are released continuously because the system is a Software-as-a-Service cloud-based platform. Your organization does not need to accept these Salesforce releases; they will happen automatically.

Salesforce achieves a high level of security through rolling updates. These security updates are critical because Salesforce deals with highly sensitive data. When developers find vulnerabilities within Salesforce, they can roll out patches immediately.

9. How Do You Test Changes in Salesforce?

Developers should push all changes in Salesforce into a sandbox environment before they push them to production. Salesforce provides compartmentalized, virtualized environments known as “sandboxes” where developers can test changes before applying them to live data. The sandbox system works to prevent data loss or system disruptions.

10. What is Data vsMeta Data?

In any software system, both data and metadata are important. Data refers to information such as a contact or a lead, whereas metadata is information about data. An example of metadata might be when a lead was first entered into the system, when it was last modified, and how many users have modified it.

11. What is a Queue in Salesforce?

In Salesforce, nearly everything (such as leads and campaigns) is assigned to a person. Someone is responsible for every item in Salesforce. Queues are an exception. Queues are where unassigned things or tasks are stored; for instance, a bucket of leads can be re-marketed by the right salesperson.

12. What is Salesforce Customer 360?

Salesforce Customer 360 is a full view of a customer and their interactions with an organization. Through Salesforce Customer 360, organizations and their employees can better view their customer relationships, customer experiences, and buyer journeys. Customer 360 can improve lead scoring by tracking and analyzing customer behavior and identifying behavior that indicates commitment.

13. What is the Partner Portal vs Customer Portal?

The Customer Portal and Partner Portal provide a cohesive experience for those who interact with the organization. Customers and Partners can connect to the relevant portals to communicate with the organization or initiate requests. Organizations provide a consistent user experience through these portals.

14. What Are Different Types of Reports?

Salesforce has an array of highly robust reports. However, there are four different types of reports:

• Tabular:These reports are similar to a spreadsheet.
• Summary:These reports summarize data from other reports.
• Matrix:These reports provide more visibility and customization than tabular reports.
• Joined:These reports join multiple reports for comparison.

On the other hand, what you can view in these reports can be everything from lead scoring to newsletter open rates.

15. What is a Dynamic Dashboard?

Every dashboard in Salesforce is dynamic because users can customize all dashboards to their needs. A sales representative can customize their dashboard to the specific metrics they need to view to ensure the best possible service and experience to their leads and contacts.

16. How Can You Improve Salesforce User Adoption?

Organizations can struggle with new service adoption, even when the new service is superior. Training, feature development, and ambassadors can increase user adoption. Ultimately, users need to see that the product will make it easier for them to do their jobs; then, they will embrace it.

17. How Does Salesforce Normalize and Clean Its Data?

Salesforce ensures that sales representatives and customer support representatives are always working with the right records by normalizing and cleaning data. Salesforce first validates its data (for example, ensuring that an email is valid) before saving it. It also provides duplicate management services, so duplicate entries aren’t saved.

Salesforce Interview Questions for Experienced Users

These Salesforce testing interview questions target those who have spent at least a few years working in Salesforce. These individuals should know quite a bit about Salesforce and its operation, but they may not be experts in developing for Salesforce or administering it.

18. What is the Difference Between a Role and a Profile?

A role determines what information someone can access, whereas a profile determines what types of objects and fields a person can access. Both protect the security of the data within Salesforce. Together, they provide privacy and authentication services within the suite.

19. What are Automation Tools in Salesforce?

Salesforce has three major automation tools: Workflow, ProcessBuilder, and Flow. Automation tools are what streamline and improve the operation of Salesforce; they’re set processes that occur upon certain triggers, such as saving a customer record. Under Salesforce, you could make it that a new lead is automatically sent to a sales representative for a phone call.

20. What Relationships Can You Build in Salesforce?

Relationships can be parent-child, or they can be joint. By connecting data in Salesforce, you can improve your data management. When data is connected, it reduces the chances that something could be missed.

21. What is the Salesforce Order of Execution?

Salesforce has a strict order of execution, which is the priority in which specific tasks initiate. Understanding the Order of Execution is important for those who want to customize Salesforce; for instance, a record might save before triggering Apex code or after triggering Apex code.

22. What is Apex?

Apex is the primary programming language of Salesforce. While many changes in Salesforce occur in a low-code environment, it may still be necessary to dig deep under the hood. Programmers familiar with other statically typed languages should find Apex relatively easy to use, especially programmers who have worked with either C or Java. Apex can be triggered in various areas of Salesforce, especially when it comes to automated emails.

23. What is SoQL?

SoQL is a language like SQL(structured query language) used to query data from the Salesforce database. Developers can use SoQL to pull data directly from the database or directly manipulate it, providing even greater customization levels.

24. What is Mulesoft?

Mulesoft is an integration suite that makes it easier for Salesforce to integrate with other products. Many companies have Salesforce central to their technology stack; they integrate everything with the rest of their system. Without Mulesoft, developers will need to code integrations manually.

25. What is an Apex Trigger?

An Apex trigger is an action that triggers custom Apex code, such as saving a file, transferring a file to another person, or even closing a file. Developers can inject custom code into these points to improve the customization of the Salesforce system.

26. What is Apex Test Coverage?

Developers must test all custom code to achieve better security while maintaining automated system processes. Before developers deploy code, the code must meet the standards of Apex Test Coverage. The minimum test coverage is 75%.

How Do I Prepare for a Salesforce Interview?

As with any interview, the more you know, the more confident you will be. Spend some time on the Salesforce platform. If you can, take a class on Salesforce or even go for a Salesforce certification.

If there are any questions above that you didn’t know how to answer, now is the time to find out more. You may need to learn more about Salesforce reports, integrations, or customization — anything that you learn will make you a stronger candidate.

How Much Does a Salesforce Professional Make?

According to Indeed, the average Salesforce developer makes an average $110,685 salary. Salesforce developers are currently in demand. Since Salesforce is growing in popularity, there are many businesses across all industries adopting it.

As an entry-level Salesforce administrator or user, you will likely make less money — but acquiring training, certifications, and experience can help you get to the upper edge of the salary range during your career.

How to Ace a Salesforce Interview

Here are a few tips for acing your review, for background questions or simulation tests:

• Be honest about your skills: An employer is usually willing to train an entry-level employee. Concentrate on what you know about Salesforce and be open to learning more.
• Don’t over-prepare:If you’re applying to a sales position, it’s doubtful that they will ask you to write code for Salesforce; you just need to know the basics.
• Practice with Salesforce:You should log into Salesforce and practice with test data until you feel confident that you have “refreshed” your skills.
• Get a Salesforce certification: Becoming a Salesforce-certified professional can help you get a job in Salesforce support or Salesforce development.

Salesforce is a robust product. Even experts can work with it for years and not touch certain parts of the project. The Salesforce team continues to add new functions and evolve the product. Few employers will expect you to know everything about Salesforce at once.

Conclusion

The above Salesforce interview questions and answers can help you prepare for and ace your next interview. But there’s nothing better than direct experience with the software.

Whether you’re a complete beginner or an advanced user who wants to brush up on their skills, consider taking a Salesforce class. BecauseSalesforceis updated so frequently, you may need to learn more about new features and integrations.

Since knowledge of Salesforce is such an in-demand skill, you should have plenty of interviews lined up. Good luck on your job-searching journey!

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