28 tricky Salesforce interview questions to include in your hiring campaign (and answers to look for)

Today, many businesses use Salesforce – a customer relationship management (CRM) software solution – to manage their sales operations, marketing efforts, and customer data. Identifying top talent for your Salesforce roles is vital, as skilled candidates will understand how to use the platform to streamline workflows, improve customer service, boost efficiency, and more. 

On the other hand, an underqualified candidate won’t know how to use Salesforce to its full potential. This can lead to poor configuration, improper customization, and weak security measures, resulting in negative customer experiences and data security issues. 

That’s why it’s essential to evaluate each candidate's Salesforce expertise properly to ensure you hire the perfect person for the position. A great way to do this is by asking tricky Salesforce interview questions that dive deep into candidates’ knowledge and skills.

In this guide, we share 28 complex Salesforce questions you can use and offer tips on implementing them in your hiring campaigns.

What are tricky Salesforce interview questions?

When we discuss “tricky” Salesforce interview questions, we don’t mean “deceptive” questions. Rather, these questions are challenging and thought-provoking.

They go beyond the basics and enable you to carefully assess a candidate’s problem-solving skills, technical knowledge, and ability to handle complex scenarios in Salesforce.

There are several types of tricky Salesforce interview questions, each focusing on different aspects of a candidate's capabilities. These include:

Integration and external systems questions

These focus on candidates' understanding of integrating Salesforce with external systems using application programming interfaces (APIs). You can ask candidates to describe considerations, challenges, and best practices for seamless integration.

Comparative questions

Answering these questions, candidates will compare and contrast different Salesforce features, functions, or development approaches. For example, candidates may need to explain the differences between master-detail and lookup relationships.

Scenario-based questions

These provide candidates with hypothetical situations or challenges that Salesforce professionals often encounter. Candidates must provide effective solutions and explain their thought processes to demonstrate their ability to handle complex scenarios.

Technical questions

Technical Salesforce questions delve into Salesforce concepts, features, and best practices. For instance, they can assess candidates’ understanding of Visualforce, Apex code, Salesforce Object Query Language (SOQL), and governor limits.

Data management questions

These questions assess candidates' abilities to handle data in Salesforce, such as data deduplication, import and export, migration, quality, and validation rules.

Salesforce architecture and design questions

Tricky questions in this category explore candidates' understanding of Salesforce architecture, custom objects, custom settings, and designing scalable solutions.

Why include tricky Salesforce interview questions in a hiring campaign?

Including tricky Salesforce interview questions in your hiring campaigns can help you:

Assess technical proficiency

Complex Salesforce questions enable you to measure candidates’ technical expertise. By presenting tricky scenarios and asking for in-depth explanations of Salesforce features, you can identify candidates with a deep understanding of the platform's capabilities and limitations. 

This way, you can easily separate your most knowledgeable applicants from the rest of your candidate pool and advance them to the next stage of recruitment.

Evaluate candidates’ problem-solving abilities and adaptability

Tricky questions assess applicants’ problem-solving skills under pressure. It enables you to see how they approach unfamiliar problems, analyze information, and create innovative solutions – all critical skills in a dynamic Salesforce environment.

These questions also give applicants the opportunity to showcase their ability to adapt and thrive in challenging situations. They can share examples of when they’ve used quick thinking and flexibility to navigate the ever-changing Salesforce landscape. 

Make improved hiring decisions

Asking tricky interview questions gives you a more comprehensive view of your Salesforce candidates’ skills. You can also avoid bias during hiring, as you’ll ask all candidates the same questions. By combining these questions with other pre-employment assessments, like personality and job-specific tests, you can make better hiring decisions overall.

In turn, you’ll create a stronger, more skilled Salesforce team. You can ensure you always hire individuals who can tackle complex projects, find innovative solutions, and drive continuous improvement. 

28 tricky Salesforce interview questions and answers

Below, we share 28 complex Salesforce questions to ask your applicants. We’ve also included sample answers for each question.

1. Explain the differences between a role and a profile in Salesforce.

A profile is a set of permissions and settings that determine what a user can do within Salesforce. Often, profiles are tied to departments, such as Sales or Support groups. 

Roles, on the other hand, determine what a user can see and access within Salesforce. Roles are more closely linked to hierarchy within an organization.

