5 Ways Tableau Certification Can Help You and Your Career

More organizations realized the benefits of being data-driven in the last year—how it fuels business value such as improved performance, competitive advantage, increased productivity, as well as stronger employee retention and customer satisfaction. As a result, many prioritized and elevated the focus on data skills to nurture and strengthen their organizational behaviors, processes, and mindsets to become data-leading instead of data-lagging. 

With this concentrated focus, and despite having a job’s market where unemployment rates were sky-high, the Tableau Certification program also reached an all-time high—85% of people who earned a Tableau Certification title got Tableau Certified for the first time. This record-breaking growth with certification first-timers indicates that more people saw the need and opportunity to seek out confirmation of their data skills—and contribute to their organization’s pursuit of being data-driven.

And as we’ve spent time, in fact years, supporting practitioners in skilling up and differentiating themselves, we’ve seen what benefits Tableau Certification can deliver for analytics talent. Here are five ways that it can create immediate and long-term impact for you.

1. Learn the data skills that are in demand 

As reported by Forbes, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be 28% growth in the data science field through 2026. That’s 11.5 million roles to fill. Employers are looking for data skills; in fact they’re hungry for them. Being Tableau Certified helps you rise to the top of the resume pile or solidify value in your role. As quoted in a U.S. News article about Tableau Certification, “The value of getting a certification is multifaceted,” said Ryan Sleeper, founder and principal of visual-analytics consulting firm Playfair Data and author of Practical Tableau. “It’s got stability. This tool has got staying power. It would be worth the investment to do it now because you've still got several years to utilize those skills.” 

2. Gain confidence and help your company be data-driven

You’re smart, talented, and experienced, but it’s a volatile job market with record-breaking unemployment rates, economic downturn, and recent job surges. Businesses recognize that being data-driven and expecting data-driven decision making increases their resiliency and success in this new normal. So how can you stand out and prove commitment to help your company be data-driven? Certification can do some talking and reassure an employer that you have appropriate skills to help pay the bills. Having role-specific certification signals support of company priorities with data skill sets shown in a single title. It also reaffirms that you met (or exceeded) a bar of excellence—one you set or was outlined in a development plan.  

3. Grow the must-have, base-level skill: Data literacy

Remember when job listings used to say things like Must be comfortable with Microsoft Office or Needs to be proficient in Adobe Suite? As more companies foster data-driven cultures, the need for wall-to-wall data skills grows. With that comes increased priority and urgency to provide resources and support that reduce the data literacy gap. Tableau commissioned research by Forrester Consulting that surveyed hundreds of U.S. hiring managers and recruiters to better understand this gap. Published in June 2021, the study, The Great Data Literacy Gap: Demand For Data Skills Exceeds Supply, stated: "Data scientists aren’t the only ones who need data skills … Data literacy has become crucial across every department and role. Nearly everyone from HR and marketing to sales and customer support needs to have a solid foundation in data literacy to succeed in the modern workforce." (See Figure 2)

Courtney Jacobsen contributed to this blog.