 What's going on everybody? Welcome back to another video. Today we'll be looking at the Tableau Data Analyst Certification. Now if you're a fan of the channel and you've watched some of my videos, you most likely know how I feel about certifications. I think about 95% of them are completely useless, but there are a few that I recommend and the Tableau certifications as a whole and they have many are ones that I do recommend. Now in the past I've talked about the Tableau Desktop Specialist Certification, but at the end of 2021 they came out with a beta for a data analyst specific certification and so what we're going to be doing is talking about some of the similarities and some of the differences between those two certifications and I'll recommend what I think this new certification is worth it. But before we jump into it I want to give a huge shout out to the sponsor of this video and that is Coursera and honestly I've learned a ton of Tableau from Coursera specifically from this one course that I took which is actually a specialization and that's data visualization with Tableau. I cannot recommend that course enough. I've probably gone through it about three times by now because it's just honestly fantastic and so I will leave a link in the description if you want to check that out. Again huge shout out to Coursera for sponsoring this video. Now without further ado let's jump on my screen and take a look at the certification. All right so let's jump right into it. We are on the Tableau website and we are looking at the certifications page and they have several certifications. This is the one that I was talking about that's the Tableau Desktop Specialist Certification. This is the brand new data analyst certification and they have other ones for certified associates and server consultants and architect but I'm guessing if you're watching this video that is probably not what you're here for. So I'm going to mostly be looking at this one today but we're going to compare it to the you know the specialist desktop certification because that one's been around for a while and that's one that I have recommended in the past. So let's take a look at a little bit of information about this one. It costs $250 which is quite a bit more expensive than the you know the desktop specialist certification. It's expected or kind of wants you to have good experience with it right. It's six months experience and the I'll pull it up real quick. This is the desktop special certification. It only recommends three months and it's $100. So that is quite a big difference in terms of cost. It's just it's specialized that of course is going to have different information. We'll get into that in a little bit but it's you know it's a $250 compared to a hundred bucks which is you know a lot of money in my opinion. The this certification has no expiration date so once you get it you have it forever but for this data analyst one it only lasts for two years and that's probably because they're going to be updating things they're going to be improving things and then you know and they also just want you to take it more often right to maintain that certification whereas this one is more of a generalized certification it just shows that you know what you're doing and this one's a little bit more specific data analyst specific and I'll talk about that in just a little bit. So you know they're in just in terms of cost it is pricey $250 to me is a lot of money to spend. I have seen ones that are more expensive like $500 $750 some of those Microsoft ones get expensive but you know that's up to you I mean if you want to spend $250 if you're okay with spending $250 versus 100 you know right away that may be fine but we'll kind of get into some of the more the details of it to see if it's really worth that cost because again I think it's quite a bit more. We are looking at the basically the blueprint or the exam guide for the data analyst exam or the certification so who is this for this one is for data analysts who are working with stakeholders they need to know and this is pretty important you need to be able to know how to use Tableau desktop Tableau prep and either Tableau server or Tableau online and here are the things that they're going to be testing you on and this is kind of mentioned several times in this this guide you need to be able to connect the data sources perform data transformations explore and analyze data and then create meaningful visualizations that answer key business questions and again these are the things that they test on and if you look and you compare that to the desktop specialist certification which is this one right here it's basically just like hey as long as you have kind of a good you know generalized knowledge and understanding of Tableau you should be all right that's basically what it says here it's just for people who you know have been applying it for a few months there's no requirements no prerequisites and that's it that's really that's really all it gives you for their target audience they're just people who want to learn Tableau and show that they know how to use Tableau this one is more specific because it's kind of the whole process from the very start to the very end now why do you need to know all those things and why don't they mention that in the generalized one well let's go right down here to this exam format and it'll kind of tell us i'm going to start with this one real quick this is the desktop certification it's only 60 minutes long it's only multiple choice or multiple response so it's just clicking an answer that's it and then you immediately get your answer back and if you score above a 750 you passed and that's it it's pretty straightforward but the data analyst certification is just it's much more in depth it's 120 minutes so twice the time you have to do a knowledge base which is multiple choice multiple selection and active screen where you have to kind of build it out drag and drop things like that and then you have an actual lab so right here is a hands-on lab so there is a section of this where you're going to have to build out a visualization and someone is going to have to look at it and make sure that's correct and so if you look down here this like in the scoring you do have to still pass out of 750 but the scoring is done differently someone's going to actually have to look at this grade it rate it and then you get your score back within i think it says 48 hours so you won't actually know if you passed until maybe like a day or two later and that's because this one