2. What are governor limits in Salesforce, and how can you overcome them?

Governor limits in Salesforce are essentially runtime limits that help prevent the platform from using too much space on a single record or action. They help maintain performance and keep Salesforce running efficiently. For example, a single SOSL query has a governor limit of 2,000 records being retrieved at any given time.

To overcome governor limits, I’d need to write efficient Apex code, change multi-trigger Apex code to single-trigger, write SOQL queries within FOR loops, or use Trigger Handler when writing Trigger logic in Apex. 

There are also some governor limits that are essentially paywalls. For these, I would purchase larger limits from Salesforce to get past them.

3. Can you describe how record-level security is enforced in Salesforce?

Record-level security are the records in each object a user can view or edit that they have access to in their profile. Simply put, it enables you to limit what objects each user has access to. Firstly, the organization-wide defaults set the baseline access for different objects, determining whether they are publicly readable or writable. 

Then, we have the role hierarchy, which extends access to higher-level roles, allowing them to view records owned by users below them in the hierarchy. Additionally, sharing rules can be set up to grant access based on specific criteria, and manual sharing enables users to share individual records with others on a case-by-case basis. 

4. How is the with sharing keyword used in Apex within Salesforce?

The with sharing keyword is used to enforce record-level security on a class and extend sharing access on a particular object. When a class is declared with the with sharing keyword, it ensures that the sharing rules and organization-wide defaults defined in Salesforce are applied to the data accessed within that class. 

This means that the class will respect the record-level access permissions of the current user, and users will only be able to access records they have the appropriate access to based on their role, profile, and sharing settings.

5. How do you handle bulkification in Apex triggers to avoid hitting governor limits?

I make sure to process records in bulk rather than individually. Instead of querying and updating records individually, I use collections and SOQL queries – as long as they’re not within FOR loop – to handle multiple records simultaneously. This way, I reduce the number of database queries and DML operations, which helps stay within the governor limits.

Additionally, I use helper methods to perform complex logic and avoid repeating code, ensuring streamlined execution and minimizing resource consumption.

6. Can you explain the differences between workflow rules, Process Builder, and Apex triggers?

Workflow rules are simple if-then statements, Process Builder allows more complex processes with multiple actions, and Apex triggers provide full programmatic control over record processing. 

7. How can you implement one-to-many relationships in Salesforce?

You can use the lookup and master-detail fields to create one-to-many relationships in Salesforce. These fields help connect records from one object to records in another object. 

With a lookup field, you can link one record from the first object to one record in the second object. Meanwhile, a master-detail field enables you to connect multiple records in the second object to one record in the first object.

8. What are the various types of sandboxes available in Salesforce, and when would you use each?

In Salesforce, there are different types of sandboxes, which are like safe spaces to test changes before making them. The main types are:

• Full Copy Sandbox. An exact copy of your live Salesforce org, it's great for testing big changes or doing training.

• Developer Sandbox. It's for a single developer to build and test new things without affecting the real data.

• Developer Pro Sandbox. It’s similar to the Developer Sandbox but has more data and storage limits for bigger projects.

• Partial Copy Sandbox. It has a sample of your real data and is useful for testing with some real data but not all of it.

9. How do you handle exceptions and errors in Apex code?

In Apex code, we handle exceptions and errors to prevent the program from crashing and to give a better experience to users. 

When something unexpected happens, we use try-catch blocks to catch and handle the error gracefully. This works by enclosing code with an exception in a try block, which is then enclosed in a catch block if the try block itself shows an exception. Instead of showing a clunky error message, we can display a friendly message to users or log the issue for developers to fix. 

Handling exceptions helps keep the program running smoothly and ensures a better user experience.

10. Explain the differences between a custom setting and a custom object in Salesforce.

A custom setting, called a “record table,” is a small, simple table to hold settings or configurations we can use across the whole organization. It's easy to access and doesn't count toward data storage limits. 

On the other hand, a custom object is called a “configuration table.” It’s a bigger, more complex table where you can store any type of data you want. It's great for storing lots of information but counts toward data storage limits. 

11. What is the role of the Schema Builder in Salesforce?

The Schema Builder in Salesforce is a graphical tool that allows developers to view and manage the objects and relationships in their Salesforce org. It provides a visual representation of the data model, making it easier to understand and modify the schema. 

