How to study/prepare for the Salesforce Developer Certification
While the study guide is minimal, it is intended to be. And the topic list is essentially your list of what to learn in order to pass. Don't worry about the big topics, but look at the small ones, rate yourself on a scale of 1-3.
- I know it
- I kind of know it/I need a little bit of review
- I have no clue/I want to build it to see if I understand it
Forget the 1's
Start learning the 2's
Work your way into the 3's
I would say that this advice could be followed for any of the certification exams.
As for the developer certification specifically, the Force.com Fundamentals is good. The Force.com workbook. And don't overlook the online help and training. When the exams are reviewed, the first point of reference for any question that needs to be modified/clarified is the help and training.
A few weeks before your exam, go through the current release training. Every question for every exam is reviewed every single release. If you began your prep in Winter 13, but your exam will be on Spring 13, you might be relying on old information.
Finally, I always caution people about practice exams. Because of the always changing nature of the platform (and by extension the certification exams), that person who wrote those practice questions a year ago, may have been spot-on correct then, but a year later they may be out of date. Unless the questions you are using list the release they were written for, don't rely on a successful practice exam to tell you you will pass our certification.
I teach our Developer curriculum (including DEV401). That's my job at SFDC right now. Those people who go on and get their Developer Certification after DEV401 invariably tell me that it was a huge benefit to take the course. Everyone who teaches it themselves has to be Developer certified, as well as go through our rigorous instructor certification process. So if that is an option for you. Yes. Take DEV401. You will not regret it.
The first resource you want is Force.com Fundamentals. This is by far the most beneficial resource for learning the platform. In order to go through this resource, you really need to set up a Developer Edition account.
Outside of that, there used to be the Dev 401 classes available on iTunes, but it appears that has been removed (for the US at least). If you are a Partner, there is training material available on PartnerForce. You can also supplement some additional material from the Force.com Cookbook.
On top of that, there are some good workbooks you can go through:
- Force.com Workbook
- Security Workbook
- Analytics Workbook
Finally, you can check under the App Logic -> Point and Click section of the documentation Salesforce provides.
By far, the best way to study, is to use the platform. The test does not involve Visualforce or Apex, but you must understand the point-and-click functionality. It is best to have about 6 months of Salesforce experience before attempting this exam. Good luck!
EDIT: I have expanded upon my answer with an article I wrote for my blog, Salesforce Certification Series: Developer
I've seen someone with no Salesforce experience (But a Java/IT background) pass the 401 after two weeks of concerted study and no Salesforce background so my first suggestion is not to fear it.
Pay attention to the weightings in the Study guide as this translates to question counts and significance in the exam.
As others have mentioned the 'Developer' title is also somewhat of a misnomer as its more an advanced configurator exam (you don't deal with code apart from knowing about capabilities of Apex/VF in general terms).
Finally, the Developer Certification is the doorway to the Advanced Developer Certification which requires much more knowledge in the way of force.com development. This certification will take upwards of a year to obtain given the delays in windows associated with the Assignment and in marking the assignment, so if you want to start that journey, start it as soon as you can :)
I would remark that the certifications are worthwhile as they require you to obtain a much broader understanding of the product than you might get in a single job/organisation.
Reference: I have all Salesforce.com Certifications.