is is just um it's very different it's not multiple choice this is a hands-on exam and so that is definitely one of the biggest differences in this it's that you are really gonna have to know this because you know some people are really good at just studying for an exam they can get it they can understand it they can um you know take a course and then you're done but for the data analyst certification you were gonna have to know how to use it and that's why they're recommending you have six months experience using it because you're gonna have to know some of the nuances you're gonna have to know how to actually build things with that hands-on lab and so if you've never done that before and you've just taken a course the general or the desktop specialist certification that one is going to be much more your speed if you have hands-on experience you or you definitely need hands-on experience to get this one right and to do well on it let's look a little bit further right here now that is by far the biggest differences and the information that's like you need to know right because you're going to need to know all the things that they just mentioned tableau desktop tableau prep um you know tableau server i think uh let me let me look real quick because i forgot uh tableau server or tableau online right you are going to need to know those things uh for this exam so they have a uh basically a readiness program that you can purchase and in with that it comes with the training and the certification bundle now is this a good deal i'll let you be the judge of that it does cover a lot of stuff and and that's right here it covers a lot of stuff all things that you need to know um and in the actual training they take you through these um they're they're different they have desktop one desktop two prep one and then of course all these as well um if i just click on one of these randomly you can go and you're going to see exactly what you need to know for these exams it's no secret they're not trying to trick you in any way but they are telling you this is what you need to know and so you can get kind of a a general guideline to what you need to know just by clicking on these for free but the actual um readiness is going to take you through a course it's going to have a lot more information um let me scroll down and kind of show you what you get with that because it talks about it right here you get 90-day access and exclusive e-learning content for exam prep a biweekly live and structure session 120 practice questions dedicated community forum you get two vouchers for the exam so if you fail the first one you can take it again for free right um so that's $500 worth so you two exam uh vouchers if you fail the first one you don't have to pay for it again it's like $500 right um and then you also get an extended trial of the tablo desktop and tablo prep software and all of this for the low low price of $1,000 which look when i was first starting out a thousand dollars to me was like two months of all of my expenses combined like i it really was i would never ever ever have paid for this um now i have a little bit more money i still don't know if i would pay for this i really don't it's a thousand dollars like that's a lot of money to me but everyone's in different financial situations or or you know does money differently right i'm just gonna say that so a thousand dollars to you may be worth it to me personally i don't know if i can recommend this thousand dollar bundle that they have um it sounds like some great stuff i'm sure you will learn a lot but for me like you know in the sponsorship that i called out the beginning i've taken the uh the Coursera data visualization with tablo specialization i think that would probably be almost enough right and that one cost like what 40 a month um and it's a lot cheaper than a thousand dollars so you know take that with a grain of salt i i tend to be a stickler with money i tend to not want to spend that money but if you do go for it i'm not telling you not to i'm sure this is amazing like i is probably incredible it's just a thousand dollars so uh like i said uh then they have all these free ones so you can go and check out what you're going to be learning in the actual readiness program so you know again i'm just trying to cover everything that they have for this uh and you know i want you to kind of have a full picture of everything that you can get and all the things associated with it to me some of the biggest things are you know the biggest differences or it's going to be much more difficult it really is it's a lot longer a hands-on lab which um this uh the desktop specialist doesn't have and it's just going to be it's going to be more advanced you're going to need to know things that you don't need to know in the specialist one so now that we've looked at the tablo data anal certification and kind of compare it to the desktop specialist certification what are my overall thoughts and my recommendations my overall thought is that it is fantastic and a really good sign for all the data analysts out there that they're creating a data analyst specific certification to me that's just a really good sign and honestly because this is one of the few certifications that i actually recommend out of just a small handful i think overall the certification looks really good it's going to kind of test you in some key areas and it's going to kind of push you to know that information more and so it just shows an even better specialization and knowledge of this software so overall i really like it now do i recommend taking it uh i think that if you have the money and you don't mind you know studying that much longer or doing it i think it's worth it i still recommend the desktop specialist certification i still think it is a really good certification to get just to show that you know tablo and you can put that on your resume this one may be even better but again it's brand new so you know you're gonna be one of the first people to take it so putting it on your resume may not have as big of impact as in like a year when it's more established but again overall i think that if you have 250 dollars and you're looking for certifications to get this one is honestly a really good one to get so that is my review of this new certification i really hope it is helpful again huge shout out to the sponsor of this video corsair you guys are fantastic thank you guys for watching i really appreciate it if you like this video be sure to like and subscribe below and i'll see you in the next video