Most Salesforce hiring mistakes come from interviews that test certifications instead of judgement. This free scorecard gives your panel the same questions, the same 1 to 4 scale and the same red flags, so two interviewers can compare candidates on evidence rather than gut feel. It covers the Salesforce Administrator and the Salesforce Developer role, with eight competencies each.
Download the Salesforce interview scorecard (PDF, printable)
How to use the scorecard
- Pick the role sheet (Admin or Developer) and agree before the interview which competencies matter most for the job. Mark them as weight 2; the rest stay at weight 1.
- Ask the listed question for each competency, then one follow-up of your own. Write down what the candidate actually said, not your impression.
- Score each competency from 1 to 4 using the scale below, straight after the interview and before talking to the other interviewers.
- Multiply each score by its weight, add them up and compare the total with the bands at the end. Discuss any competency where interviewers are two or more points apart.
Scoring scale
| Score | Level | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | Strong | Gave a specific example they owned, explained trade-offs, and said what they would do differently. |
| 3 | Solid | Clear, correct answer with a real example, but little on trade-offs or edge cases. |
| 2 | Partial | Knows the feature or concept but answered in general terms, no real example. |
| 1 | Weak | Incorrect, vague, or recited documentation without understanding it. |
Salesforce Administrator interview questions
| Competency | Question to ask | Strong answer includes | Red flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Requirements gathering | A sales manager asks for a new field on Opportunity. Walk me through what you do before you create it. | Asks why, who uses it, which reports need it, and whether an existing field already covers it. | Creates the field straight away. |
| Data model judgement | When would you use a lookup instead of a master-detail relationship? Give an example from your own org. | Explains ownership, sharing, roll-ups and deletion behaviour with a real case. | Only defines the two terms. |
| Automation with Flow | Describe a record-triggered Flow you built. How did you stop it from firing more often than it should? | Entry conditions, before-save vs after-save, testing in a sandbox, fault paths. | Has only used Workflow Rules or Process Builder. |
| Security and sharing | A rep can see an account they should not. How do you find out why? | Checks OWD, role hierarchy, sharing rules, teams, manual shares; uses the Sharing button or a sharing hierarchy view. | Suggests changing the profile without diagnosing. |
| Data quality | Duplicates are hurting the pipeline report. What do you do this week, and what do you change for the long term? | Matching and duplicate rules, a merge plan, validation rules, an owner for data quality. | Proposes a one-off clean-up only. |
| Reports and dashboards | Leadership does not trust the forecast dashboard. How do you investigate? | Checks report filters, stages and probabilities, record counts against source, and talks to users. | Rebuilds the dashboard without checking the data. |
| Release and change management | How do you move a change from sandbox to production, and how do you tell users? | Change sets or DevOps Center, testing steps, a release note, a rollback idea. | Builds directly in production. |
| Stakeholder communication | Tell me about a request you pushed back on. What happened? | Explains the business reason, offers an alternative, keeps the relationship. | Has never said no, or says no without reasons. |
Salesforce Developer interview questions
| Competency | Question to ask | Strong answer includes | Red flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apex fundamentals and bulkification | Show me how you would write a trigger that updates related contacts when an account changes, safely for 200 records. | One trigger per object, a handler class, no SOQL or DML inside loops, uses maps and sets. | Queries inside a for loop. |
| Governor limits | Which limits have you actually hit, and how did you fix it? | Names a real limit (SOQL 100, CPU time, heap) and the redesign that solved it. | Lists limits from memory with no example. |
| Testing | How do you decide a test class is good enough? | Asserts outcomes, covers bulk and negative cases, uses test data factories, not just 75% coverage. | Aims only for coverage. |
| Integration | Describe an integration you built with an external system. How did you handle failures and retries? | Named Credentials, callout patterns, async processing, error logging, idempotency. | Has only consumed simple REST calls with no error handling. |
| Asynchronous Apex | When would you choose a Queueable over a Batch job or a future method? | Explains chaining, volume, state and monitoring differences with a use case. | Uses future methods for everything. |
| Lightning Web Components | Walk me through an LWC you built. How did it get and update data? | Wire service vs imperative Apex, Lightning Data Service, caching, error states. | Only Aura or Visualforce experience, no plan to learn. |
| Declarative vs code judgement | Give an example where you chose Flow instead of Apex, and one where you did not. | Clear criteria: complexity, volume, maintainability, who supports it later. | Always writes code. |
| Source control and deployment | How does your team move code from a developer's sandbox to production? | Git, scratch orgs or sandboxes, CI checks, code review, deployment validation. | Copies code between orgs manually. |
Reading the total
| Total | What to do |
|---|---|
| 80% of the maximum or more | Strong hire. Check references on the two lowest-scoring competencies. |
| 60 to 79% | Possible hire. Run a short practical task on the weak areas before deciding. |
| Below 60% | Not ready for this role. Consider a more junior level if the judgement and communication answers were strong. |
Red flags across both roles
- Lists certifications but cannot describe a single change they made in a real org.
- Every example is from a Trailhead playground, never from a production org with real users.
- Blames users or previous admins for every problem without describing what they changed.
- Cannot explain why they chose a solution, only what they clicked.
- Has never worked with a sandbox or any release process.
Hiring is not the only option
If you need Salesforce work done before a hire can start, a partner can cover the gap. See our Salesforce CRM development services, or use the free CRM health check to find what your next hire should fix first.
Book a free 30-minute call with our Salesforce team.