Passing the Tableau Desktop Specialist Exam
Yesterday I took the Tableau Desktop Specialist exam. Many of the questions were tricky; it's one thing to know how to use a tool and another thing to know how to pass a test. I second-guessed a lot of my choices, but I passed with a score of 954 out of 1,000.
For anyone planning to take the test, here are some things worth knowing:
It helps to be very familiar with the Tableau interface. Make sure you have a good sense of the options available in each menu. Learn the multiple ways Tableau lets you accomplish the same task, such as changing a font or creating aliases.
Be familiar with some basic Tableau behaviors. What happens if you double-click a measure on a new worksheet? How does the visualization change when you add a dimension?
You'll want to understand the differences between dimensions and measures, and also discrete and continuous values. For example, a date field is technically a dimension by default, but the values can be treated as either discrete or continuous.
Know the difference between an axis and a header, and how this relates to discrete and continuous measures.
Know the important colors in Tableau. Blue for discrete fields, green for continuous fields, orange for a primary data source, etc.
Have a good grasp of the different chart types you can create and how to adjust them. How many measures do you need for a scatter plot? Which charts let you change the shapes?
When you take the test, read the questions carefully. Sometimes the way a question is worded can make a familiar concept seem alien. Or if you're asked to pick multiple answers, you may find yourself debating between choices that feel almost or mostly right.
By the time I took the exam, I had been using Tableau for over six months. I took several Udemy courses, read the Tableau help documentation, created and published several visualizations to Tableau Public, watched instructive YouTube videos, took practice exams, and took a lot of notes (some of which became blog posts).
Here are some resources I found especially helpful:
Udemy courses, especially Tableau Desktop Specialist Certification Exam Prep 2024 and 2024 Tableau Certified Data Analyst Training. The latter is more heavy-duty than necessary for the exam, but it's the most informative deep-dive Tableau course I've followed so far.
Official Tableau documentation. No matter what courses or videos you watch, always be sure to consult to the official documentation.
Tableau Desktop Specialist Exam Study Guide. Tableau has a nice exam outline, but then you're left on your own to look up the listed topics. That's why this guide is a huge help; every listed topic links to all the official Tableau documentation you need.
Big Tech Mindset YouTube videos, though it looks like he's taken down most of his old videos and is putting out new ones. The practice tests he offers match what you'll get in the videos, but I found them convenient and worth the $7.