How I became an Okta Certified Consultant in less than 2 months.

Here's a guide on how I obtained the Okta Certified Professional, Administrator, and Consultant certifications in the less than two months. I can't guarantee your success but I'll outline the study resources I used and other helpful exam tips and hopefully this is helpful for anyone looking to obtain these certifications too! Keep in mind I was devoting most working hours to these certifications so your timeline will definitely be longer if you are doing this on top of your normal work.

*A note on the DOMC format:

If you have no idea what this means - don't worry, I didn't either. You will become very familiar with this format and learn that while they are designed to increase "readability, fairness, and security," they may also lead to extreme frustration and headaches. Okta is aware of this and has developed "Hands-On Configuration" versions of each exam which in my opinion are a better judge of your knowledge of Okta configurations and technical problem solving ability. I HIGHLY recommend taking the hands-on configuration versions for all three of these exams as the scoring is weighed more heavily towards the hands-on sections and less on the DOMC.

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Okta Certified Professional Hands-on Configuration Exam (2 days)

This exam is the least difficult of the three

1. Take the free Standard Practice Test until you get 100%
2. Watch the videos and review the study guide to try to improve deficient subject areas. The video titled "Configure IdP Initiated SAML SSO for Org2Org" will help out a lot: https://certification.okta.com/okta-certified-professional-hands-on-configuration-exam
3. Take the Premier Practice Test and try to improve each time, you get 7 tries with your $75 purchase. It's worth the money since the hands-on portion is very similar to the actual exam. Make note of your score breakdown after each attempt in an excel sheet for tracking purposes.
4. Take the exam.

Okta Certified Administrator Hands-on Configuration Exam (2 weeks)

This exam is a notch up from the last. I recommend obtaining a trial Okta tenant where you can practice different configurations.

1. Take the free Standard Practice Test until you get 100%
2. Follow the study guide and read Okta documentation for each subject, this will be primarily helpful for the DOMC section of the test: https://www.okta.com/resources/administrator-hands-on-exam-study-guide/
3. [OPTIONAL] Take the Okta Essentials course. This one has a pretty hefty price tag but Okta Partners have access for free. It covers most topics on the study guide.
4. Take the Premier Practice Test (yes you have to pay $75 again, but it's worth it) and try to get 100% on each section of the hands-on portion as it is again very similar to the actual test. Track your scores for each section. This youtube guide is key: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq3d0WsXWfA
5. Don't worry if you're struggling with DOMC, it's normal just do your best.
6. Take the exam

Okta Certified Consultant Hands-on Configuration Exam (4 weeks)

This is definitely the hardest of the three, spend more time preparing so you only have to take the exam once. Use your trial Okta tenant to test different configurations.

1. Take the free Standard Practice Test until you get 100%
2. Follow the study guide and read Okta documentation for each subject, take notes: https://certification.okta.com/page/certified-consultant-hands-on-configuration-exam-study-guide
3. Download Postman and use Okta's provided API library to practice making API calls to your Okta org: https://developer.okta.com/docs/reference/core-okta-api/
4. [OPTIONAL] Take the Okta Consultant Bootcamp course. Again, big price tag but included in Partner Learning Pass. This one is really helpful for getting very familiar with Okta configurations through the labs.
5. Take the Premier Practice Test (Yes, $75 again and use all 7 attempts). The scoring is different for this one, you are not able to see your score breakdown for the hands-on portion separate from the DOMC section. They are lumped together in the calculation. This makes it more difficult to understand which parts you are losing points from. Track your scores for each subject area and try to improve every time.
6. You definitely hate DOMC if you made it this far, but you're almost there
7. Take the exam

Hope this helps and good luck! I'll try update this post if it becomes outdated or I think of anything else.