Tableau Desktop Certified Professional

Disclaimer:  This may be brag post

A goal I set for myself this year was to pass both the Tableau Desktop 8.0 Qualified Associate and Certified Professional exams. I’m happy to report that I've passed both of them!!  For those curious what each exam entails:

  Tableau Desktop Qualified Associate

• Two hours
• Multiple choice, response, and True/False questions
• 30 knowledge based and 20 hands-on
• Measures tool knowledge and usage

  Tableau Desktop Certified Professional

• Three hours
• Hands on building and analyzing dashboards
• Measures understanding of dashboard and data visualization best practices

A preparation guide can be downloaded for each of the tests.  I highly recommend using them as your study guide; if you do, you shouldn't have a problem passing both exams.  As a self-taught Tableau user, the hardest part of the Qualified Associate exam was knowing the vocabulary.  Otherwise, with a few years of experience, the test was relatively easy.  The Certified Professional exam was another story.  It was a very intense three hours of frantic typing and viz building (tip – don’t drink any liquids during the exam, you’ll regret it after three hours!)  The exam provided a very unique situation that differs from the expectations of most people’s day jobs.  You’re rarely expected to create multiple full-featured dashboards in under two hours.  There are also multiple questions where you critique views and explain what’s good/bad about them and what you’d change.  The difficult aspect of those questions is getting a sense of how detailed you should be.  

Please post in the comments section if you’d like any advice on preparing for the exams.