12. How do you handle data imports and exports in Salesforce?

To import data, use tools such as Data Import Wizard and Data Loader to bring data from spreadsheets or other sources into Salesforce. 

For exports, use tools such as Data Export and Data Export Service to get data out of Salesforce and save it as files. It's like making a copy of the information so we can use it outside of Salesforce.

Handling data imports and exports helps keep the information up-to-date and lets us work with data from different places easily.

13. How can you perform a mass update of records in Salesforce?

Performing a mass update of records in Salesforce is like changing a large group of records all at once. One way to do this is by using the Data Loader tool, where you can upload a spreadsheet with the updated information and match it to the right records in Salesforce. The tool will then apply the changes to all the matched records in one go, saving time and effort.

Another method is using the Salesforce Reports and Dashboards feature. You can create a report to filter and find the records you want to update, then use the Mass Edit option to change multiple records simultaneously.

You can also set up a custom list view in Salesforce. To do this, you’ll first need to enable special permissions on the profile user interface, including the Mass edit from lists, Inline editing, and Enhanced lists options. 

From there, you can create a list view and specify different record types and visibilities. Once you’ve set up the list view, click the bulk edit checkbox at the top of the list to select all the records. Any changes you make while all records are selected will update the entire list.

14. How can you schedule a batch Apex job in Salesforce?

You can schedule a batch Apex job in Salesforce using this process:

• Create a batch Apex class that implements the Database.Batchable interface.

• Implement the three required methods: start, execute, and finish. 

• Create an Apex job by creating an instance of the batch Apex class in an Apex job. 

• Schedule the Apex job using the System.schedule method. 

15. How can you optimize SOQL queries to improve performance?

To optimize SOQL queries in Salesforce you can:

• Ensure that your queries are selective and filter on indexed fields 

• Avoid querying large numbers of records in a single query

• Use aggregate functions like sum, count, and avg to avoid unnecessary fields

• Use relationship queries (joins)

• Use custom index functions

• Use limit clauses

• Bulkify queries in Apex.

• Avoid nested queries

• Cache data where possible

• Monitor query performance

16. Describe the differences between a trigger and a workflow rule in Salesforce.

Triggers and workflow rules in Salesforce are used for automating actions, but they have different capabilities. Triggers are used for complex and custom automation, while workflow rules are limited to simple actions like field updates and email alerts. 

17. What is a roll-up summary field, and how is it used in Salesforce?

A roll-up summary field calculates values from related records and displays a summary of the results on the parent record. It's commonly used to perform calculations like sum, count, average, maximum, or minimum on child records and display the result on the parent record.

18. What is the use of the @future annotation in Apex?

We use the @future annotation to identify and execute a method asynchronously in Apex. When a method is annotated with @future, it runs in a separate thread, independent of the current transaction. This allows the method to be called and executed later rather than immediately within the current context.

The main purpose of using the @future annotation is to offload time-consuming or resource-intensive tasks from the main transaction, making the application more efficient and responsive. It’s commonly used for tasks like sending email notifications, performing callouts to external systems, or processing large volumes of data.

19. How do you integrate external systems with Salesforce?

APIs allow data exchange and real-time communication between Salesforce and external applications. You can integrate external systems with Salesforce using various methods, such as:

• REST, Bulk, Pub/Sub, and SOAP APIs – usually with OData protocol

• Outbound messaging

• Adapters for non OData APIs

• Apex callouts

• Middleware tools

• Third-party connectors, such as Salesforce Connector

• Webhooks

20. Can you explain the differences between a lookup relationship and a master-detail relationship in Salesforce?

A lookup relationship creates a link between two objects, allowing users to link records from one object to another. A master-detail relationship creates a parent-child relationship, where the child record inherits certain behaviors and permissions from the parent.

21. How do you handle data migration from one Salesforce org to another?

Data migration from one Salesforce org to another can be done using the Data Loader, Change Data Capture, or Salesforce Data Integration tools. It involves extracting data from the source org, transforming it as needed, and loading it into the target org.

22. How do you handle data deduplication in Salesforce?

Data deduplication in Salesforce involves identifying and removing duplicate records to maintain data accuracy and integrity. To achieve this, you can use tools like Data Import Wizard, Data Loader, or third-party deduplication apps.

