222: Why Getting Data Certifications Is An AWFUL Idea

Speaker: 00:00:00

Most people who break into data don't

fail because they're not smart enough.

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They fail because they spent six

months on the wrong thing, which

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is often getting a certificate.

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And when it didn't get them the

job, they decided that they were

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the problem, and they gave up.

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But they weren't the problem.

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The certificate was.

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So today, I'm gonna show you

why certificates are a trap

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and exactly what to do instead.

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And just real quick on why

you should listen to me on

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this, I run findadatabjob.com,

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which is a job board that has posted

over 15,000 different data jobs, and

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I'm literally looking at hundreds of

real data job postings every single

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day, and I've literally studied

that for over a year and a half now.

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I've also helped over 500

people actually land data jobs,

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career pivoters just like you.

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So this isn't really a hot take.

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It's what the hiring data is

actually saying and what I'm

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actually seeing in industry.

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And let me just go ahead and try

to get ahead of the comments here.

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I'm not saying that certificates

are completely worthless.

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They're not completely worthless.

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They're just not marketed to you the

way that they actually should be.

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They are really misrepresentative

of what they actually should be.

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You can probably make a certificate

worth it, and I'll explain how to do

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that towards the end of this episode.

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But even more importantly, I'm going

to show you the thing that you should

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be doing instead of the certificates,

the thing that actually got me and my

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students hired, the thing that got us

out of tutorial hell and into the data

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world, so stick around for that because

that's the only thing that really matters.

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All right, let's start with number

one reason why certificates aren't

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really worth it, and that is they

do not matter in industry, and

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now that they're too common, it

really doesn't matter in industry.

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And let me prove the first part.

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So I've actually looked at, like, 11,000

of the most recent data analyst job

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descriptions on my job board website,

and I searched every single one of

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them for any cert or certificate.

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The Google certs, the PL-300 from Power

BI, the IBM one, the Meta one, the

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DataCamp, any of them, and you know

how many of them actually mentioned a

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requirement of a data analyst certificate?

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Zero.

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Not even one.

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And it's not just my research.

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Dataquest interviewed real hiring

managers and decision-makers and

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published 200 pages of transcripts

of how data hiring actually works.

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The number of times that the

word certificate comes up in

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those 200 pages, absolutely zero.

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So let's just go ahead

and s- kill this myth.

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Let's bust it right now.

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Hiring managers are not sitting there,

like, looking at your resume, and they're

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like, "Is this person certified or not?

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Oh, they are?

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Hired.

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Oh, they're not?

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Toss it into the black hole of oblivion."

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If certificates actually mattered,

it would be inside of the job

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description, and it's clearly not.

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But here's the part that

actually gets worse recently.

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Even if a cert did give you a tiny edge

in the past, it doesn't anymore because

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literally everyone and their dog has them.

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Like, literally two and a half

million people have started the Google

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Data Analytics certificate alone.

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Two and a half million.

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So when you're putting it on

the resume, you're not really

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separating yourself from the pile.

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You're becoming part of the pile.

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A certificate basically says, "Hey,

I watched some videos, and I clicked

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some multiple choice answers, and

I'm ready to be a data analyst,"

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and no one's really buying that.

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That's not really standing out, and

you're actually really standing in.

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And in this competitive

market, you have to stand out.

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Which actually brings me to reason

number two that certs suck, and

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this one's more important than

people realize because certificates,

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especially the way they're doing it

online these days, train you to follow

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instructions, not to solve problems.

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And those are two entirely

different skill sets.

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They are not the same.

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If you think about what a cert actually

is, the data is pretty clean The

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question's handed to you, and oftentimes

you don't even have to leave your browser.

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You don't have to download anything.

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You're doing data analytics in the

browser with the question given to

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you and the data cleaned given to you.

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That is not real life, you guys.

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It's not real life.

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Like, they give you all these multiple

choice, you know, this nice little

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sandbox where, like, nothing can go wrong.

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It's just not reality.

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Think about what an actual data job is.

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The data is an absolute disaster.

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It's all over the place.

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It's messy.

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It's dirty.

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Half of it doesn't even make any sense.

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You know, no one's really handing

you, "Hey, solve this question."

