Isn't it fantastic to know exactly what questions will be asked during your Salesforce admin job interview?

We can't read your hiring manager’s minds, but we can give you the next best thing: a list of more than 20 of the most often asked Salesforce interview questions, along with tips on how to answer them all.

These frequently asked questions cover the basics of Salesforce that every admin should know. You might not be asked these questions in these exact terms, but if you practice your responses to the most common questions, it is one of the greatest methods to prepare for a job interview.

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‍Preparation

You don't need to remember an answer, but you should clear your basics related to Salesforce Admin. The more you prepare for a job interview, the more confident you'll be. Practice is the most critical aspect of interview preparation.

‍Questions To Begin With

Let’s Begin with Salesforce Centric Questions

Q1. What do you understand about the Salesforce Objects and its properties?

An object in Salesforce refers to a table like in Database and is used to store information where Rows refer to Records and Columns refer to Fields. Objects can be standard or custom.

Custom objects: They are created by us according to our requirements and based on our organization needs, it can have all the properties like standard objects that are fields, relationships, and layouts.
For example: If you have real estate business and want to store properties(buildings, apartments etc) in Salesforce, there is no standard way to store it and we can create a custom object for storing properties(buildings, apartments etc).‍

Standard objects: They come out of the Box to store data like - Accounts, Contacts, Leads and Opportunities etc.

Q2. Explain the different types of Relationships in Salesforce?

Basically, there are 3 different types of Relationships:

A. Lookup Relationship: Lookup relationship in Salesforce is a relationship in which we need to link two objects together without making the lookup field required. Also, the child/detail record will not have any effect after deleting a parent and it doesn’t inherit the parent’s/master’s security settings or sharing. 
Roll Up fields are not supported in lookup relationship.

B. Master Detail Relationship: Master-Detail Relationship in Salesforce is a parent-child relationship between two objects where the master/parent object controls certain behaviors of the detail object. We cannot create a child record without selecting parent in a master-detail field. When a record of the master/parent object is deleted, its related detail/child records are also deleted.
Child object inherits the sharing and security settings of parent. We can create roll up summary fields in master detail relationship.
Example- Accounts & Opportunities have a Master Detail Relationship.

C. Many-To-Many  Relationship:When we need to relate multiple records in one object with multiple records on another object, we use third object called as Junction Object to relate them which will have two Master Detail Relationship fields.
For example: If a company sells appexchange apps or Salesforce products to clients and If we need to create a relationship between Clients and Products object, we can use many to many relationship as one Client can purchase multiple apps/products and one app/products can have multiple buyers/clients.
We will create third object(Junction object) to relate them. So the Junction object will have 2 master detail relationship fields to both Clients and Apps/products object respectively. Junction object will have two parents in this case.

Q3. What do you understand about Roles & Profiles in Salesforce?

Profiles:  It decides the base level access that is provided to the user. To control the object and fields access, profile should be setup and assigned to user, If a user can create, edit, or delete records, it is determined by a profile. We can restrict and can extend the object level access of a user by using profile depending on the requirements.
While creating a user, it’s required to choose/assign a profile.
Roles: It decides the record level access given to a user. When organization-wide default sharing is set to private for any object, we can extend the access using roles.

We can set a user higher in a role hierarchy to give access of the records owned by users lower in the hierarchy. For example: Sales Manager’s role can be selected higher and Sales rep’s role lower in the role hierarchy to give Sales Manager access to Sales rep’s records.‍

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Q4. How do you delete a user in Salesforce?

We cannot delete a user in Salesforce. It can be either deactivated or freezed.
"Freezing" only stops the user from being able to login. When you "deactivate," it frees up that salesforce license to be given to another user.

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Q5. What are Governor Limits in Salesforce?

As Salesforce is Cloud based multitenant architecture, its resources (storage, CPU, etc.) are shared by many clients. So, to avoid any one client overusing these resources, Salesforce applies several Governor Limits. These include a limit of 100 SOQL queries per transaction, and a limit of 50,000 records retrieved with each SOQL query.

Governor Limits force people to use best practices in the code and taking up all the space on Cloud.

Q6. What do you understand about the Reports and Dashboard in Salesforce?

A report is an analysis of group of records which can be shown in different formats like charts, tables etc. It can contain data from one or multiple objects and we can apply different criterias/filters according to our requirement to give better insight in the org’s data. We can store reports in folders which can be private, public, shared and folders access can also be set to read-only or read/write.
A dashboard is a collection of reports, we can show multiple reports in a dashboard using different components and it can be either Static OR Dynamic.
Static Dashboards- Static dashboards display the same information to every user, and can be useful for showing data from an entire region or organization. 
Dynamic Dashboards- They are user specific Dashboards and show content that’s specific to each user, for example, individual sales figures and quotas.
For instance- If a Sales Manager is willing to see Sales and Quotas details of his entire team , he goes for Static Dashboard. While if the Manager wants to see Sales and Quotas Figures of his individual Team member, he needs to go for Dynamic Dashboards. 
Dynamic dashboards cannot be scheduled. They are refreshed manually.

