The key skill that helped me land my first data analyst position

Take a guess.

Was it SQL, Python, data analyst bootcamp?

If you answered “Tableau”, you’re correct!

In my first data analyst job, the hiring manager asked me if I had Tableau experience. Not only was I able to tell him “yes”, I was able to show him!

My public Tableau profile:

Here’s how you can create your own Tableau public profile:

  1. Download Tableau Desktop (free 14-day trial)
    1. Downloading Tableau Desktop will allow you to get hands-on experience with the tool and create practice dashboards
  2. Create a free Tableau Public profile.
    1. A Tableau Public profile allows you to publish Tableau desktop dashboards to your profile so others can view your work.
    2. It will also give you access to view others’ dashboards so you can learn from the community
  3. Create a Tableau eLearning Account
    1. This gives access to a free courses and other paid content for further learning. This is how I learned the majority of my Tableau skills. The other tools I used were Google and Youtube which I will talk about later
  4. Check out the free eLearning course Data Literacy For All
    1. This course will help with the basic fundamentals of Tableau and data analysis
  5. Take advantage of Tableau’s robust and helpful community at Tableau Community
    1. Lots of questions and answers are posted here by Tableau users from around the world! If you’re stuck, you can most likely find help here.
    2. The login should be the same as Tableau eLearning
  6. Get exploring on Google!
    1. If you’re stuck and Tableau’s resources aren’t enough, hop on Google! Just search what you’re struggling with along with “tableau desktop” and you should be able to find some help
  7. If you’re more of a visual learner, here are some YouTube videos I found helpful:
    1. 2-minute crash course: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jEgVto5QME8
    2. 2-hour walkthrough: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fO7g0pnWaRA
    3. 6-hour course: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aHaOIvR00So
  8. What I used to get practice datasets:
    1. https://data.gov
    2. https://datasetsearch.research.google.com
    3. https://www.kaggle.com/datasets
    4. For more places, see this blog post from Career Foundry - https://careerfoundry.com/en/blog/data-analytics/where-to-find-free-datasets/
    5. My own life! I documented where in the world I purchased my clothing and made a map on that
    6. Other self-generated data ideas:
      1. Morning rising and sleeping times
      2. Foods I eat in a Month
      3. Songs Listened to
      4. Websites visited
      5. Netflix habits

Have fun and happy learning!