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You have to figure out what

questions to ask, and there is never

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an answer key in real life like

there is in these certifications.

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And if there were, they wouldn't need

to hire you to solve the problem.

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So the cert is drilling you on one

habit that the actual job doesn't

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even require and actually discourages.

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Like, you can't just sit and wait and be

told what to do on the job, and that's

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why so many people finish a cert, and they

feel like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm so ready.

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I'm gonna land my first data job.

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I'm gonna start applying for jobs.

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I'm gonna walk in."

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And they get handed this spreadsheet,

and they're like, "Hey, can you look

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at this and give me the answers?"

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And then they're like, "Oh, crap.

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That's not what this

certificate taught me."

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Nobody ever made them sit down and go

through the whole mess, the whole process,

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and that's actually how shallow it is.

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I went through, and I count how

many times you actually run a SQL

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query, one of the most important

things to do as a data analyst.

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How many times you run a SQL query in the

entire Google Data Analytics certificate,

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and you have six months that you're in

this program according to them, right?

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You run 25 queries.

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You run 25 queries, you

guys, in six months.

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That's like one a week, and you

can't learn SQL by doing one

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query every week for six months.

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That's just like, that's not fast enough.

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That's not realistic.

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You cannot learn to solve real

problems doing one query in

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a week in a browser sandbox.

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It's just flatly not enough reps.

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Now, moving on to reason three, and this

is the one that actually hurts people.

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The cert hands you a fake finish

line, as much as I hate to see

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it, and here's what I mean.

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You spend these six months.

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You're grinding.

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You finish finally.

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You get the certificate with

this nice little PDF with your

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name on it, and it feels like,

"Whoo, I crossed the finish line."

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And you're like, "All right.

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I'm qualified now.

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I'm ready.

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Time to go to a job."

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And so you start applying, and

you don't really hear back.

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And then you apply more, and

you don't really hear back.

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And then you start to get rejected,

and then you get rejected again.

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And then you apply again and get rejected

again, and that just happens continuously

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until you just cry and give up.

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And here's the dangerous part.

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Because the certificate made you feel

qualified, when these rejections pile

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up, you don't blame the certificate.

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You blame yourself.

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You start thinking, "Oh, maybe

I'm just not smart enough in this.

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Maybe data's not for me.

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Maybe I'm not a tech person."

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And when those thoughts come,

that's when people quit.

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It's not because they're not smart enough

because I definitely think they are.

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I think you are smart enough

to become a data analyst.

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But you quit because the certificate

said, "Hey, if you cross this finish

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line, you're gonna land a job."

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That's the promise that they're giving

you, and then this crash that comes

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down makes you feel like it was you.

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Let's be clear about this.

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It was never you.

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The cert qualified you for the test

at the end of the certification,

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those little multiple choice quizzes.

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It did not qualify you for the

job, and those are two separate

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things, and no one told you that

those are two separate things.

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Like, it's not your fault.

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The real cost of this

certificate isn't the money.

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It's…

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They're all pretty cheap, to be honest.

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The real cost is the opportunity

cost of- Of the time you

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spent doing the wrong things.

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And it's such a shame because it can

make a perfectly good data analyst

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candidate literally give up and just

stay in the career that they hate.

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Which actually leads me into reason number

four, and it's the opportunity cost.

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Because those six months, you might think

that they're cheap, but they're not.

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Every month you spend on a cert is

a month that you're not spending on

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stuff that actually gets you hired.

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And it's worse than just lost time because

the certificate teaches you literally

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the wrong skills on the way out the door.

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The Google cert spends so much time

on R, which is a tool that I like.

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I love R.

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I think it's really fun.

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But R only shows up in 4% of

all data analyst job postings.

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4%, you guys.

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Like, literally, you're spending time

learning R, and it doesn't really

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even show up on job descriptions.

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Do you think how crazy that is?

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Like, you're wasting

your time learning that.

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And when it teaches you spreadsheets,

it uses Google Sheets, which is fine.

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Google Sheets is a fine tool, but you're

going to be using Excel on the job.

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Excel is literally listed a

hundred times more on real job

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descriptions than Google Sheets.

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So, like, why not just learn Excel?

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Like, why learn Google Sheets?

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And I know they're similar, but,

like, let's learn what matters.

