Speaker 1: Is the Tableau Business Intelligence Professional Certificate worth it? This is the question we're going to answer in this video. We're going to take a look at the certificate itself, how it can help you land a job, and whether it's worth spending your time on this certificate, when there are so many other options out there. Tableau is one of the most valuable skills for an analyst on the job market right now, especially in business intelligence. You can land a job like BI analyst with no experience or degree, and the average salary in the US is around $89,000 per year for this role. That's an insanely good salary for a job that isn't actually that far away from most people. Because you don't need a lot of qualifications like a degree, so online courses are perfect for this role. You can self-study these things for pretty much free online. Now, I have reviewed many other professional certificates for business intelligence and data analytics in the past, and all of these are certainly not worth it. So the certificate you go for is really important, unless you want to waste months of your time. Everything I say in this video will be based on the best data out there, as well as my own experience with these certificates and helping people land jobs. But first, before we get into it, by taking this course, you'll also be eligible for other jobs like data analyst and business analyst. And this course is not just for BI analysts. As you can see, it opens up lots of other jobs as well, but we'll talk more about that later. So if you weren't aware of this, this is a program offered on Coursera, made for complete beginners with no degree or prior experience required. The next thing we're going to talk about is the time to complete this certificate. As you can see, it says eight months at 10 hours per week with a flexible schedule. Tableau and Coursera, they expect learners to spend around 10 hours, and if we multiply that by 32 weeks, means an expected time of 320 hours to complete this certificate. And that's a lot. But I've taken other programs just like this one on Coursera before, and the estimated time to completion is usually a stretch. It's almost always an exaggeration. Just look at these reviews. I mean, there are even some people completing these courses in a day or two. Now, of course, these people already have a lot of experience, and they find it super easy because of their previous experience. They're just rushing through the course to get the certificate. But even as a beginner, I find that a lot of the content are readings and assignments and videos. And I've personally always spent one third, or at most 50% of the time that they expect me to spend. And I'm not a fast reader or a super fast learner by any means. And also my viewers, you guys have also left a ton of comments about this and confirmed that it actually takes a lot less time than they expect. So what about somebody like, for example, with a full-time job or full-time studying? I would say that the chances are that you can complete this Tableau certificate in two to three months. Of course, depending on how much time you spend each week. So I'm going to give this one an 8 out of 10 in regards to the time to completion. It is definitely enough time to really learn the skills thoroughly, but still not too long. Now let's talk about the details and the cost of this professional certificate. As you can see here, it says launch your career in data analytics, no degree or prior experience required. You can take the courses for free, but if you do want a certificate, you need a subscription. Now, if you compare it to a university course, which is on average around $300 per credit hour, of course, depending on if it's a private or public or university or college, whatever. But anyway, this is going to add up to tens of thousands of dollars. And boot camps are also pretty expensive. They also usually cost around $10,000 or above, which in this case makes this seem like a very good and reasonable deal. Of course, you don't have the same support as a uni or a boot camp. I'm not trying to say that at all, but the total cost is around 50 bucks a month. So over a few months, you're basically paying 1% of what a boot camp would cost and even less than that of a university. Depending on your location, the price can also be higher or a little bit lower. And I know that sometimes they offer deals as well. Plus, they have financial aid if you do need it, and also a free trial with full access to all of their courses, which I'm going to leave a link to in the description. So all in all, I'm going to give this a 10 out of 10 when it comes to price. Now, when it comes to the skills you'll gain, they are data management, presentation skills, data analysis, tableau, reporting skills, and data visualization. Now, after you complete the certificate, you will get a certificate that you can print out or add to your LinkedIn. And the course was also recently updated in September 2023, which means that it's still a new course. And we can actually see that there are quite few people enrolled compared to other certificates. But from the people that actually took it, the reviews are wonderful. Now, let's talk about demand, because according to their website, the Tableau Business Intelligence Analytics Professional Certificate will prepare you for entry-level roles that demand fundamental tableau skills. But the question is, do companies actually desire these skills on the job market? So let's take a look. This is a website that collected data from nearly 2 million job listings all over the world to see what skills employers actually look for when hiring data professionals and analysts. As you can see here, it's an ongoing project, and thousands of jobs are being scanned every day. So this job data is pretty relevant. Now, if we click on a data analyst here, we'll see tableau as one of the top-ranked skills, not far behind Python. But for the sake of demonstration, I'm going to show you business analysts as well. And here we can see tableau on the top again. Let's give it a third try, a more technical role. I'll select the data scientist for some reason. And boom, tableau is almost at the top again. It's the number one data visualization software