HubSpot Administrator Certification – passed on second try, here's what I changed

Cleared the HAC on my second attempt last week and wanted to share what was different between attempt 1 (failed at 68%, needed 75%) and attempt 2 (passed at 81%). I work in RevOps and use HubSpot daily, so this wasn't a knowledge-from-scratch situation – the gap was about exam-specific preparation, not real-world familiarity.

First attempt mistake: I relied too much on my existing platform knowledge and underestimated how specifically the exam tests administrative configurations. Knowing how to set up a workflow for your own company is not the same as knowing every object property type, association configuration option, and permission set variation cold. The exam gets into the details of data model architecture, custom objects, and CRM configuration in ways that go beyond what most day-to-day users touch regularly.

For attempt 2, I spent 4 weeks of targeted prep at about 1 hour a day. The HubSpot Academy admin certification course was my backbone – I went through it systematically rather than skipping sections I thought I knew. I also spent dedicated time in a sandbox account testing configurations rather than just reading about them. Hands-on time in the actual platform makes a massive difference for the admin exam because so many questions are about navigating specific menus or understanding what a configuration actually does.

The user management and permissions domain caught me out more than expected on attempt 1. Super admin vs. admin access, team hierarchies, and how permissions intersect with object-level settings – that's where I put extra time for attempt 2 and it paid off. If you're prepping, don't assume you know permissions just because you've used the platform.