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But Google doesn't want you

to do that because they want

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you to use their product.

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So you're gonna come out of this having

spent months on the tools that the market

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isn't really even asking for, while

high-demand tools, fast-to-learn stacks

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like Excel, SQL, Tableau, they really

get shortchanged in the whole process.

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And the deeper problem is that

any fixed curriculum is frozen

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in time, and the market is moving

literally every single year.

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Honestly, it's probably

moving every six months.

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And a cert that was built, like,

years ago can't really keep up.

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So just a question here: Are you

spending your most valuable resource,

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your time, learning skills that

don't really matter in the long term?

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If so, it's time to make a change So,

okay, is a certificate ever worth it?

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And the answer is yes.

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Like, you were once a total beginner,

if you're not a total beginner

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right now, and you need something

structured just to, like, figure

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out what the heck's even going on.

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Like…

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And that's okay, and that's

what the certificate is.

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But I think there are better

ways to actually get that

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orientation of what's going on.

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But it's better than nothing.

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Like, starting something

is better than nothing.

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Starting something structured is better

than starting something unstructured.

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But if certs aren't the perfect path, then

what is, and what should you do instead?

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And my answer is the SPN method.

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Like, this is it.

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This is the thing that actually

works and fixes everything

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that we just talked about.

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So SPN stands for skills,

projects, and networking.

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And the reason that certs fails is they

give you one really bad version of these.

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Like, it's literally zero of projects and

networking and just kind of okay skills.

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Skills, they matter.

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Like, they're actually important.

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You need to have real applied skills

to all the tools that the market is

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using, but you don't just need skills.

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If you ignore projects and networking,

you do it at your own peril.

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Projects are proof that you can actually

take a business problem, get the

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messy and confusing data, and create

a business solution using that data.

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And no, the random capstone that's

optional at the end of the Google

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cert, the random bike share in

New York City one doesn't count.

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Like, that's just been done a million

times, and it's just so trivial.

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Like, you need to have a project that not

that many people have done, that you have

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a unique approach on, and even better

if it's in a niche that you care about.

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Your goal is to make the hiring manager

stop scrolling or paging through resumes

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and actually pay attention to you.

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And networking is important

because most jobs don't actually

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come from the apply button.

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I hate to say it as someone

who owns a job board.

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They come from people, a network,

a referral, a cohort going through

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it with you so you're not alone.

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Like, that is huge.

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You need to be networking.

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And if you're not doing all three in

equal weight, you're going to have issues.

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If you skip even one of the S, the P,

or the N, you're probably going to fail.

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And a certificate gives you like,

let's say, a third of the skills,

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and you're missing out on the rest of

the skills, the rest of the projects,

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and the rest of the networking.

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So my recommendation

is to learn the skills.

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The skills that matter are Excel, SQL,

and some business intelligence tool.

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I like Tableau, but if you want to choose

Power BI, I'm not going to complain.

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Build projects with those, post

them on a portfolio, and then start

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networking with hiring managers,

recruiters, your neighbors, your friends,

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your cousins, literally everyone.

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The SPN method, and that is the

path to actually landing your job.

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Now, everything I just talked

about is absolutely free.

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Like, you can go learn skills for free.

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You can build projects for free.

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You can put them on portfolio for free.

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You can network for free.

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And plenty of people do that.

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Like, you can do it on your own.

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But if you'd rather not do it alone and

you'd rather not be guessing if you're

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on the right path or not, and you want

to do it with friends and teammates

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and with my coaching and my network

behind you, that's the whole reason I

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built the Data Analytics Accelerator.

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Over five hundred people have gone through

the program and absolutely loved it.

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They've learned the skills

that they needed to learn.

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They've built the projects and put them

on a portfolio, and they've done the

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networking necessary to land a job.

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If they had questions, they came to

office hours and got them answered,

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or they asked in our community and our

mentors answered them within 24 hours.

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And that's a realistic option for

you if you are curious about it.

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But whatever you choose, to do it

on your own or to do it with us,

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that's 100% up to you, and obviously

you need to do what is best for you.

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I wanna make sure you have all

the information you need about our

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accelerator, our bootcamp, so there's

a link in the description down below.

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Please click it and check it out