that employers look for. So tableau is probably worth learning if you want to get a job, which I assume you want. But who knows, maybe you're just learning tableau to become an enthusiast. When it comes to demand, I'll give the certificate a 9 out of 10. Now, let's take a look at the courses a little bit more in depth. So course 1 is Introduction to Business Analytics. Course 2 is Business Analysis Process. Course 3 is the Data Ecosystem. And then we have Introduction to Tableau. And then we have Visualization with Tableau, Advanced Data Visualization with Tableau, and Communicating Data Insights with Tableau, of course. One problem that you might notice here is that some of these courses have no reviews yet. And that's because it's such a new program that some of the courses are not fully released yet. But they're still being released within a few weeks. So you can definitely get started right now without any problems. I don't think you're going to face a delay unless you complete the courses in like 24 hours each. Now, the next thing we're going to talk about are the certifications. And when you complete this course, you get a certificate and a piece of paper from Coursera and Tableau. But Tableau, they also offer real certifications, which basically means that you take a final exam either physically on site, or you can also take it from the comfort of your own home by being watched by a proctor and having like a camera set up and you take the exam. And after you complete this exam, if you do pass it, you get a certification that you're certified in Tableau. Now if you compare a certification exam to a course, it's easy to see which one is more valuable to employers. If you take a proctored, a verified test, you're almost certainly not going to cheat. You're actually going to know your stuff because it's way easier to cheat through an online course or just speed through it without learning much. But for a certification, you really need to learn stuff. So getting a certification can be really helpful if you don't have a lot of experience or previous education. And if you're looking to land your first role, of course, there are advanced ones as well. But we're going to focus on the beginner level certifications. So here we're on the Tableau website. And as you can see, you can get Tableau certified, kick your career into high gear, and then they ask you to schedule your exam. Their most popular certification is the Tableau Certified Data Analyst. But we're going to take a look at all of the certifications, or actually not all of them, but the relevant ones. The first one is associate level, which just means that it's very basic. And this one is called Tableau Desktop Specialist. And it's basically just about proving that you understand Tableau. This certification is not specific to business intelligence or data analytics or something. It's just, can you use Tableau? It's like going to the gym. And this level is like, do you understand the machines and where you train certain muscle groups? The next level is the Tableau Certified Data Analyst certification. This one is more like, you know about exercising, nutrition, and you have a solid foundation. And this one is also for beginners. But they do recommend a minimum of six months work experience before attempting the exam. Or actually, they don't require work experience, just experience. So you could also gain that by completing projects, for example, and by taking this course. I'm not going to go through the rest of the Tableau certs because they're not really relevant to our cause. But feel free to check them out as well. And the question is now, should you get certified in Tableau? And it's going to depend on your goals. If you just want to apply for a Tableau or visualization role specifically, it could be really, really helpful. But if you're more just interested in BI or analytics in general, and you don't really like or care about Tableau that much, there are other ways to get a job. You don't need a Tableau certification to get a job. Back to the Tableau Professional Certificate. I'm going to mention some of the pros and cons, and then try to give you my final opinion. It's absolutely critical that you know these things before you get started. And as you've seen, it's a great course, but I still have a few concerns. So first of all, it is really a complete course if you're looking to learn BI and Tableau and combine this. I mean, that's the entire point of this course. But I also think that if you're not specifically looking to learn BI, it's probably not the best course for you because it's very lengthy. If your focus is on learning Tableau, you don't actually start learning Tableau until course number four. So you basically spend 14 hours in course one, 22 hours in course two, 15 hours in course three, before you even get to work with Tableau. And that's about 51 hours. And then you have about 97 hours of Tableau courses left. So about one third of this course is about business intelligence and theory, not Tableau. Next, I think it's really fairly priced compared to other options. And I like how accessible it is to everyone, whether you work full time or you study something else right now. And you just want to use this course to become an even stronger candidate. Tableau is a very valuable skill to learn. You also don't need to pay for Tableau itself. You can do everything in this course with a free Tableau account. But on the other hand, I don't really like their claim of going from beginner to job ready in about eight months or less. Sure, in that time, you can definitely become job ready from nothing. But perhaps not just by taking this course. You should also supplement this course by doing projects and filling any gaps with skills that this course isn't teaching. For example, like SQL, Excel and so on. Overall, though, a great course, awesome reviews. And if you are the right fit for this course, I would recommend it. I'm going to leave a link to the course in the description, as well as any other resources I mentioned. And please drop a like and subscribe. I don't want to ask for this, but about 90% of my viewers are not subscribed. So don't miss out. Join us and also check out this video next. Have an amazing week, guys.