Common interview questions for Salesforce developers

Preface: this post is part of the How to get a Salesforce developer job series.

I’ve been hesitant to write this post because this kind of information is extremely sensitive.

You’re getting an unfair advantage over your competitors, plus, you basically get a shortcut through the whole learning phase. The worst part is that I personally use a ton of these questions when interviewing candidates at work.

The good news though is that you did your research to get this far. And like in a lot of things in life, simply having the discipline to Google something puts you head and shoulders above the crowd.

Or maybe that’s just the beer talking =)

Note that every good Salesforce developer must also be a good admin, so you’ll see a lot of non-coding related questions in every developer interview you’re in.

1. Name three Governor Limits.
2. When do you use a before vs. after trigger?
3. What’s the maximum batch size in a single trigger execution?
4. What are the differences between 15 and 18 digit record IDs?
5. Provide an example of when a Custom Setting would be used during development.
6. When should you build solutions declaratively instead of with code?
7. Give an example of a standard object that’s also junction object.
8. Describe a use case when you’d control permissions through each of the following:
   – Profiles
   – Roles
   – Permission Sets
   – Sharing Rules
9. When should an org consider using Record Types?
10. What are some use cases for using the Schema class?
11. A trigger is running multiple times during a single save event in an org. How can this be prevented?
12. Why is it necessary for most sales teams to use both Leads and Contacts?
13. What is the System.assert method and when is it commonly used?
14. What are the differences between SOQL and SOSL?
15. Order the following events after a record is saved:
    – Validation rules are run
    – Workflows are executed
    – “Before” triggers are executed
    – “After” triggers are executed
16. What is Trigger.old and when do you normally use it?
17. When should you use a lookup instead of a master-detail relationship?
18. What are the advantages of using Batch Apex instead of a trigger?
19. What are the pros and cons when using a Workflow Rule Field Update vs. a Formula Field?
20. What are the differences between a Map and a List?
21. What are the advantages of using Batch Apex instead of a trigger?
22. Describe a use case for Static Resources.
23. Provide an example of when a Matrix report would be used. How about a Joined report?
24. A group of users must be prevented from updating a custom field. What’s the most secure method of preventing this?
25. When would you use the @future annotation?
26. List three different tools that can be used when deploying code.
27. When should an Extension be used instead of a Custom Controller?
28. What are the advantages of using External Id fields?
29. What are the uses of the <apex:actionFunction> tag?
30. What are the differences between static and non-static variables in Apex?
31. What are some best practices when writing test classes?
32. What does the View State represent in a Visualforce page?
33. What are three new features in the most recent Salesforce release?
34. Describe the benefits of the “One Trigger per Object” design pattern.
35. Write a SOQL query that counts the number of active Contacts for each Account in a set.
36. Declaratively create logic in your org that prevents two Opportunities from being created on a single Account in a single day.
37. Declaratively create logic in your org that prevents closed Opportunities from being updated by a non System Administrator profile.

Make sure to check out the Coding Challenges page as well – it’s common to have to whiteboard some Apex during on-site interviews!

I’ll keep updating this list with more interview questions as I see them. Good luck!

I am not an alcoholic, I swear!