Q7. Explain what exactly a Sandbox in Salesforce and its types are?

Sandbox is just like a UAT/Testing environment in Salesforce .It is the replica of the Production org and contains same metadata as production and data will depend on the type of sandbox we create.
Types of Sandbox basically differ on the storage size and Refresh Intervals.

There are Developer, Developer Pro, Partial, and Full sandboxes.

Q8. What is the difference between Salesforce.com and Force.com?

Salesforce.com- is Saas (Software as a Service) while Force.com is a Paas (Platform as a Service).
Force.com is the platform where Salesforce.com has been created using Apex. 
It is used by developers to build and customize applications, business logics and UI. 
Salesforce.com is Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application to manage sales, marketing, services, etc.

Q9. What is the difference between Workflow Rules & Process Builders in Salesforce?

Q10. What are the ways to Import/Export data in Salesforce?

Data Import Wizard : It’s a great tool to import upto 50,000 records at a time. We can insert/update records for most of the standard objects except Cases,Campaigns, Assets, Contracts, Documents, Opportunities, Products. It can also be used to import data for custom objects and can also help to prevent uploading duplicates.

Data Loader: 
It is a data loading tool/application which can be downloaded in a system, when we need to import more than 50,000 records. It is used to insert, update, delete, or export standard and custom object records. It supports CSV(Comma Seperated Value) files for import and when we export the data, it gives the file in the same format. It’s a free application.

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Tips for some real time scenario based questions:
Must Go Through!

There can be some questions about your organization's working model and your working style. They want to know if you're aware of what the other team members are doing. As a result, this interviewer will place a greater emphasis on your learning mindset, team player mentality, and ability to solve common problems of Salesforce users.

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Q1. What makes you interested in Salesforce?

Salesforce is a fast-paced environment where we must adapt to new features, products, and customers on a regular basis. I love working in Salesforce environment and working as Salesforce admin gives me challenges to find solutions without using code and mostly applying declarative approach.

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Q2. How do you manage your time to meet deadline of a project when you're working alone or in a team?

I organize time when working individually by making a To do list for that very day using Microsoft todo or any other to do manager tool and then work out what order to do things in by thinking which tasks are the priority ones and need to be worked upon first.

Similarly, when working with a team, allocate tasks to team members in the start of shift itself and then fix deadlines for the team members too. Communicate with each of the team members in between and share the workload myself if any of my team members is overburdened with tasks for the day. Also, have a patience level and am ready to explain the thing in no time to any team member.

Q3. How would you track performance of Sales Reps in Salesforce?

Have a play with reports on Opportunities and Leads, also check the subscription functionality on reports, a hidden gem not many use!  I can also use any Automation in Salesforce that would notify and send Email to Sales Managers of Accounts whose related Opportunities have not been closed in the last 1 year.

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Q4. What would you suggest when a person/user is not able to access some records?

So, when we talk about Record level access in Salesforce; First thing to check is the OWD/Sharing Settings of User for that particular Object. If the OWD is marked as Public Read/Write but then also User is not able to access records for that Object. 

Go to Profiles that have been allocated to that User and check if User has at least Read access to that Object. If not, then this was the issue. Edit and add the Object Permission to the User for his assigned Profile.

Q5. How can we prevent users from adding incorrect data in objects like leads or contacts?

We can use validation rules which are easy to apply in any custom or standard objects in Salesforce to improve the quality of data.

Q6. How internal Users can interact with each other.

Salesforce Chatter allows users to collaborate with each other in their organization in Salesforce. Users can share information, work in collaboration and have conversation with each otherChatter groups can be public, private, unlisted, and archived.

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Q7. How would you setup automation to approve discounts/records by Managers?‍

We can use Approval Processes in Salesforce, it can use sequence of steps that are required to approve a record. It can include, from whom to seek approval and what action to be automated. Example- If you want all the Opportunities that are being given a Discount of more than 20% by Sales Rep, should go to approval first to the Sales Manager.

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Q8. What will you do if you can’t find a solution with out of box  functionality in Salesforce?

I can try it with custom solution or can try to implement with some appexchange apps which can be free or paid depending on the requirement.

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Q9. What changes you make in Salesforce when a user leaves a company?

I can deactivate the user which will removes the user’s access and it will preserve the historical activity and records owned by that user. Later, the ownership of the records can be transferred to other users.

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Conclusion

Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.”  Known scientist Albert Einstein always narrated these words to budding talents. 

In your journey to find a job, a Job Interview is perhaps the most significant stage. It is the platform where you have the opportunity to show your potentials, abilities and skills. It is that stage where you can convey your context, experience and uniqueness to a recruiter. So, spending some time for practice, building up your confidence and never give up attitude can help you get any job.

Also, an interview is a two-way conversation. You can also ask questions if you have any, related to the job or organization. Enjoy the conversions and the journey!