Your Notion Certified Study Guide Is Here

Stephanie Fois, Project Management Director

Article Categories: #News & Culture, #Project Management, #Tooling

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Preparing to become Notion Certified? Find out what you should expect from the application process and which skills to brush up on before taking the Notion Essentials exam.

At its annual Block by Block conference, Notion announced a public certification program called Notion Certified, allowing any Notion enthusiast to verify their skills and join a growing group of Notion-certified users and consultants. The interest in this program has been overwhelming and Notion communities on Reddit, Facebook, and elsewhere have been clamoring to get their certified badges.

Given how new Notion Certified is, there is little shared about the certification process and what skill level makes a good candidate for certification. Here, I provide an in-depth review of what it means to be Notion certified, what you can expect from the application process, and key areas to study before taking the certification test.

What does being ‘Notion Certified’ mean?

Simply put, “Notion Certified is a program for Notion power users to validate their skills for clients and peers” (Notion). As Notion’s popularity has exploded over the last two years, independent consultants have created a niche marketplace for templates, paid training modules, sponsored content, and more. Becoming ‘Notion certified’ lets power users prove their Notion prowess and stand out from the quickly crowding field.

There are three different levels of Notion certifications:

  1. Notion Essentials — This is the base certification meant to validate any power user's knowledge and understanding of Notion. You'll need to earn this certification before obtaining additional advanced certifications. You'll receive a badge for some social cache along with a virtual ID to your official certification via Credly.
  2. Notion Certified Consultant — There are fewer than 50 certified Notion consultants globally, a rarity in the Notion community; certified Notion consultants will often get featured by Notion and some have created lucrative consultant ventures. I share a few of my favorite consultants at the end of this article. 
  3. Notion Certified Admin — For users implementing and managing Notion within a company context, this certification is for you. Notion expects to release this certification in Summer 2022.

Which certification does this article cover?

This article takes a deep dive into the Notion Essentials certification process and exam. The Notion Essentials certification applies to most Notion users and is the first step to receiving more advanced Notion certifications.

Application & Certification Process

The certification process consists of two parts: an application and a timed exam.

STEP 1: APPLICATION

To be granted access to the official exam, you must first fill out a brief application showcasing your interest and relative skills in Notion. The application does have some long-form questions and asks you to submit work examples, so be prepared to submit a public link or screenshots of your best work. There is also space for you to share contributions you’ve made to the Notion community such as Reddit threads or Facebook groups (this is optional).

Notion provides a blank application template to draft your answers before submitting them on the official application.

As part of your Notion certification application you'll be asked some long form questions about why you like Notion, what you use Notion for, and what your best Notion pro tip is.

STEP 2: EXAM

After your application has been received there is a 24-48hour waiting period for your application to be reviewed and accepted. Once accepted, you’ll be sent an email containing a unique link to the Notion Essentials exam.

  • The exam consists of 60 multiple choice questions

  • You have 90mins to complete the exam

  • You must receive a 70% or better to pass (answering 42 out of 60 questions correctly)

    • If you don’t pass the first time, there is a 30-day waiting period until you can retake the exam

Once you have passed the exam, you'll be given an official badge. From there, you can share or embed your badge with your social networks. The Notion Essentials certification and badge do not expire.

When you receive your Notion certified badge, you'll receive a public link of that badge to share with your social networks.

Notion Essentials Exam Study Guide

Okay, now down to the good stuff: what is on this test? I was equally curious. Sixty questions and ninety minutes is way more than I expected. And, as someone who uses Notion every day, I expected this to be a walk in the park. I’m here to tell you that it wasn’t. I recommend brushing up on the categories below before sitting down and taking the test. I’ve rated each category by how well you should know the subject matter (”level of mastery”) and how frequently that subject matter appeared on the exam (”appearance rate”).

COMPOSING PAGES

Level of Mastery: ⭐ ⭐ // Appearance Rate: 🔍

    My favorite features about Notion are to do with composing documents. Shockingly, this is not a huge focus of this exam. You’ll need to draw on basic skills for things like keyboard commands and back-linking, but not much else.

    Before the exam, review:

    PAGE ORGANIZATION & WORKSPACE STRUCTURE

    Level of Mastery: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ // Appearance Rate: 🔍 🔍 🔍 🔍

      If you’re using Notion within an organization and are used to workspaces and page hierarchy, you’ll have a leg up. There is a lot of attention devoted to how pages are shared and organized, as well as how you navigate to find those pages within your Notion experience.

      Before the exam, review:

      SHARING & PERMISSIONS

      Level of Mastery: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ // Appearance Rate: 🔍 🔍 🔍

        Again, the topic of sharing and user permissions is most applicable to those that use Notion with other people in a collaborative way. If you’ve already been doing that for a while, you’ll likely be fairly familiar with managing permissions at a workspace and page level, as well as the best methods to share content with other people. You’ll also know a few best practices for controlling what gets edited and by whom.

        Before the exam, review:

        SPREADSHEETS VS. DATABASES

        Level of Mastery: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ // Appearance Rate: 🔍 🔍

        You’ll want to have a solid understanding of the conceptual differences between Notion’s database block and a traditional spreadsheet (e.g., Excel). If you’re a regular Notion user, you know these differences in your bones, but it might be difficult to articulate. Make sure you know how to articulate it.

        Before the exam, review:

        FORMULAS

        Level of Mastery: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ // Appearance Rate: 🔍

        Formulas are scary, they just are. If you regularly use formulas in your databases, you’ll do fine on this exam. If that’s not you (I’m with you), take some time to review some formula 101 content.

          Before the exam, review:

          COMMENTS, MENTIONS, & NOTIFICATIONS

          Level of Mastery: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ // Appearance Rate: 🔍 🔍

            Though there are few questions about notifications in general, the questions that do appear on this topic assume you have a high degree of mastery of the subject. Even if you’re someone that uses Notion with different types of users regularly, you’ll want to give yourself a refresher on how commenting works, what @ mentioning can provide, and who will receive notifications given their relation to a page.

            Before the exam, review:

            DATABASE PROPERTIES

            Level of Mastery: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ // Appearance Rate: 🔍 🔍 🔍

              Knowing the basics of the anatomy of a database is a given with this exam. You’ll also be expected to understand how linked databases work, how to group information (and by which properties), and how to filter and share database views. There’s also an emphasis on the relational table aspect of databases, so be comfortable with Relation and Rollup properties.

              Before the exam, review:

              QUICK FIND SEARCH

              Level of Mastery: ⭐ ⭐ // Appearance Rate: 🔍

              I was surprised to see questions about Notion’s quick search function mainly because [whispers] I never use the search functions. Which got me thinking…maybe I should start. A quick refresher of this feature reminded me of how useful search is, especially when working on team-based plans.

              Before the exam, review:

              ACCOUNT & WORKSPACE SETTINGS

              Level of Mastery: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ // Appearance Rate: 🔍 🔍 🔍

              Though less important than finding your way around pages, knowing your way around account and workspace settings is still valuable to know. You won’t have to be an admin to be able to answer the questions on the exam but you will need to remember where some settings live and how to change them.

                Before the exam, review:

                Extra Study Materials

                Want some extra study materials? These are resources I used to study for my exam.

                Certified Notion Consultants to follow

                The certified Notion community is growing but the cohort of Certified Notion Consultants is still pretty small. Notion maintains a full database of those consultants but here are some of my favorites:

                Stephanie Fois

                Stephanie is a Project Management Director in our Falls Church, VA, HQ. She’s a list-maker, a spreadsheet lover, and a believer that success is always a team effort.

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