23. How do you implement validation rules to enforce data quality in Salesforce?

To implement validation rules in Salesforce and enforce data quality, go to the Object's settings, navigate to the Validation Rules section, and create rules with specific criteria and error messages. These rules will be triggered when users attempt to save records, ensuring that data adheres to the defined criteria and maintains its accuracy and consistency.

24. Describe how you can maintain data privacy and security in Salesforce.

Firstly, you can establish strong user authentication measures, such as through Salesforce’s multi-factor authentication options or by connecting the platform with outside authentication apps like OKTA for added security. You can also define user profiles and roles to control data access and encrypt sensitive data at rest and in transit.

Additionally, you can regularly monitor user access and usage patterns, conduct security audits, and provide ongoing training to ensure users follow best security practices.

On top of that, Salesforce enables you to export org data in CSV files. This serves as a backup of your information in the event of a security breach or data loss.

25. Can you explain the differences between static and dynamic SOQL queries in Apex?

In Apex, static SOQL queries are written at compile-time and are fixed, meaning the query structure and fields are known before execution. These are written within square brackets.

Dynamic SOQL queries, on the other hand, are constructed at runtime as strings and allow for building queries based on dynamic conditions or variables, offering more flexibility in handling varying query requirements.

26. How do you handle long-running processes in Salesforce?

To handle long-running processes in Salesforce, you can use Asynchronous Apex, such as Batch Apex or Queueable Apex. This breaks down the process into smaller chunks that can be executed separately and efficiently in the background. 

27. Describe what custom labels are used for in Salesforce and when to use them.

Custom labels in Salesforce are used to store text values that can be easily translated into different languages. They provide a way to reference these text values in formulas, Visualforce pages, Apex classes, and Lightning pages and components, allowing for better internationalization and localization of Salesforce applications.

Use custom labels when you need to store static text or messages in a centralized and translatable manner. This provides a more flexible and scalable approach to managing text content. They’re often used for things like help or error messages, as they can be set to appear in various languages, depending on where a user accesses the platform from. 

28. How do you optimize Visualforce pages for better performance in Salesforce?

To optimize Visualforce pages for better performance in Salesforce, you can minimize the use of complex queries and large data sets and reduce the number of components and controller actions on the page. This helps you avoid governor limits.

How to add tricky Salesforce interview questions to your hiring campaign

Challenging Salesforce questions are perfect for evaluating candidates’ technical expertise and problem-solving skills. However, they shouldn’t be the only tool you use during hiring. 

To properly assess each Salesforce candidate, use a multi-measure testing technique that pairs tricky questions with skills-based tests, personality assessments, and more.

TestGorilla provides a library of 300+ scientifically backed pre-employment tests, which you can mix and match to create the perfect assessment. For Salesforce roles in particular, you can use TestGorilla’s:

• Salesforce CRM test, which measures skills in managing leads, accounts, contacts, as well as generating custom reports, tracking and forecasting, integrating with APIs, customizing data and layouts, and much more. 

• Personality tests, like the DISC and Enneagram tests, which offer insights into applicants’ behavioral traits. 

• Culture add test, which shows you how well each candidate will mesh with your existing team and company culture.

• Various soft skills tests to measure communication, motivation, time management, and more.

TestGorilla also enables you to add custom questions to assessments, so you can incorporate your tricky questions directly into tests.

Alternatively, you can use the one-way video interview tool to have candidates record video answers to your list of Salesforce questions.

By complementing your tricky questions with other pre-employment tests, you can ensure you always hire the perfect person for your team. 

Further reading: How to write a Salesforce business analyst job description

Identify top Salesforce talent with TestGorilla

Hiring an underqualified Salesforce professional can lead to poor customer service, lower efficiency, and even reputational damage. That’s why you must properly assess your candidates’ Salesforce skills before hiring them. 

By asking candidates tricky Salesforce interview questions, you gain a more robust understanding of their technical abilities – as well as their problem-solving skills, and adaptability. Coupling these questions with multi-measure assessments, like the ones from TestGorilla, helps you avoid unconscious bias and make more informed decisions. 

With more than 300 pre-employment tests in our library, TestGorilla makes it easy to evaluate candidates on a range of skills and capabilities.

Watch our quick product tour, then sign up for a free plan to get started with TestGorilla today.